Inseparable Strangers

by Jill Patten

  After hanging up with Victoria, I changed my clothes and drove over to Felts Park for a relaxing run. It was an hour before dusk so I didn’t have much time to get my sprints in. The trail was peaceful; that was until I stumbled upon a group of guys beating on somebody.

  I had been running on the greenway like I did every evening when I heard a bunch of commotion about a hundred feet ahead, past a line of maple trees losing their green to the cool air. The closer I got, the more I could hear male voices cheering another on to ‘kick him again,’ followed by grunts and a low moan. At first, I was hesitant to approach them, but my curiosity got the best of me. Taking my pepper spray out of the wristband, I held it down by my thigh as I treaded to get a better look.

  My incognito skills failed. One of the guys that was more of a bystander than a participant turned my way right as I stepped on a twig. Shit.

  “Shit! Guys let’s go. Leave him. We’ve been seen,” he said, his voice sounding panicked. Dusk was already taking over and I struggled to get a good look at the guys as they took off running the opposite direction.

  Slowly, I walked over to the man lying on the dirt. His hair was covered with twigs and leaves, and blood was smeared over his hands. Something about him looked familiar to me…something about the coat, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. He was on his stomach with his face turned away from me. Not sure if he was alive or dead, I nudge him with my foot to see if he made any movements. A breathy moan followed by air gasping coughs caused a puff of dirt to cloud up around his face. Now that I know he’s alive, should I leave him or should I try to help? Why am I even asking myself this? I don’t care if he lives or dies. He’s just one more freeloader heading to hell.

  A loud gasp inflated my lungs and a scream nearly followed. I smacked my hand over my mouth when the grungy man turned his head to face me. It was him. It was the bearded freak who helped me yesterday… the murderous creep who invaded my dreams. Without a second thought, I spun around and started to run down the trail, back to my car, back where it was safe.

  “Help me. Please.”

  His plea stopped me dead in my tracks.

  Why did I stop? This man tried to kill me in my sleep. He hates me because I didn’t thank him.

  “Please don’t leave me again,” he grunted. A coughing attack took over him, and he curled up into a ball as he whimpered in pain.

  “I’m calling 911,” I told him, pulling my phone out. That was the only logical thing I could think to do. It would be my good deed for the year. It was my way of letting him know I appreciated his help.

  His hand reached out to me. He held his palm out as if to tell me to stop. “Don’t. Please don’t call anybody,” he choked out followed by another fit of coughs.

  Leaning down with my hands resting on my knees, I examined his injuries from a safe distance. With all that hair on his head and face, and his long, brown coat covering most of his body, it was difficult to see how badly he was hurt. “Look, dude, I can’t carry you to my car, so if you want to go to the hospital, you’re going to have to go by ambulance.”

  “I— I can’t,” he huffed. “I can’t go to the hospital. If you can help me get over to the park bathrooms, I’ll rest there until the morning.” He rolled over to his side. His body was still curled in a fetal-like position. He laid there for a couple of minutes, then with a struggle, pushed himself up into a sitting position. His breathing was heavy and ragged. I wondered if maybe he’d broken a rib. Maybe two. “If you can help me up, I think I can stand long enough to walk on my own.”

  “But that means I’ll have to touch you. What if you’re carrying some kind of life-threatening disease?” Just the thought of his mangy hands touching any part of my body caused me to cringe.

  He shook his head in disgust. If anyone was going to be disgusted, it most definitely should be me. There was no way he had bathed in the past several weeks. Surprisingly though, I didn’t smell any type of pungent odor from him. He shifted, putting all his weight on one arm, which I assumed was the only uninjured item on him, and wobbled as he fought to stand on two steady feet. Right as he was nearly in a complete standing position, his legs gave out and he fell hard on the dirt.

