J

The first raindrop to fall today landed just a few feet away from me. It seemed to be laughing at me, laughing at the fact that I was thirsty as hell, willing to kill for a drink of water. I imagined licking the damn raindrop off of the ground or laying on my back with my mouth wide open in hopes another would fall. Yeah, I'm that thirsty.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in. My throat felt like sandpaper and the air that passed through my lungs felt like fire, a fire that flared a little more with each breath I took.
And my eyes, god my eyes are shit. I already can't see that well and the fist to the face the other day didn't exactly help.

I traced my fingers over my bottom lip, feeling the dried up, crusted blood that stuck to them, reminding me over and over of my shit life each time I felt it.

I then saw another raindrop. It was mocking me now.

My throat grew drier just watching it. All until two drops turned into three, and by that point it was pouring.
It hasn't done that in months, I thought with an ounce of hope in my beaten down heart that threatened to give out any day now. I wished it would fucking hurry.

I quickly got up to my feet, ignoring the soreness in my stomach from the blows I took to the abdomen and made my way from under the bridge to outside of it, finally feeling the cool drops of water hit my skin, freeing me.

I let out a sigh of relief, a sigh that I didn't know I had been holding in for so long. I walked with a slight limp to the back of the bridge where I kept a plastic container hidden in the bushes that I used to hold the rain.

I set it out in front of me after getting the bugs out, watching as the water filled it. I looked around at my surroundings while doing so; there was no one in sight. A few cars passed, but not nearly as much as they did during rush hour. God, I hated rush hour. Cars drive past me for hours, children point and their parents urge them to look away. It's an endless cycle of the same shit everyday.

But at least today there was rain.

It was torture watching the container fill up so slowly. My hands were shaky and my throat seemed to be closing up tighter and tighter with each passing minute. I chose to pick it up when it was only half full, and when I began to drink the rainwater my throat instantly began to open up. I gulped for what seemed like forever until the container was empty and my mouth was dripping wet. The dried blood that was earlier stained to my mouth was now floating at the bottom, mixed with the little bit of liquid that was left.

I set the container down after downing the rest and began to make my way back under the bridge to do what I do all damn day, sit and daydream.

As embarrassing as it is, and when I'm not getting the shit beat out of me, I daydream all day, every day. I daydream about what I could have been, mostly.

I would have liked to be something heroic, something like a firefighter or maybe a marine. Something that wasn't what I am now, a pathetic kid with no shoes and zero money. In my early days living on my own, finding a quarter on the ground was the best day. It meant I could go to the nearby cafe and get a gum ball from their machine. Obviously, I don't do that anymore. Now I dig through trash cans, typically the ones behind restaurants. God, It's amazing how much food people throw out in a day.

My heart stopped as I turned the corner to go back under the bridge. There was a person with a dark hoodie hovering over my shit, my shit. It wasn't much, but once it's literally all you have, it's important.

"Hey!" I boomed, grabbing the hood of his jacket, throwing him backwards so I could finally see his- or, a her?

"What the fuck?" I whispered, confused and angry at the girl I remembered from the other day that was laying on the ground before me.

She parted her full lips to speak, but nothing came out. I could only hear the panting of her panicky and shaky breaths.

"I thought you were someone trying to take something." I huffed, running my hand through my annoyingly long hair after thinking my hardest of what to say to her. I was just relieved it wasn't someone dangerous.

Why the hell would she come back?

"I wasn't going to take anything." She said under her breath, loud enough for me to hear despite the voice crack.

I looked back at my "things", realizing it was stupid of me to think anyone would want that shit.

"No shit," I replied, "I have nothing to even take." I instantly grabbed her arm gently and helped her to her feet before looking down at her. She was laughably short. She's like the small chihuahua in a room full of rabid pit bulls, she doesn't belong here.

"You shouldn't be here." I warned.

She looked up at me for only a second. Her eyes were a light brown color, similar to mine except they appeared to have specs of gold in them when the light hit. 

"I know that." She responded hastily, dusting her jeans off before opening her mouth to say more.

"I came because," she hesitantly made eye contact again. "Because I feel bad for leaving you like I did last time. I should have gotten you to a hospital or brought you bandaids or-"

"You can stop right there," My anger spoke for me, hating the fact that she was here out of pity. "Like I said before, I don't need your charity and I sure as hell don't need a babysitter." I snapped in her face and turned to walk away, hoping to god she would too.

