Megan Disgraced

by Viktor Redreich

  He pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind. So, she had decided to leave. She could say it to his face, and then he would know for sure that there was nothing for him to worry about. He had to see her again, even just one more time, to prove to himself that she was safe.

  Dravid racked his brains as he tried to imagine where she might have gone to. The only place that popped up in his head, now that he had tried Stacey, tried the cleaner’s, was the alleyway down which he had found her in the first place. Surely, she wouldn’t have gone back there, would she? Surely she would have grown used to a more comfortable standard of living. But when he thought of her, when he thought about the first time he had seen her, it was that place, under that soaked pile of boxes, where she had been hiding out like she could hardly believe that she still had to exist in the confines of this world.

  Hustling down to the center of the city, he tried to retrace the steps that he had taken the day that the two of them had first met one another. His head was so fuzzy with the hangover and the stress and the panic that it was hard for him to think straight, but eventually, he managed to clear his mind enough to make sense of where he needed to go. He had been heading out of the office, for something to eat, and he had taken his bike down the side alley so that he could park it up and leave it somewhere that he knew nobody was going to bother laying hands on it. Yes, this was what he needed, that was where he needed to go right now...

  Soon enough, he turned a corner, and there it was – the very same spot that he had laid eyes on Megan for the first time. He could still remember it vividly, the look on her face when she had come scrambling out from underneath the small stack of cardboard that she had been calling a home, eyes fixed to him with an anger that somehow overrode the exhaustion that seemed to wrack every part of her body. There had been passion there, a sureness of what she deserved, even if she didn’t know it yet. That glint in her eye had been what convinced him to take her home, and to keep her there, to give her a life next to his – because he knew that there was more to her than just this wrung-out ghost of a girl, and he wanted to find out what more existed under the confines of her homeless visage.

  It was the middle of the day, and people were heading in and out of the restaurant that led on to the alleyway – delivery drivers, women with huge boxes of food balanced on their hips. They didn’t even seem to notice him, which he supposed was for the best. But he couldn’t help but marvel at how easy it seemed to be for them to just pretend that he wasn’t there, that they couldn’t see him. How simple it was for them to look right past him. It wasn’t something he was used to, being overlooked like that, but in the messy clothes he was wearing, with his hangover reek coming off him in waves, he supposed that he could hardly blame them for not wanting to sit down and make conversation with him.

  There! He could see a stack of boxes towards the end of the alley, right next to that spot that he had pulled his bike to a halt and splashed Megan. They were a little messy, the construction looking as though it was going to fall down at any moment, but it had to be her, didn’t it? It just had to be her. He hurried down towards it, and paused for a moment before he figured out what to do next – was he supposed to knock? He had no idea. Finally, he settled on the plan of just lifting the top of the cardboard castle off the structure, and looking down inside, to see a figure, a small, huddled, figure-

  "Hey!” A man’s voice cut through the fog in his head. "Put that back! I have a right to be here, you know, you can’t get rid of me..."

  As soon as Dravid realized that he wasn’t looking down at Megan, he slumped against the wall, and finally let all the adrenalin that had been carrying him forward leak out of him at once. He couldn’t believe it. Of course, she wasn’t here. Why would she have come back to the very place that he had found her? It was obvious that she wanted to put as much distance between the two of them as possible. And if she had gone back to live on the street, she would have picked a place she was sure that he would never find her.

  "Hey, buddy," The man, who had been hiding under the cardboard walls, muttered to him, as he carefully moved a few pieces aside so that he could actually talk to Dravid. "You alright?”

  "No," Dravid replied. There was no point trying to play like he was doing just fine. He looked like shit, he felt like shit, and he was pretty sure that he was about to face down a whole day full of shit. It wasn’t his proudest moment, that was for sure.

  "You looking for someone?” The man asked. "Maybe I can help. I know a few people around here."

  "A girl," Dravid replied, and he looked over at the man hopefully; the man snorted in amusement, and shrugged.

  "Yeah, aren’t we all," he agreed, and Dravid managed a weak smile. It felt good just to talk to someone, even someone like this, to get the weight of everything that he had been dragging along with him off his chest for a hot second.

  "She was my maid," Dravid went on, and the man laughed again. It took Dravid a moment to figure out what he found so amusing about Dravid’s story, but then it hit him – he thought that he was homeless, too. That he was just spinning some wild fantasy to keep the two of them amused. Dravid couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. What kind of bad day did he need to have to go from top of his game to feasibly passing as homeless? That was one hell of a twenty-four hours, that was for sure.

  "Right, of course," The man replied, and above them, the skies seemed intent on reflecting Dravid’s current state of mind. It began to drizzle, and then to rain, the skies opening above them to let down a maelstrom of water that sent people scuttling back into the buildings they had come out of. Dravid could have just headed right on home if he wanted to, but he was too exhausted to even think about moving right now. He felt as though he had had all the energy wrung out of him, and the thought of even standing up again was far too much for him to take.

