the grime, no one will recognize him. Part of me believes him. “Need anything else?” I ask.
Balling up the towel and sweats, he shakes his head, but stops in the doorway.
I give him a minute and then tell him I’m heading to bed just as he finally says, “I need to talk to you.” He clears his throat. “I guess it can wait until morning. Thanks,” he says holding up the stuff in his hands. He breaks for the bathroom without waiting for a response.
“Not a problem,” I call after and I mean it.
Despite his piercing and gutter-punk-light collection of clothing, Ploy wears ‘good guy’ like a stain he can’t scrub out. I’d watched him for days before I’d approached him for the first time—long enough to see what was underneath the dirt, ear gauges and eyebrow piercing. It’d taken me a week to build slowly from a casual ‘Hey’ to actual conversations when I purposely walked past him each day. It’d been another month before we were comfortable enough with each other that an offer to grab a shower and crash on my couch didn’t come off as an invitation to my nether regions. It’s a line I’ve never had to draw, though, because he’s never tried to cross it.
I wonder how many other girls have offered him a place to sleep instead of sending the police in his direction. I wonder when he’ll start to question why I did.
I wait until I hear the shower start before I stow the messenger bag of supplies under my bed and change into pajamas. Now that the adrenaline of finding Ploy on my doorstep has faded, my eyes won’t stay open. I climb under the bed sheet and click my light off, too tired even to close, let alone lock, my bedroom door.
I drift somewhere between sleeping and awake, my body buoyant. Only when the shower shuts off and I hear the squeak of the couch springs will I finally give in to uninterrupted dreams. The glow from the living room unnerves me, but Ploy will need to see to get to the couch. When I’m here alone, I keep the lights off as much as possible. The dark gives me an advantage. Anyone breaking into my apartment won’t be able to pinpoint where I am in the blackness, won’t know the floor plan.
Despite the lights, I sleep better when he’s here. In a fight, I can take care of myself—if I know it’s coming. A warning scream will be enough to alert me. Give me time to escape. Anyone after me, after my blood, will have to kill the boy on my couch first.
Ploy, whether he knows it or not, trades a shower and a couch for a night served as a hundred and seventy pound faux-hawked alarm system.
Hate me all you want, but I’m still alive.
Ploy
Hot water streams over me. I lift my face and open my mouth to the spray, wait until it overflows to run down my neck. I gargle hard and spit toward the drain. It doesn’t help. I know I’m only imagining it, but I can taste the tang of blood.
Giving up, I go for the shampoo, squeeze a palmful though I don’t need half as much. I scrub it through my hair, use the rest on my body. The scent of apples is overwhelming. Everything in here smells like Allie.
I toss an arm up against the tile and lean my forehead on it. I can’t think of her like that. Not with everything how it is now. In my old life, I would have asked her out already. She’s the kind of girl who doesn’t know she’s pretty; she doesn’t have that stuck up air about her even around me, which is saying something.
I can’t count how many times I’ve thought about kissing her, just to see what she’d do, if she’d go with it or push me away. But it’s a chance I can’t take. Without her, I’m screwed, especially now that Brandon’s gone. If I’d decided to crash early, been there, he’d be alive.
I can’t think about what that means.
I rinse the soap from my hair and slide open the glass door of the shower. Bending down, I grab my dirty clothes and bring them in with me. The contents of the pockets and my knife are on the counter of the sink.
I toss the clothes toward the end of the tub and adjust the shower head to spray them. The water