Out of control blond curls, too much facial hair, and a bright orange T-Shirt came in like a whirlwind.
“Close the door! The heat’s on!” I called out.
“Okay, Mom,” Lee chuckled, quickly shutting the door behind him. “Nice footwear. I see someone has decided to embrace their inner six-year-old.” He pointed at my slippers and I gave one a little shake.
“I can get you a pair,” I offered with a toothy grin.
“I’ll pass,” Lee remarked mildly.
Lee Cutler, my neighbor and friend, handed me an envelope with a sour look on his face.
“What’s this?” I asked, noticing my name in big block letters on the front, but no mailing address. Whatever it was, it had been hand delivered.
“Chris dropped it by earlier. Said he wanted to make sure you got it so it wasn’t lost ‘in the pile of junk you keep on the table.’” He used quotey fingers and an overly dramatic masculine voice.
“Must be the final divorce papers,” I said, tossing it on the pile that Chris was so worried it would get lost in.
Lee peered at me speculatively. “No signs of meltdown. No justifiable curse words. You’re handling all of this remarkably well.”
“What’s there to be upset about?” I sidestepped the overly ornate footstool I found at the flea market two weekends ago as I made my way to the kitchen. Most of my house was decorated from the flea market. I could afford better, but call it sentimental attachment. Chris had hated every single piece I’d brought home. He had no way of understanding the reasons I kept going back to buy useless junk.
Wine. That’s what I needed. After the day I had, alcohol was definitely in order.
I pulled down two glasses and filled both before handing one to Lee who was looking at me as though I had sprouted a second head. “Oh, I don’t know, you’re getting divorced. That’s something that would make most normal people at least a little upset.” Lee had spent the better part of our friendship trying to analyze me. He was one of the most sensitive and empathetic people I had ever met.
Which made sense considering he made his living as a counselor. We had met when I had referred a client to him for support services. He specialized in end of life grief management and was the perfect combination of compassionate and no nonsense.
We were only a week into our acquaintance when we had discovered that we lived down the street from one another. He had been a constant in my life ever since.
Lee had latched on to my lack of emotional unavailability like a leech and hadn’t let go. He was tenacious in his love for people. Unwavering in his desire to make everyone feel better. It’s why he made such a wonderful therapist.
“Don’t start psychoanalyzing me, Lee, I can do that myself,” I warned, downing half of my wine.
“I don’t know how you ever married him. Was it a bad acid trip? Maybe beer goggles that never went away? I don’t get it. You’re a good-looking woman. You’ve got legs for miles and boobs that won’t quit. Please explain how a sexy, smart lady such as yourself ends up married to Mr. Pencil Pusher.” Lee made a face and polished off his wine, holding out the glass for me to refill it. I didn’t feel uncomfortable with Lee noticing my boobs and legs. I knew that I was no threat to his three-year relationship with his boyfriend Kevin.
But he asked a good question.
How had I ended up married to Chris O’Neil?
I hadn’t even taken his last name. That should have told me something.
The answer was simple.
Because I hadn’t ended up with Yossarian Frazier.
“Life is funny like that,” I muttered, grabbing a frozen dinner from the freezer and popping it in the microwave.
“Well, that was deep,” Lee snarked better I ever could. “You really are the worst at talking about things. As a social worker, you should know the importance of unloading. Bottling things up leads to deep seeded rage and possible homicidal explosions.”
I rolled my eyes. “If I need to unload, I’ll find myself a therapist.”
“Ouch. I feel like you’re stomping all over our nicely functional friendship here, Im,” Lee laughed and I knew he wasn’t serious. He respected my boundaries. And I had lots of them.
I polished off the rest of my wine and leaned back against the counter. My head felt a little fuzzy from drinking the alcohol so fast.
“Do you believe in fate?” I asked suddenly.
Lee gave me the bitch-you-be-crazy look. “No. I don’t think anything in life is pre-destined. It’s all coincidental or the consequence of choices.”
“What about second chances? Do you think they’re possible?”
My good buddy put his empty wine glass down and gave me a hard stare. “What’s this about, Imogen? Did something happen today? You’re being especially vague this evening.”
Yoss was the secret of my heart I had always refused to tell.
And now I had found him again.
But it wasn’t some sort of fairytale ending.
He was lying in a hospital room, badly beaten. Angry. Alone.
He had said words that hurt.
He acted as though he wanted nothing to do with me.
But he was here.
I had waited years to find out what had happened.
Years.
I smiled at Lee. “It was an unusual day.”
“Well that’s cryptic. You know I hate that shit. It’s up there those overly cute engagement photos and birth announcements people plaster all over social media. I mean who has time for all that crap?” Lee grabbed a fork and took a bite of my nuked pasta. “Damn, that’s hot! I think I lost a layer of skin from my tongue!”
“Let that teach you to not eat my food,” I remarked primly, picking up my plate and carrying it into the living room.
“So tell me how your day was so unusual,” Lee prompted, sitting on my settee and propping his feet up on my coffee table, just because he knew it would annoy me.
