SAVE ME
Chapter 1
I looked at the man in terror; I was dangling off the edge of a building with just a toe for support.
“Come
on!” he insisted.
It
wasn’t that I didn’t want the help, I was weighing the death I wanted. I could
either plummet off the edge of this building or take the hand of the most
terrifying man I could imagine.
He
swore a stream of profanities and heaved himself over the edge. I had no choice
now. He had a firm grip on the front of my thin dance leotard and heaved me up
with both hands.
I
squeezed my eyes tight.
“You
okay?”
He
shook me, “You okay?” he demanded again.
“Yeah!”
I finally shrieked back at him.
With
a grunt he dusted some of the rubble off the top of my head and slumped back
against the wall. Fires were burning in the distance giving us just a faint
glow to see each other by.
“What
happened?” I asked. I knew the answer, but someone else had to say it for it to
be real.
“Earthquake.
Worst one I’ve ever been in.”
Somehow
the roof of our building had stayed intact while it had sunk straight down
crushing the floors beneath us before anyone could escape.
He
walked around the rubble, dragging his heels as he went. The scrape, scrape,
scrape was eerily comforting because I heard nothing else over the distant
cries of strangers and screaming car alarms. Those scrapes meant that I wasn’t
all alone up here.
“There
ain’t no way we’re getting down from here tonight, not without breaking our
necks.”
I
wiped at my wet and dripping nose and eyes with the sleeve of my filthy dance
leotard. I hardly knew I’d been crying. He left me alone and dug through his
pockets until he came up with a flattened package of cigarettes. He pulled one
out, crumbling and bent and stuck it between his lips. He lit it, took a deep
draw and sat back to watch me.
I
tried to hide my tears from him, but there wasn’t anywhere to hide them. I
wasn’t about to turn by back on him.
“Aren’t you a criminal or something?”
He
squinted at me through a cloud of smoke. “Yeah, but I’m out now,” he shrugged
like it didn’t matter in any way.
I
shivered and hugged my arms closer. The man wore just a regular pair of jeans
and a tee-shirt under a beat up and dusty old leather jacket. He had an eyebrow
pierced and several tattoos. He looked exactly how villains are drawn in comic
books and cartoons. He had long dark hair that kind of hung in his bloodshot
brown eyes. He needed a shave.
“I
ain’t gonna hurt you, Miley.”
“How
do you know my name?”
He
shrugged, “I just do.”
I
watched him smoke for a little while.
“You
know, smoking will kill you some day.”
He
chuckled, “Yeah, if someone else don’t get to me first.”
We
stared out over the rubble. Together, we heard a blood curdling scream in the
distance. People were dead everywhere, there wasn’t a single student from my
dance class straggling through the streets. What was left of the streets was a
pile of rubble. Those who made it out of the buildings were then crushed by the
them toppling into the street. The smoke and dust kind of filled with air with
a haze that burned my throat but the breeze carried it away making it bearable
up here.
“I
was at an AA meeting, here. A lot of fuckin’ good AA will do me now, eh? I
could drink the beer store dry right now.”
“I
was at a dance class.”
“No
kidding.” He pointed towards my soft soled shoes with a lift of his eyebrow.
I
hugged my knees, trying not to shiver in the cold.
“So,
why did you go up instead of down?”
He
shrugged again, “You can’t smoke on the property. I went up cause I though no
one would notice me out here. Why did you? It seems like you’re the only dancer
who made it out of there alive.”
I
ducked my head to hide my blush. “I wasn’t in the dance studio, I was in the
stairwell. It just seemed smarter to go up, ‘cause things were starting to fall
so fast.”
“Smart,”
he said. “Like your mom.”
“How
do you know my mom?”
“I
grew up with her.”
“Bullshit,”
I replied.
“You
watch your mouth missy, or I’m going to tell your mom you were swearing like a
sailor up here.”
“If
she even survived,” I sobbed. A whole new flood of tears came pouring out.
“Oh,
shit!”
He
threw down the butt and snuffed it out with the toe of his sneaker. He got down
on his haunches in front of me, “Miley. Hey, Miley, it’s okay, I’m sure she
made it. I’m sure your whole family is fine out there somewhere. They’ll come
looking for you.”
He
kind of just hovered there not wanting to touch me. It was like comforting someone
was not something he often did.
“Don’t
touch me!” I shrieked through my tears.
“I’m
not!” he said, he stood up and spit to the side. He scowled out over the edge.