  "Here, get underneath the awning a little," The man suggested, pointing up to a small overhanging ledge that could shield them from at least a little bit of the rain coming down above them. Dravid managed to shuffle in a few inches, just far enough that he could keep the worst of it off his face.

  Was this how she had lived before? It hurt him to think of Megan, in such discomfort, shivering under whatever she could find to cover herself just to make sure that the rain didn’t penetrate too deeply into her already-emaciated body. He could still remember all too well the way she had looked when he had first seen her, her hair shorn almost down to her skin, her eyes blurry and distant, as though she was on another planet entirely. No wonder she had been so angry at him when he had destroyed her shelter.

  "Thanks," Dravid muttered to the other man, and the man slapped him on the shoulder companionably.

  "Nice to have some company around here for a change," he replied, and he laughed again – this time, Dravid could see that he was missing a few teeth, and caught a whiff of his foul breath. He tried not to let his disgusted reaction show on his face. This man was doing something kind for him, and Dravid wasn’t going to let his instincts get the better of him here.

  "I’m Dravid," he introduced himself, and the man stuck his hand out to him.

  "Mark," he replied, and Dravid hesitated for a moment before he took his hand. Now that they were sitting a little closer to one another, Dravid could smell the stench that was coming off him in waves, and he wasn’t sure he wanted it on his own skin. But then – fuck it, he thought. He could use a friend right now. Anyone who was on his side was a gift at a time like this.

  "Shit," Dravid muttered, and he shifted his foot quickly to reveal a small lizard scurrying right past him – now that he looked at the ground, he could see that it was infested with little creatures who, like them, were just trying to get out of the rain. Mark seemed to hardly notice their presence, as though he was used to them. Dravid had no idea how he could be so nonchalant, but he didn’t want to make a big deal about it. He didn’t have the energy to, even if he’d wanted to, anyway.

  "Bad day?" Mark asked, with some sympa
thy in his voice. Dravid sighed heavily and nodded, rubbing his hand over his face.

  "The worst," he replied. He couldn’t stop running over what he had said to Megan the night before in his head. He should have been kinder to her, a little more understanding, then maybe she wouldn’t have been so quick to get out of there. He had been frustrated, but that was no excuse to speak to her the way that he had. He wouldn’t have put up being spoken to in that way, why had he expected her to just sit there and take it like it was normal?

  "Ah, we’ve all been there," The man responded, and he patted Dravid on the shoulder again. "Everything’ll work out in the end, David. It always does."

  Dravid thought about correcting the pronunciation of his name, but he figured that it was the thought that counted, and he decided to leave it as was. This man was just trying to offer a little kindness. He had no idea what Dravid had been through that day, and yet, he was being nice to him. That had to count for something, and Dravid wasn’t going to be the asshole that policed the way that he offered his sympathy.

  By the time that the rain had stopped, Dravid had learned a little more about Mark – that he used to work, but that he was fired after he was caught drinking on the job, and from there, he had just spiraled out into homelessness and alcoholism. He seemed, despite it all, to be mostly upbeat about the whole situation, something that Dravid was struggling to wrap his head around.

  "Well, I’m alive, aren’t I?" Mark pointed out. "As long as I’m alive, that means there’s a chance for all of this to get better."

  "I like that," Dravid replied with a smile. He had a point. Even when things were at their worst, as long as you just kept on pushing, there was a chance that it could all improve the way you wanted it to. He liked that idea.

  Dravid pulled his phone from his pocket to check the time, without thinking, and Mark leaned over and stared at it with his mouth open for a moment.

  "Where the hell did you get that from?" He demanded, and he snatched the phone from Dravid’s hand and turned it over a few times, as though making sure it was real. "And it’s got charge, too! You could sell this for a good amount, you know, you could get enough booze for the week if you were careful with it..."

  Mark trailed off once he saw the look on Dravid’s face, and he proffered the phone back out to him.

  "Sorry," He muttered. "I didn’t mean to ask so many questions. You just...you just don’t often see someone with tech like that on them on the streets, that’s all."

  Dravid eyed him for a long moment. This was the life this man had been forced to live. Not the one he wanted. And yet, despite all of that, despite the fact that he was trapped on the streets in the throes of his addiction, he had still thought to offer Dravid some simple kindness. He didn’t hold his own situation against him, and he had been the person to make Dravid feel like a real human being again, even though Dravid would have walked past him on the street any other day.

  Dravid pushed the phone away, back into Mark’s hand.

  "You keep it," he replied. "Don’t worry about it. I don’t need it, anyway."

  Mark looked from him to the phone and back again, as though he could hardly wrap his head around the fact that this was actually happening.

  "No, I can’t do that," Mark replied, and he tried to give him the phone again. "It’s yours. I can’t-"

  "Take it," Dravid repeated again, this time more firm than he had been before. He unclipped his money belt and handed it over to Mark as well – he had no idea what was in there, but he was sure that it would be at least enough to get Mark a warm bed for the night.

  As soon as Mark pulled it open and saw the amount of money inside, it was like his eyes were going to come bugging right out of his head. His jaw dropped, and he stared at Dravid for a moment.