“I was given a new case,” I said, shoving food in my mouth. I hated cooking. So my diet typically consisted of pre-prepared meals and boxes of cookies. I liked cooking, but could never summon the energy required to actually bother.
“Oh yeah? Do tell.” Lee sat up, looking interested.
“This homeless guy was brought in. No one knew who he was,” I began.
“Oh, a mystery. Well that makes things interesting at least. Any luck?”
I wrapped pasta around my fork but didn’t eat it. I had suddenly lost my appetite.
“Im, did you find out who he was?” Lee prompted when I didn’t answer.
I dropped my fork on the plate and gave my friend a strained smile.
“Not yet.”
And it was true. I didn’t know who he was now.
But I’d learn.
I wasn’t going to lose the chance to find out exactly who Yoss Frazier had become.
Lee didn’t stay that long. He got a call from Kevin twenty minutes later and my neighbor left to have dinner with his boyfriend.
“When you find out more about this mystery patient, let me know. It sounds intriguing,” Lee said, kissing my cheek before he left.
“Sure thing.”
After he was gone, I cleaned up the dishes, changed into a pair of leggings and a baggy shirt, then sat down on the couch, flipping through channels. But I couldn’t concentrate on television.
My mind was somewhere else. With someone else.
Right now, that someone was lying in a hospital bed only five miles away. The knowledge that he was so close made me feel restless and full of an indescribably energy.
I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was just after eight. It was late, but I knew I’d never be able to settle down.
I just needed to see him. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow.
So I grabbed my car keys and headed out the door.
“What are you doing here this time of night, Imogen?”
I gave Michelle, one of the nurses on duty, a sheepish smile. “Couldn’t slee
p. I just kept thinking about all the paperwork I have to do in the morning.”
Michelle shook her head. “You’re crazy, girl.”
That was the understatement of the day.
I glanced towards room 102. “How was he this evening?” I asked.
“He’s been in and out of consciousness. Dr. Howell came by just before he left for the day to update us on the blood work that came back. It wasn’t good. But the doc was going to wait and speak to Mr. Frazier when he was more lucid.”
My stomach flipped over and my head felt fuzzy. “Not good? What did the tests say?”
“His panels indicate that he has hepatitis B. We need to run more tests to see the extent of the disease and what the treatment options are, but Dr. Howell didn’t appear overly optimistic given the level of viral proteins in his blood and his already jaundiced skin. He needs to determine whether there’s damage to his liver and if so, how bad it is.”
Michelle’s words seemed to come to me through a fog.
“Hepatitis B,” I repeated. I had worked in a hospital long enough to know how serious that was.
How potentially life threatening it could be if left untreated.
“It’s so sad. But given his lifestyle, it’s not surprising.”
His lifestyle.
It seemed everyone in the damn hospital knew the unsavory facts of Yoss’s life. And that seriously pissed me off.
I took a deep breath and calmed myself down.
“I’m going to check on him before heading down to my office for a bit,” I told the nurse, who only nodded before turning back to the computer.
I quietly entered the room and made my way over to the curtain, pulling it back as gently as I was able to. I peeked around the corner and was both relieved and disappointed that he was asleep.
He had been so hateful earlier, I hadn’t necessarily wanted a repeat, but I was also almost desperate to see his green eyes again. I had missed how he used to look at me.
Like I was everything.
He was sick. And badly hurt. And a shadow of the man I used to know.
What had happened to change him so much?
I wanted to touch him.
He had always hated physical contact. Which was understandable given the things he had gone through. But he had let me in.
Yoss moaned in his sleep, his brow furrowing, his hands grasping for something only he could see.
“Imi,” he half-sobbed, his eyes still closed.
I sucked in a breath, my eyes blurring, my heart racing.
“Imi,” Yoss moaned again. “Imi.”
Over and over again he whispered my name as he slept.
I couldn’t tell if my name was his prayer.
Or his nightmare.
Fifteen Years Ago
Two weeks had passed since I had run away and Yoss had found me. And he hadn’t left my side for a moment.
We woke up beside each other every morning. At first it had been awkward. At sixteen, I had never shared a bed with a boy. But things were different now.
Milestones came with increasing frequency. Time simultaneously sped up and slowed down. Some things felt like they were happening so fast. Others felt like they were taking entirely too long.
Feelings were heightened. I lived my life in a constant state of paranoia and hyper vigilance. I swung through manic states of excitement and anguish. There were times I couldn’t tell if I was coming or going.
But Yoss was always there.
Fourteen days. That’s how long it took to decide he was what I wanted. The only thing I needed.
I had dated guys before. I had kissed. I had groped. I had once let a guy put his hands down my pants. I had lusted. I had desired.
But I had never felt this out of control thing that now resided in the center of my chest.
Sure, part of it was because Yossarian Frazier was beautiful. When he smiled, my heart galloped at full speed and when he touched me I tingled everywhere.
The attraction I felt for him was intense. Overwhelming. But it was more than that.
It was something else. Something deeper. Something I had never known or felt.
I couldn’t be positive he felt the same way. Sometimes I thought he did. I would catch him looking at me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. He would roll onto his side after the sun had set and I felt his eyes on me, heavy and protective.
