Chapter Text
The next morning, she’s out of the house before Plutt could wake up from his drunken slumber. It’s always best to spend most—if not all—of her time away from that cursed house.
School is still on break, but the grounds remain open to students, especially the soccer field and the race track. It’s the track that captures her attention. Years ago, in one of the countless foster homes she passed through, a foster mom had told her that if she wanted to beat the system, she needed to get into higher education. At the time, the comment had stung—felt like the woman was already betting against her. But deep down, she knew the truth: the odds had been stacked against her from the moment she was born to drug-addicted parents.
Racing is her way out. There’s no way she could afford college on her own. She needs a scholarship and the easiest way to get one was through sports. Rey’s got talent, too. At least that’s what Coach tells her, “You’re good enough to be in the Olympics one day, kid.” He’d told her once.
But Rey’s ambitions aren’t that high. She doesn’t want to be a professional athlete, she just wants to get an English degree and live a quiet, peaceful life in the city. That’s what she dreams of—peace, security, a place to call her own.
Plutt never bothers to pay her for the days she works at the garage. But when she’s not forced to “fill in” for one of the guys who didn’t show up, she picks up whatever shifts she can at Tico’s. Mae, a twenty-something Vietnamese-American woman, took over the family business after both her parents passed away a few years ago. She also stepped into the role of guardian for her younger sister, Rose, a girl in Rey’s class who seems determined to befriend her. That’s how Rey ended up at Tico’s in the first place—Rose had flat-out told her to ask her sister for shifts and to mention that she had sent her.
There haven’t been any shifts at Tico’s for the past couple of weeks, but Rey has been saving what she can. With some of that money, she bought a new phone and a pair of earbuds. Music blares through them as she steps out of Plutt’s house and heads toward the bus stop a few blocks down the road. But as soon as she’s on the porch, her gaze drifts over to the neighboring house, drawn by something she glimpsed out of the corner of her eye.
The neighbor is there, wearing a white tank top that’s beginning to soak through with sweat. He’s hunched over the steps leading up to his porch—the same ones he broke through with his mammoth footsteps the day before. He had been stomping like a child then, she remembers. Now, a toolbox sits on the porch beside him, a hammer gripped tightly in one hand while nails are pinched between his lips. His face is set in a look of intense concentration as he aligns the new boards and repairs the damaged steps.
He looks, quite frankly, very hot.
Rey decides to indulge in a few more seconds of unabashedly ogling him before finally getting on with her day. He doesn’t glance up as she walks past his house, though she’s certain he must have heard her or at least caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. He’s either too engrossed in his work that he truly hasn’t noticed her, or he’s making it a point to ignore her.
Whatever.
°°°
Running sets her blood racing and sharpens her focus, the rhythmic pounding of her feet against the pavement clearing the fog from her mind.
She feels like she could climb mountains, cross the country twice over, or walk on water, with the high of endorphins and adrenaline currently coursing through her veins. A cocktail of productivity doctored to her taste, something she can’t live without anymore. The sun has glided across the sky, its rays growing brighter and hotter, as if the celestial body is stretching out its arms and letting out a big yawn—“Time to get real,” it seems to say as it cranks up the temperature.
Sweat trickles down her forehead, neck, and the valley between her breasts. She’s wearing the school’s track team uniform because she can’t afford fancy running gear. The sneakers on her feet were a gift from Coach himself; he had looked sheepish as he handed them to her, saying, “My little girl won’t be needing these anymore. I wondered if you’d like them.”
She had been as embarrassed to accept his charity as he was in offering it. But pride had no place in her life, not while she was trying to climb out of this hellhole with her bare hands. Every extended branch, however rare, was welcome.
Running on an empty stomach wasn’t the smartest choice on her part, but she avoids being around Plutt as much as possible, especially when he’s hungover, which seems to be nearly all the time. Getting out of the house had been her top priority as soon as she woke up.