"Wait!" She yelled, and I rolled my eyes to what felt like the back of my head in annoyance. I turned my head towards her slightly. Why wouldn't she just fuck off?

"How old are you?"

My breathing came to a halt, and I couldn't believe I was being asked this. It was the first time someone asked since after the orphanage.
A haunting chill raked down my spine at the remembrance of that damned place.

"Fuck off." I snapped, completely done with talking to the stupid volunteer girl that probably had a purse full of credit cards and cash.

"I can help you," she said anyways, ignoring me completely. "I can take you to this shelter, they say its full but I'll bet they can fit one more. I'm persuasive."

No, she's fucking stubborn.

I stood there in silence, but my head was loud. Loud with thoughts and the screams of my conscience telling me to go with her for my own sake, but I couldn't.

I turned around to face her, watching as she swallowed her fear of me as I neared closer and closer.

I was growing curious now. Curious at who this annoying girl was that wanted so bad to help me. Why me?

"What's your name?" I asked, only inches away from her face. So close that I could feel her warm breath hitting my cold skin.

She hesitated, but only for a moment.

"Jessa."

I smiled slightly, wondering if she had just made that up or was telling the truth. It didn't matter.

"Jessa." I repeated, and without any hesitation this time she asked me that same damn question again.

"How old are you?"

Why did she want to know so much? It's not important, it's just number, it was the number of years I've suffered on this god forsaken planet that I wished I could throw myself off of every day.

I sighed, what the fuck does it matter anyways?

"Twenty." I replied and watched as her face fell, probably more pity. No, definitely more pity.

"You?" I questioned, guessing she was about seventeen or sixteen at the lowest.

"I'm eighteen."

I raised a brow at her reply, genuinely surprised but at the same time relieved. However she could be lying and most likely was. I simply nodded.

She stared at me for a few moments after that, so long that it was starting to feel like a staring contest or some shit. I looked away.

"Let me help you." Jessa stammered as I let out a sigh that I hadn't realized I was holding in.

My brain was screaming at me to let her help me, to let her take me to that damn shelter full of the nobody's of the earth. Even there though, I wouldn't fit in simply because at least half of the people there want to get better and try.

Me, however, I just wanted to die.

A figure behind Jessa immediately halted my screaming head full of voices and was replaced with a wrenching pain in the pit of my stomach. It was fear. Fear for Cris, an old junkie that never seemed to leave me alone. He was old but had what seemed like every guy on the block on his side, which meant almost everyone here kissed his ass. Almost everyone.

"Wow J," he began as I watched Jessa's face turn to stone. "You didn't tell me you had a new bitch."

I bit the inside of my cheeks to keep from shouting and clenched my fists to keep from running up and breaking his nose with one single pop.

Jessa reached down to grab her purse, a bad move but not as bad as bringing a god damn purse in the first place.

I watched Cris like a hawk. He had stopped looking at me long ago, all the focus for him was on Jessa. Her ass, mainly. So I quickly pulled her behind me, already knowing Cris wouldn't stop until his wrinkly, dirty ass hands were on her.

I know what it felt like to get beat the shit out of, and no matter how fucked up I am I wasn't about to let him do the same and worse to this girl that clearly still believed there was good in the world. I could tell she tried to be that better thing, and I appreciated that. However, I knew for a fact that belief she had would be inexistent by the end of today.

"What you got there?" Cris hissed and was already inches away from us after spotting that damned purse. Now he's really never gonna stop, money can make a person absolutely mad.

"Cris, back the fuck up." I yelled louder than anticipated after feeling Jessa's shaking body from behind me. She was pressed against me, surprisingly taking comfort in me, a guy she barely even knew.

"Leave her alone, she's lost." I lied, knowing though that it wouldn't amount to anything. He wasn't leaving.

"I can help her find what she's looking for." Cris said with a toothless and haunting grin, one that made me want to rip his face off.

"I got her," I replied with gritted teeth, "thanks though."

He then talked to me about the money that was in her purse. It was like he was trying to turn me into him, bribing me with ways we could spend whatever was in her purse.

"We could buy some booze." He said, practically drooling at the mouth just from saying the word.