  I’m not sure if it was from pure instinct of fear or an odd dose of guilty conscience, because if I had been thinking with a clear mind, I would’ve never run over to help him up. “Here, drape your arm around my shoulders,” I instructed as I wrapped my arm around his waist. I closed my eyes in disgust, and I held onto him the best I could without grabbing any of his clothing with my hand. He was heavy. A lot heavier than I was expecting.

  “Sorry I’m having to put so much weight on you,” he apologized, his voice strained as another round of coughs burst from his chest.

  Once the coughs ceased, I could hear him wheeze with every step we took. He looked into my eyes so close, I could only see a caring, yet, painful soul through the depths of green. For the second time tonight, I was breaking another one of my rules. As much as I didn’t care what happened to this man, I couldn’t allow his death to be on my conscience. And without a visit to the ER, I had a feeling his night would end very grim if left alone. He was in no condition to be able to hurt me seeing how he could only walk with assistance and wheezing like a two-pack a day smoker. Hell, he would pass out just trying to get to me.

  “Wait, where are we going?” His voice shook with fear. Was he afraid I was going to kill him or something?

  My decision to bring him to my house was purely for my benefit, not his. I didn’t normally have a guilty conscience, but for some odd reason, tonight it made its grand appearance.

  It took all the strength I could muster to carry him over to my car. I wonder if he’ll fit in my trunk. If I thought I could drive home without running into a cop, I would’ve thrown him back there in a heartbeat. Knowing the way my luck had been going in the last couple of days, I didn’t want to take any chances.

  “Okay, Mr. Beard, my car is clean and I mean immaculate, so sit here for a minute or two while I get something to protect my interior.” He released my shoulder and my back felt instant relief. He dropped to the ground, and a loud moan muffled through the night. I rummaged through my trunk until I found a blanket and a couple of towels. “Alright, let me spread these out for you,” I breathed heavily as I tucked the blanket in the back of the seat. Taking two of the towels, I spread them out over the floorboard. Turning back toward him, I bent down to hoist his grimy, crippled-self up into the car.

  “Oomph.” Damn two-door car. This was one time I wished I had four doors. The workout I was getting from lifting him up was more strenuous than any my trainer gave me. Oh my God, it felt like his body had accumulated twenty more pounds during the short period of time he sat on the ground. The struggle to drag him into my back seat without getting his filth everywhere was ridiculous. I was beginning to rethink my good deed for the year.

  He squeezed his eyes shut as he sucked in air between his teeth. His arm instantly wrapped tight against his chest. From the way those guys were kicking him, I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t damage more than just his ribs.

  I jumped in and slammed my door shut as if I were leaving the scene of a crime. Well, I guess to some extent, I was. “Are you sure you don’t want me to drop you off at the emergency room,” I asked, looking at him in my rearview mirror. He was balled up in a fetal position, and his eyes were still closed. He didn’t answer me, and I could only hope he was sleeping and not dead. It might be morbid but if he died in my car, I would be dumping his body off into the nearest river on the outskirts of town. Well, not really, but I would entertain the idea.

  We were on the main road when I heard him groan. Relief washed over me from knowing he wasn’t dead. From the way he looked and the way he sounded, I think he was in worse shape than I’d originally thought. I wasn’t sure this was such a smart idea. I was pretty sure his injuries were far more extensive than anything I could handle.

  The night had grown darker, and
blankets of clouds drifted through the sky. Pulling into my driveway, I hit the switch to open the garage door. Damn. This was one night I wished I’d turned my outside lights on. But then again, I wasn’t expecting to be out so late either.

  The garage light brought life inside my car, and Mr. Freak started to stir around.

  “Stay put and I’ll get things set up for you.” I turned around to check on him. He was still curled up in a ball, and this time he had both arms folded around his abdomen. He nodded, his lips pulled into a thin line and his eyebrows knitted tightly together.

  There was no way I was bringing him inside of my house, so I decided to make him a pallet in the garage. He could sleep here for the night. Tomorrow we would worry about what to do next.