She makes her way back to Plutt’s, feeling a bit dizzy from hunger. Light-headedness has become a familiar companion, especially since moving in with Plutt. He rarely has food stuck in the fridge or in the pantry, and when he does it’s because Rey put it there. Occasionally, he remembers that Rey can cook and tosses some cash her way for groceries, but it’s not nearly frequent enough to sustain a healthy diet. She relies entirely on the school cafeteria and the leftovers from Tico’s whenever she’s on shift. But with school on break and no shifts at Tico’s for a while…she’s struggling.
Rey heads to the bus stop, her hands trembling as she waits for the bus that will take her home. A blurry haze edges her vision, like being underwater, and she’s afraid she’ll pass out there on the bus stop. She should have stopped somewhere for breakfast, but she had been saving up her money so diligently that it physically pained her to dip into the small cushion she had managed to set aside for herself.
There’s a Waffle House on the way to Plutt’s, on the main highway. It’s probably as old as she is, with its outdated paint job and missing letters from the sign. The yellow building block pops up outside the bus’s window, the only drop of color in a sea of sprawling parking lots and drab, gray buildings. She jumps off the bus and practically race walks toward it.
As she’s about to step through the front door, she spots the neighbor’s car parked in the nearly empty lot. It has to be his—no one else around here drives a freaking Mercedes.
And there he is, sitting alone in a booth at the back. He’s scowling at his cellphone, which looks almost comically small in his large hands. He hasn’t noticed her yet, and she’s not sure if she wants him to. It feels like a little treat to be there, watching him just…be. Her curiosity about him has only flared overnight, and now she has the perfect opportunity to sit back and observe.
She sits down where he can’t see her, but she still has a perfect view of his table. A waitress approaches her with a menu, Rey glances down at it for a second and picks the cheapest item on it. Then, she returns her attention to The Neighbor.
He’s changed the tank top he wore earlier for a dark blue henley shirt, and from this distance, he doesn’t look sweaty. Had he showered? As she studies him more closely, she notices that his hair looks slightly damp. Interesting. She wonders if he’s meeting someone here.
Her food arrives in record time, and she digs in as soon as the waitress sets the plate before her. She drizzles syrup generously over the plain waffles, saturating them with a thick, sweet layer, all the while keeping a watchful eye on The Neighbor.
His attention shifts to the front door the moment an older man steps through it. Rey had been so absorbed in observing The Neighbor that she has been oblivious to the ebb and flow of patrons. The newcomer exudes an air of distinctness that mirrors The Neighbor’s—his suit and dress shoes strikingly out of place in the humble confines of a Waffle House in the middle of nowhere.
The Neighbor’s entire body tenses when the man takes a seat across from him. Interesting , she thinks. Rey scrapes the last bits of food from her plate, her eyes fixed on the pair as they exchange what appear to be terse, clipped words. The Neighbor’s demeanor remains as unfriendly as it had been the day before when she had tried to make his acquaintance. Suddenly, he slams his fist onto the table, the loud thud cutting through the hum of conversation and the clatter of silverware. Everyone’s looking at him now.
He seems unfazed by the attention. Rising from his seat, he jabs a finger at the older man’s face and says something that eludes her rough lip-reading skills. Then he storms out of the Waffle House, leaving a ripple of curious glances in his wake.
Rey watches as he stomps towards his car and tears away from the parking lot at lightning speed. The older man remains seated, lounging as if nothing happened. He calls a waitress over, leering down her cleavage and grabbing her waist when she tries to pull away. Anger rises up the back of her throat.
She’s felt that particular brand of “attention” before.
To keep herself from doing something rash, like confronting that man and giving him a piece of her mind, she calls over the other waitress on shift and asks to settle her tab. But, because she can’t completely help herself, she says, “That man over there is a filthy pervert.”
The waitress casts a nervous glance at the table, where the other girl is struggling to pry the man’s hand from the back of her thigh.
“That right there is trouble, plain and simple,” she says. Before Rey can ask for more details, the waitress quickly wishes her a good day and hurries off.