Totally unsafe.

The city street was as wet as her face. Streaks of color from the lights of the bar reflected in the slick asphalt. Thin rivers of mascara snaked down her cheeks, lightly freckled from many summers in the sun as a girl.

Her phone battery was dying. He wasn’t calling. No response to the text message she sent ten minutes ago. Or the one from an hour before that. The cigarette in her left hand was steadily burning down to the filter as she gripped her phone. That small, significant piece of plastic and metal. Her security blanket, was what Alvan had called it. Alvan. Fucking arrogant asshole, that he was. Judgmental as shit, too. Everything she did was wrong, according to him.

At least Tom didn’t judge her. He barely said a word about anything she did. She could smoke her brains out and he didn’t care. Her chronic lateness was never an issue. They could sit together and banter for hours about nothing of significance. He usually made fun of her but everyone did that. But he wasn’t calling now and she was pissed. She knew what he was doing. And the tears formed again, welling up and running down her face before she could stop them.

Fucking Tom.

Fucking Alvan.

Fuck them both.

Fuck everything.

She hated her life. She hated this city. She hated her job. She hated her hair, the unruly mop that was always falling out of the bun she tried to pile on her head. Other girls seemed to have three or four hands as they made neat, tidy ponytails or twists. She was all thumbs.

Other girls had great hair. Hers was not great. And it was thinning too, falling out in handfuls in the shower lately. Alvan would say it was because her diet was lacking essential nutrients. “You’re really stressed, too,” he’d say. That fucking arrogant fuck.

Her stomach growled and she resented him even more. She wasn’t eating enough.

The phone vibrated loudly in her hand and lit her ashen face a ghostly blue.

TOM appeared neatly across the screen of her phone. His name so neat and tidy despite the mess of him. Or of her life with him. And without him.

She answered flatly, trying not to sound annoyed. “Um, hi.”

“Yo, what’s your deal?” his voice was stony and thick with irritation.

“It’s fucking freezing out. I was wait-”

“Why’d you call me so many times, Mallory?”

He coughed and then laughed and shouted something to someone in the distance. Somewhere near wherever he was standing. Wherever that wasn’t beside her.

As cars drove past her, the red taillights sent a warning she didn’t heed. Hang up, they signaled. Hang up the phone.

She held her breath.

“Hey, I gotta go. Are you cool to get home?” The background noise on the line grew louder, people — a girl — shouting.

Her stomach dropped. Her jaw tensed.

“Mmm. Hmm.”

“Cool. Leave your phone on. I’ll text you if I’m around your way.”

Then silence.

No more noise. No more Tom.

The urge to throw her phone in the street was overwhelming as she clutched her bag, her hand frantically searching the inside for her cigarettes. She was supposed to be quitting. The doctor said she was too young to have lungs that sounded that way. Her voice was downright raspy.

Tom called it hot.

Alvan said she had vocal fry from dehydration and smoking and general fatigue.

Fucking Alvan.

She found her cigarettes and took one out, ignoring the tremor in her hands. She lit one and wiped the wet from her face. She watched people walk past her. Groups of friends laughing. Couples passing hand-in-hand.

Alvan would hold her hand. Alvan wouldn’t fucking bail. Alvan would give his right nut to stand here and walk her home. To stay the night with her.

But she was damned if she was going to call him.

He judged her. That’s how it felt, anyway.

But he also loved her. She knew that. The real love that she guessed the passerby felt.

And that made him totally unsafe.