  Rummaging through my garage, I couldn’t find anything decent enough to sleep on. I figured he was used to sleeping on the ground, but with his injuries he would probably appreciate something with a little cushion. I walked through the house then down to the basement.

  “Dammit! Not a fucking thing down here.” Why am I getting so frustrated? Do I really care if he’s comfortable? Hell no, I don’t care. It was ridiculous; I was wasting my time looking. I’d already spent half of my evening dealing with this hairy monster, and now I was going to have to babysit him for the night. There was no doubt about it, he was going to have to leave first thing in the morning, injured or not.

  Luckily, I had a pile of junk my housekeeper, Zoila kept to take to her family in Mexico once a year. Anything I tossed out to the trash, Zoila would dig it out and add it to her personal stash. The first time I’d seen her take a pair of heels I’d thrown away, I was furious. Stealing from me wasn’t something I took lightly. When I’d confronted her she’d argued a justifiable point, but I still enjoyed watching her squirm as I interrogated her to see what her true intentions were. The idea of using something that once belonged to someone else, especially a person you knew nothing about, absolutely grossed me out. There are too many diseases floating around these days to indulge in used items. Those little scroungers were lucky I was a clean person and everything I owned was in pristine condition.

  Digging through the mess of clothes, I found two of my old comforters folded toward the bottom. They would have to suffice.

  On my way back to the garage, I grabbed a bottled water from the fridge. With the unexpected interruption on the greenway, I’d never gotten the chance to obtain my water intake after a run. In the garage, I tossed everything onto the floor by the steps and opened the driver’s side door. Damn, two-door car. This was going to be a bitch to pull him out.

  “Yo!” I called. His eyes flew open in a panic, but lowered to a crease once he saw it was me. “You’ve got to wake up, dude. You can’t sleep in my car all night,” I said, moving the driver’s seat up to give him more room to climb out. “You can sleep here in the garage, tonight.” I had to make sure I emphasized the word tonight so he would know this wasn’t going to become a weeklong event. Slumber parties were never my thing. “I brought you some blankets to make a bed with.”

  He struggled to sit up into a sitting position so I grabbed his arms and pulled him forward. “Ahh!” he screamed out. “Slower. Please,” he winced, “a little slower. My ribs… are broke,” he said panting heavily.

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. It wasn’t like I felt any empathy for him. After all, it was pretty much his own fault for getting in the situation he was in. If you put yourself out on the streets, you’re most likely an easy target for those who are disgusted with your choice of living. And, of course, that would be me.

  We weren’t making much progress getting him out of the backseat, so I had an idea he probably wasn’t going to be too happy about.

  “This isn’t working. Neither one of us has the strength to move you much more than a couple of inches, so why don’t I pull you hard and fast? Just one swift, painful tug and you’ll be free. You know, just like jerking a Band-Aid off. What do you think?” I raised my eyebrows in hopes of him agreeing to my plan.

  His stare penetrated me while he seemed to ponder my idea. I expected to find anger in them, but they held a sense of gratitude instead. He should be grateful; this is extremely out of my comfort zone.

  He inhaled a deep breath, gave a single nod, and then muttered, “fast and quick.” No sooner than he gave me the green light, I mustered up every ounce of strength I could and jerked him out of the car with a mighty tug.

  A blood-curdling wail came from the depths of his soul causing goose bumps to rise all over my body. He was in worse pain than I’d thought. This wasn’t good. I wasn’t equipped to handle this guy. His limp body slumped against mine, his weight causing us to fall back against the wall. My shoulder blade slammed against the sheet rock, absorbing the brunt of the fall. A pain shot through my back and it hurt like hell, but I didn’t want to show any sign of weakness. If he found a fragile hole, he could take advantage of me when I least expected it.