But he never pushed for anything from me. His touches were casual. Warm but not necessarily romantic.
Even though I was runaway with no real place to call home, I still obsessed about normal teenage girl things.
And whether the object of my affection felt the same way was pretty high on the list of things to fixate about.
When I wasn’t thinking about Yoss and whether he liked me as I liked him, I was doing whatever I could to endure in a world that at times felt like it would drown me. Yoss, however, seemed comfortable navigating the scary waters of life on the streets. Because of him, I was safe.
I was surviving.
We spent our days under the bridge or down at The Pavilion, which was a fancy name for a falling down barn by the river and was a popular swimming spot for the local kids. We found food in dumpsters; we scavenged for change in phone booths. I watched Yoss, Shane, and Di skateboard on makeshift ramps at the abandoned car lot outside The Pit.
At night, Yoss made sure I was warm and dry and as comfortable as possible in his tiny hideaway. He let me read his books and listen to CDs on his old stereo that he had found at the landfill. I’d fall asleep to the sound of him humming song after song in the dark.
He kept me fed.
He found me an old pair of jeans to replace the less than practical short shorts I had left the house in.
He took me to the local library where I used the bathroom to wash up as best as I could with stolen toothpaste and toothbrush Yoss had swiped from a drug store.
He brought me deodorant and brightly colored socks. “So your feet don’t get cold,” he had explained when I had asked what I needed with red and yellow striped socks.
We learned a hundred tiny, insignificant details about each other. We discovered that we shared a mutual love for old 50s and 60s family films. Freaky Friday—the Jodi Foster version of course—and Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang being particular favorites. We both had dreams of living at the beach, neither of us having ever been to the ocean.
Was it any wonder I started to fall so hard and so fast?
His personality was infectious. People flocked to him in droves. Within the homeless teen community that banded together underneath the bridge, he was the unquestionable leader. The other kids deferred to him in all things. He seemed to always have the answers. He knew the best places to get leftover food. He was always finding random stuff to give away to his friends. Blankets. Clothes. A battery operated radio, an old pair of sneakers.
But for as much I was learning about my protector, my friend, I quickly figured out that there was a lot that I still didn’t know. Things he kept from me.
And one night, two weeks after starting my new life, I found out how horrible Yoss’s secrets were.
It had been a great day. We had spent the afternoon at The Pavilion and afterwards when we had returned to The Pit, Yoss gave me a fuzzy, purple heart-shaped pillow. It smelled like the bottom of a trashcan, but I didn’t care. Because Yoss had found it, just for me.
I hugged it to my chest. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. It’s not much, but I saw it and thought of you,” Yoss said a little shyly.
“How do you know where to get all this stuff?” I asked him as we changed into spare clothes and laid our wet ones out to dry.
“When you’ve been around as long as I have, you know all the secrets.” He smirked.
Something about his statement bothered me. I ran my hand over the soft material of the pillow and watched him as he rearranged the stuff in our corner of The Pit. He had recently added an old bowling trophy and a watch with a cracked
face to the clutter. He hoarded things he found, piling them up on the floor beside our makeshift bed. He never got rid of anything. He held onto broken things. Junk. It didn’t matter to him. They were his. And that’s what was important.
“How long have you been homeless, Yoss?” I asked him softly.
I expected him to get defensive, to tense up. But he did neither. Instead he shrugged and tossed me a bag of unopened Hershey’s kisses. “Since I was twelve,” he answered and my hand went to my mouth in shock.
“You’ve been living out here for six years? Oh my god, Yoss, that’s awful!” I knew how much he hated sympathy, but I couldn’t help it. I tried to picture a little boy with Yoss’s dark hair and green eyes, curling up in this dark, dirty corner, scared and alone.
Yoss came and sat down beside me and nudged my foot with his. “Hey, don’t you dare do that,” he warned.
“Don’t do what?” I asked, looking up at him.
“Feel sorry for me. I’m okay, aren’t I? All my fingers and toes are still attached. I haven’t been shanked in my sleep. I even got you chocolate,” he grinned.
“How did you end up out here?” I prodded. We had yet to really talk about our pasts. Yoss had never pushed me and I had followed his lead.
But I wanted to know more about this boy who seemed to make it his mission in life to help me.
Yoss opened the bag of Hershey’s Kisses and took out a handful, dropping them on his lap. He peeled the foil off, one at a time, and popped them into his mouth. “These are my favorites.”
“Yoss. Answer me, please,” I pleaded.
“Why does it matter, Imi? Do you really want to hear about my rich daddy who liked to beat on me with whatever he could get his hands on? Do you want me to explain all the horrible ways he’d take his anger out on me when he got drunk? Or how about the day he hit me with a silver bookend so hard that he knocked me unconscious for over an hour. And he didn’t take me to the hospital. He just kept drinking and I woke up in a puddle of my own blood.” Yoss pressed his lips together, reliving memories that I wished I hadn’t made him think about.
“Yoss, I’m sor—”
“I was tired of being scared all the time. I didn’t think anything could be worse than living like that. So I ran away. The asshole has never looked for me.”
One Day Soon Page 7