I grew instantly angry. So angry that my whole body ran hot and felt like it was on fire, a fire that he was igniting it with each word he said.

I knew he wasn't going to leave anytime soon. I know him well enough to know that he was just going to try and knock me out, have his way with the terrified girl behind me, then buy a shit ton of alcohol with whatever was in her purse. I couldn't let that happen.

"I don't know if you have you're having fucking hearing aid problems old man," I boomed, stepping closer to Cris with gritted teeth and clenched fists. "but back the fuck up before I-"

I was stopped by his fist colliding with my face, cramming what I was about to say back down my throat along with blood that was now leaking from my raw gums and now loose teeth. I spit the bloody saliva onto the ground beside me and tried my best to get to my feet, but failed from being too dizzy.

I sat there with my head in my hands, trying to comprehend what the fuck just happened. I was quickly knocked back into reality though when my vision focused on Jessa, Jessa with Cris's hand covering her mouth and the other cupping her ass.

All I could see at that point was red. It took me back to the days in the orphanage when I would see girls all the time getting harassed by the older boys. I helped twice when that happened, but ended up with a bloody nose the first time and a broken one the next. It was a never ending hell there, a hell that was I'm sure worse for the girls. It angered the fuck out of me, and somehow I felt the need to protect this girl that wanted so bad for whatever reason to protect me.

I envisioned grabbing his neck and slamming his head onto the concrete until his brain was scrambled. I imagined wrapping my hands around his throat until his eyes were bulging out of his head and his face was blue. So many ideas went through me as my uncontrollable anger pulsed through my veins like hot venom, but as I noticed a block of brick beside me, those thoughts narrowed down to one.

I grabbed it without hesitation and got to my feet, no longer dizzy, but my entire body was hot. By the time his lips were on her neck my hand was gripping his greasy grey hair and he was thrown onto the ground. I was on him only seconds later, wasting no time by pounding the brick directly onto his face. Hot blood splattered on my face, but I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.

It was like everything bad that's happened to me in my life flashed before my eyes, and I was taking all of that anger out on him. In a way it felt good, but after it ended I knew I had to face a consequence.

I knew this man, though. He was a rapist, a drug dealer, and a murderer. I was doing the world a favor.

I filtered out Jessa's protests for me to stop, and in a way I enjoyed the sight of his face becoming flatter and flatter. And when I finally stopped, it was unrecognizable. And so was I.

My hands were the shakiest they've ever been, and my face was dripping with his blood that splattered all over me with each drop of the brick that was now saturated in red.

I finally looked up at Jessa. Her cheeks were soaked in tears and her entire body was shaking, she was in shock.

"Are you okay?" I asked, feeling stupid as fuck as soon as the words escaped my lips.

She didn't answer, her eyes were too busy being glued to Cris's now dead body.

"He would have raped you." I told her, still out of breath and shaken up. "And he would have killed you after, he's done it before." I finally stood to my feet and lifted my shirt up to wipe the blood off of my face.

Jessa finally turned her wide eyes towards me. "We need to go." She stuttered, leaving me stunned and in shock. For some reason I expected her to take off running at this point.

"We have to go. We can't be here, especially you." She walked past me towards the direction she came, grabbing my hand hard as she passed me.

It's was official now, I wasn't the only fucking insane one here.

"Where the fuck do you suggest we go?" I asked, tearing my hand from hers. "For all I know you'll take me to the cops."

She laughed in response, but not a real laugh, it was a crying one. She was sobbing as she spoke: "I came here to help you, I came here to drop you off to a shelter and then never see you again!" She laid a hand on her forehead and closed her eyes. "And now you kill somebody right in front of me, so I'm involved now."

I walk closer to her, watching as her eyes peeled open immediately as I neared. "You didn't do shit. Just go." I spat, already planning in my head to find the nearest train tracks so I could hop on a passing train and get as far away from here as possible.

She looked around to make sure no one was around before grabbing my hand so hard that her nails were digging into my skin. "You saved me." She whispered softly, her eyes filling with fresh tears. "So let me save you."

I wanted to protest. I wanted to run. I wanted to get as far away as possible from this woman that I couldn't for the life of me figure out. However I've been running all my life trying to find a better place only to realize that better places don't exist, not for me.

So I agreed.

This couldn't possibly get any worse, right?

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