  "What are you doing wandering around with this much money on you?" Mark demanded. "You could stay anywhere you wanted with this..."

  "So, stay anywhere you want," Dravid told him.

  "You’re giving this to me?” Mark replied, and his voice was so small that it sounded as though he was trying not to break the fantasy that he seemed to have built around him.

  "I’m giving it to you," Dravid replied. "On one condition. Don’t just use this for booze, alright? Do something constructive with it. I don’t know what that looks like for you, but just...something that might make your life a little better in the long run. Do you think you can manage that?”

  "Yes, Sir!” Mark exclaimed, and Dravid reached over and patted his shoulder, before he dragged himself up to his feet and stretched. He needed to start the long walk back home again.

  But instead, he found himself wandering the streets once more, sure that he was going to find Megan around every corner. Sure that this time, this time he would turn down this alley and find her standing there, waiting for him. He checked dumpsters, he checked behind restaurants, he checked everywhere that he could find, wandering aimlessly through the city, no money, no phone, no nothing. People were starting to actively look away from him when he caught their eye now, as though they were worried that he was going to demand money from them or something. He must have looked like a prime bum, in his rain-streaked clothes, his hair unwashed and his face probably having aged twenty years in the last five hours.

  He managed to make a big loop back around on himself, until he saw a building that he recognized – glowing with a bright neon light in the darkness, it was the same diner that he had taken Megan to on the very first night that he had met her.

  His stomach growled hungrily for food as he paused for a moment, just staring at it, but he knew it had been too long since he had eaten for him to go in there without causing a scene – one look at the menu and he would devour the place whole in one gulp. He supposed that now he had a better idea of how starving Megan had been when she had walked in with him, when she had eaten like she had never seen food before in her entire life. Even thinking about that, thinking about the very first night that they had ever spent together, it was enough to make his chest hurt. He wished he could go back in time and make it so that he would never snap at her, never treat her as anything other than a gift brought into his life to make it better.

  Making his way to the small alleyway next to the diner, he leaned up to hide out from the rain that had just started again, and stared into the warm, welcoming light. If he had gone inside and told them that he had given all his money away to a homeless man, would they believe him? No, they would just think that he was trying to spin a scheme on them, trying to make them feel like idiots for believing him even for an instant. It was strange, he thought to himself, how much just the way he looked could change how people dealt with him. When he presented himself like this, he was suddenly amongst the dregs of society, but in his suit and tie, people would have been scuttling around to pay his bill for him.

  He would just wait out here until the rain stopped, and then he would start the long walk home. Maybe she would even be there waiting for him when he got back. Yes, he would step through the door, and she would take one look at him and run him a hot bath and make him some dinner...

  Hold on.

  Had he just manifested her through sheer force of will? Because he could have sworn that the woman who had just stepped off the bus opposite the diner looked just like Megan. She seemed a little taller, but other than that, they could have been sisters. As the neon light hit her face, Dravid’s heart skipped a beat.

  She didn’t just look like Megan.She was Megan.

  He scrambled to get closer to the diner, and sure enough, once he was near enough to make out the shape of her face, he was certain that it was her. He just stared for a long moment, no idea what to make of this, how to feel about the fact that this woman, this woman who he had spent so long searching for, had suddenly appeared right in front of him, at the very spot where the two of them had first shared a meal together. Was he imagining this? Maybe he was going crazy from not eating or drinking anything all day long, and this was just some strange mir
age that his brain was trying to convince him had any sort of logic behind it.

  Leaning in the darkness outside, Dravid watched her; it was her, no doubt about it. But she wasn’t wearing that little uniform that she normally had on, no, instead she was clothed in a smart pair of blue jeans a white blouse that made her beautifully-creamy skin pop. She had a small bag with her, but it wouldn’t have been even close to enough to keep all her stuff in, so she must have left the rest of her belongings elsewhere.

  As she chatted to the waitress, Dravid couldn’t help but notice how different she seemed. It wasn’t just the way that she looked, but rather, the way that she carried herself. Gone was the meekness that had made up so much of her personality for so long. She seemed totally confident, laughing and smiling and chatting away to the waitress like she was happy just to get a chance to talk to her.

  Soon enough, the waitress led her to a booth – not just any booth, but the very booth that they had shared the first time that they had come here together. Dravid’s eyes widened. No way. No way that she remembered. She took her seat – not the one that she had been in the first time that they had gone out together, but the one opposite that. The one that he had sat in their first night meeting one another. And, even as the waitress walked away, she smiled to herself, as though she was distinctly aware of how much had changed, and that she was loving every single minute of it.

  Dravid couldn’t wait a moment longer. He had to go in there and speak to her face-to-face. Maybe it was over the line, but he needed to know what she was doing here, why she had left him, if there was any chance in hell that she might consider coming back to him.

  As soon as he was through the door, a waitress had stopped him before he could follow her in any further; he supposed that the stench coming off him right now would likely be enough to put the other guests off their food, and he tried to let that thought play on his mind too much.