  Fighting through the pain, I drug him over to the steps going into the house, then settled him on the floor. “Here are the covers. I’ll lay them out for you and you can sleep here for the night. If you need to use the bathroom, you can either go outside or I can bring you a bottle to piss in,” I said while laying the comforter out flat. “Do not, and I repeat, do not come inside for anything. Do you understand me?” I stopped fixing his bed to give him a hard stare. He needed to know how serious I was about my request.

  He started to answer me, but a round of coughing attacked him, keeping him unable to speak. He gave me a single nod before he bent over with his arms folded over his abdomen. My instincts told me to pat him on the back, but my brain screamed at me to not touch him anymore than I had to.

  After he was able to catch his breath, he surprised me when he asked for some water. “Do you have anything for pain? Maybe some ibuprofen?”

  It never occurred to me that he would need something to drink or eat, much less pain meds. “Uh, yeah, sure. Stay here while I get you some.”

  I skipped a step as I rushed into the house. I snatched a bottle of water from the fridge and shook out a couple of pills from the pill bottle I kept in the cabinet. In less than a minute, I was back in the garage. He’d started crawling over to his make-shift bed so I left him alone until he was settled.

  The urge hit me to help him, but I kept my feet planted. This charity work I was handing out freely was starting to piss me off. I had no idea where it was coming from and I wasn’t about to start up a bad habit now. Saving him from death was more than a thank you for his help yesterday. Hopefully, he won’t kill me while I sleep tonight.

  After a lot of grunts, groans, sharp intakes of air, and muttering I couldn’t understand, he’d finally laid down on the comforter.

  “Here,” I said handing him the water and two pills. He grabbed the water and held his other palm up so I could drop them without touching him. His chest rose and fell, while his lungs wheezed, trying to catch his breath.

  “Okay, here’s the deal. You can sleep here tonight, but no matter what shape you’re in tomorrow, you’re going to have to leave. This isn’t a homeless shelter nor a hospital,” I said sternly as I walked into the house. Closing the door, I stuck my head through to remind him. “And remember, absolutely under no circumstances, do you come into my house. I have a gun and I will shoot you if you do,” I threatened. I didn’t have a gun, but as long as he believed I did, that was all that mattered.

  As I closed the door he stopped me before I latched it shut. “Thank you, and sorry to be a bother. I’ll make sure I’m gone in the morning. And I promise, I won’t step foot inside your house.”

  Don’t visit me in my dreams either.

  Chapter 4

  It was nice waking up to my alarm rather than some seething, hairy monster trying to shoot my brains out. It was a Monday, and for me, that meant meeting up with my personal trainer, Justin, at six o’clock sharp. I liked getting my workout in before the morning crowd started piling i
n. But first on my list was to shoo the creep away if he hadn’t left already. Next was to indulge in a little one-on-one time with Justin. I was feeling very flirty today. My lady parts were tired of visiting B.O.B., they wanted the real deal.

  A wave of relief came over me when I crept into the garage and found the comforters neatly folded. He’d left just as I’d asked him to. I inspected my car inside and out, and then walked all around the garage making sure he wasn’t hiding anywhere. When I went to open the side door to the garage, I was pleased to find it locked. Stepping outside, I glanced around both sides of the house and out around the yard. He was nowhere in sight. I took a deep breath and relaxed my shoulders making my way back inside.

  Justin was a perk to my ‘crack of dawn’ weekly routine. He had one of those haircuts all the European guys wore — short all around with the top shaggy, but neatly combed to the side. His russet brown hair was a few shades darker than his skin, and his gray eyes were bright, giving them a wicked glow. His body… I couldn’t even think about his body without wetting my panties. It was hard enough getting through my workout with his hands on me. Some days I actually had to wear panty liners.

  My morning was starting off ten times better than yesterday, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I was being rewarded for my good deeds from last night.

  Once again, the weather was dreary and wet. The summer was practically over and fall was bringing in the rain. My wipers sloshed away the droplets from my windshield giving me a better view of the bleak world around me. Any other day the drabby weather would sling me into a state of depression, but Justin was my ray of sunshine to burn those clouds away.