Chapter 3
Beca Mitchell
For two months you live behind the boarded-up strip mall along a forgotten Southside road.
In the beginning, Genevieve takes pity on you. She's a sixty-year-old woman who's been homeless for the last ten. She tells you who to trust, who you shouldn't mess with. She shares what little food she has with you. Most importantly, she keeps you away from the men that salivate when they see you. The ones that refer to you as fresh-meat. But as the nights get colder, generosity is one of the first things to freeze up. You don't mind, you hated taking food from an old lady anyway.
When the food stops coming in, your body begins to run on hate. You spend days in the crook between two dumpsters, glaring at the open field of yellowed grass. You’re in some sort of meditative state, no one can touch you. You glare at the field and you hate your mother. To keep you going, you fantasize all the different ways you'd kill her if you got the chance. The cold, the hunger, the detachment from reality has made you a little crazy.
When you can’t take it. When you're jaw hurts too much from the constant clattering of your teeth. When you’re too afraid to bend your fingers because they might fall off. When your stomach stops growling and all you feel is numb. You begin to do things. Bad things. You let men touch you. You close your eyes and dream of music and you let them hit you. You do things for food that you seal in airtight boxes and hide away in the deepest corner of your brain. On those days you wish your mother would have killed you before you could breathe your first breath.
Today, you wake up with a fresh blanket of snow. It coats the ground, the dumpsters, you. It's late afternoon, the sun frozen in mid-descend. You've started sleeping in the morning because you're too scared to at night.
You cannot handle the snow. Brushing it off you with stiff fingers, you grab your backpack and tentatively get to your feet. Your ribs hurt, they might be broken. The world sways, your lightheaded all the time now.
You begin your walk around Barden. Sometimes people give you spare change, 5 cents, 10 if you’re lucky. You get more money from Southside people than you do from the North, it’s nice but it’s never enough to fill you. You may never be full again.
"'Ey girl," somebody shouts. A man cruises beside you in a white truck. He sneers at you with exactly three teeth in his mouth. “Want to get in ‘ere? I’ll take ya for a quick ride.” Comments like this have become the norm.
"No thanks,” you say, quietly. Two months ago, you’d deck this guy in the face. Now, he’d snap you like a twig.
“C’mon, you look cold. I can keep ya warm,” he winks.
You turn, walking into the nearest grocery store. Immediately, the air inside warms you. It kisses your cheek, presses you to its chest, and runs its fingers soothingly through your hair. It saves you and you nearly pass out. You’ve been avoiding going into grocery stores because they’re reminders of the food you don’t have. Now that you’re in it, you doubt you’ll ever leave.
People give you wary glances, but your eyes are locked on the pyramid of apples in front of you. You run your finger over the hard, glossed skin of it. The feeling tingles in your finger. You imagine crushing your teeth into it. Imagine the rush of liquid and soft apple in your mouth. The flavor. God. Looking around to see if people are watching, you slip the apple into your sweater. It’s yours now. You get to eat it. Get to taste it.
You turn to leave. If you stay you’ll want to steal more things.
The automatic doors slide open, the cold air burns your cheeks.
Then your being spun around. It’s too much. Too intense.
The apple falls from your pocket, bits, and pieces bouncing up from the floor. You frown, then you’re falling too. You hit the tiles a second after the apple you never got to taste does.
Come home
Come home
'Cause I've been waiting for you
For so long
For so long
And right now there's a war between the vanities
But all I see is you and me
The fight for you is all I've ever known
So come home
You’re on feathers, and clouds, and dreams when you exist again. Everything’s black and there’s music here. Music from an instrument too beautiful to be real. You haven’t listened to music in so long, it eases the ache.
Everything I can't be
Is everything you should be
And that's why I need you here
Everything I can't be
Is everything you should be
And that's why I need you here
So hear this now
There are sadness and tears where you exist again. Don’t cry, you want to say to the instrument. Your own eyes heat up. Don’t cry, you think louder.
Come home
Come home
'Cause I've been waiting for you
For so long
For so long
And right now there's a war between the vanities
But all I see is you and me
The fight for you is all I've ever known
So come home
The songs end, the instrument stops, and it’s like going through an endless maze at the place you exist again. You don’t know where to go. Don’t even know where you are. Something—hands, fingers—touch your face, brush under your eyes.
“You’re okay,” a soft voice says from somewhere above the clouds. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you ever again.”
The words slip into your ears and snuggle against your heart. Those words that you never let yourself wish for because it hurt too much to. They save you in a different way than the grocery store had, but they save you just the same.
You don’t want to wake up, why would you? You’re finally warm, finally safe, and there’s music here. Music that you’ve denied yourself for two eternity long months. You missed it more than you did food sometimes. Why would you wake up now that it’s here? Now that you finally have it back. Why would you ever wake up again?
“Please, Beca,” the voice begs, a finger trails down your cheek. “Come back to me.”
The voice that gave music back to you, pleads.
For you, you think. For you, I’d wake up.