He
studiously ignored me. “You’re right though,” he muttered once I’d settled down
a bit, I was just hiccupping in uncontrolled spasms. “I’m not someone you want
to get stuck anywhere with. Just your fuckin’ luck, eh?”
It
was a long time until I managed to settle down.
“What
did you go to jail for?” I croaked out of my parched throat. The silence was
threatening to close in on me.
“A
bunch of shit, dealing drugs, beat someone up pretty bad and messing around
with an underage girl, B and E… I’ve been in and out a few times.”
“Murder?”
He
stared at me and shrugged, “I’m not a good guy, but I never touched any kids
and I didn’t murder anyone… yet. I was good to that teenage girl. It was her
parents who turned me in, and she lied. She said she was eighteen.”
“I
never robbed any banks or nothin’ but I’ve pulled a knife or a gun on someone
for cash.”
He
stopped when he saw how big my eyes were getting.
He
sighed and sat back as he pulled out his pack of cigarettes again. “You want
one?”
I
shook my head.
“I
got kids, and even thought I’m a deadbeat Dad, I still care about them. If any
asshole messed with them, I’d bash their fuckin’ heads in.”
“Look
Miley, you’re safe with me.”
“H-how
do I know for sure?”
He
took a long draw on his cigarette, “Cause your Mom is a really good woman.
She’d never date a guy like me, but unlike all the fucked up shit in my life,
she’s always been pure, you know? Like if I had a choice, I’d have been a good
man and married her. But more than likely I’d have fucked up her life too.”
“You
dated my mom?”
“No,
but I wanted to. She was always nice to me. Even when I fucked up, she never
looked at me like dog shit on her shoe. She always smiled and asked how I was.
I ain’t stalking her or nothin’. See, I like her, so you get a free pass…
unless you fuck it up by doing something stupid.” He looked at me sideways
fingering the stubble on his chin.
“So,
what’s your dad like? He a banker or a big executive or somethin’?”
“No,
he’s a delivery guy.”
“No
shit.”
“No
shit,” I replied.
He
scowled at me disapprovingly.
“If
you get to swear, I get to swear too, okay?”
“Sure,
whatever, I guess there ain’t anyone to impress here anyways.”
“Fuckin’
awesome!” I said, and giggled.
He
laughed along with me.
“What’s
your name?”
“James.”
“Miley?”
“Yeah?”
“What
were you doing in the stairwell?”
“I
don’t want to talk about it.”
“You
were coming up to see me, weren’t you?”
“What?
No. Why the heck would I come up to see you.”
“Cause
some little girl set it up so she could buy some pot off of me. That wasn’t you
and your friends, was it?”
The
guilt was written all over my body.
“Shit,
Miley!”
“Who
the fuck are you to judge me Mr. I went to jail for dealing.”
“Yeah,
but it’s supposed to only be to strangers. I don’t sell drugs to little girls I
actually like.”
“It’s
only wrong if they’re someone you know? Doesn’t that mean you get to know
everyone eventually?”
“Yeah, it’s fucked up, I know. But if I hear
about you trying to buy drugs again I’m gonna break that dealer’s knee caps.
You got it?”
I
glared at him.
“You’re
not my father.”
“You’re
right, you wouldn’t want me as a father anyways.”
We
sat in silence for a long time.
“I
never actually tried it before. But Ang wanted to try it this weekend. We stole
the money from my Mom’s purse.” My cheeks burned with the admission.
“Are
you scared of me, Miley?”
“A
little.”
He
nodded his approval. “If you knew it was me up here, you wouldn’t have come up
at all?”
“Probably
not.”
He
nodded again.
“Do
you do it on purpose?”
“Do
what?”
“Try
to scare people?”
He
looked thoughtful for a few minutes, his forehead creasing for a few moments
before he nodded.
“Were
you really going to an AA meeting?”
“Yeah.”
“James?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m
glad you’re here.”
“You
don’t got much choice.”
The
ground shook three more times during the night and into the early morning. I
clung to the only other person I had. He was watching over me. He didn’t wrap
his arms around me but he let me lay my head on his legs to sleep a little as he
smoked and he let me cling to him when the whole world seemed to be swaying.
Through part of the night, I woke up aware that his whole body was shaking. He
groaned like he was in pain and wiped sweat from his forehead. He looked pale,
but told me he was fine.
“Go
back to sleep,” he commanded hoarsely. He never explained and he never touched
a hair on my head.
I
can’t say we were friends, but we’d reached an understanding. We understood
that the rest of the world might not exist anymore and we were only thing the
other had. That would be enough for now, at least until someone could rescue us
off the rooftop. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.
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