Labor of My Love

One

Raegan Paige had never been the life of a party. But when you're juggling four part-time jobs, scraping through college classes, and are a slipping art student, time off is out of the question. That's how life was for the longest time, and Raegan assumed that God just had forgotten to add free time to her agenda. When you're a nineteen year-old girl with just as much family support as Raegan did free time, your life revolves around double shot espressos and bulshitted assignments that are barely enough to get through a class period.

Being a busy wallflower isn't so bad, Raegan used to convince herself. Once you've graduated, you'll have plenty of time for dates and parties with the lights turned off and the music turned up to the max.

Although as much as she tried not to think about it, she couldn't help but let her mind wander to thoughts of the richer girls who went to clubs every Friday and didn't have a care in the world.

She couldn't blame herself for imagining herself surrounded by a group of friends with her hair shining and dress sparkling. Unfortunately, she still hated herself for dreaming.

Her hair was shining, but it wasn't under the glow of the lights on a dance floor. No, instead, the icy feeling of water droplets trickled down her neck and slid down past the collar of her shirt as thick raindrops rolled off her unruly crimson hair. The humidity of the city had caused her hair to spring up into a thousand fiery curls, each with a mind of their own. The grey hood of her sweatshirt did nothing against the furious clouds and gusting wind, and she could feel the cold seeping into her t-shirt below.

Clutching the worn denim strap of the heavy bag slung over her shoulder, she tried not to think about the biting wind and focused her gaze on the footsteps she made. One, two. One, two. One, two.

As her heel lifted off the concrete slick with rain, she turned back to see the briefly lasting imprint of her foot in the water on the sidewalk.

As she passed an empty bus stop, she reached into her pocket and opened her palm to reveal a tangled mess of earbuds so tightly knotted that Raegan briefly wondered if anyone had ever attempted to knit a sweater with a pair of particularly stubborn ones.

Her sight drifted toward the horizon, then at a patch of forlorn clouds that masked the sun, and although she tried to distract herself from the unpleasant drizzle, she couldn't help but bow her head to shield her face from the wind as well as protect herself from eye contact with passing cars. Not that they'd ever watch her for long. She was a small girl in a labyrinth that they called New York, and she had little optimism in a neon palace of big dreams.

The rugged roar of an approaching semi truck snapped Raegan out of her thoughts, and she turned over her left shoulder just in time to watch the giant vehicle go barreling past her on the other side of the curb, wheels hitting a large puddle on the side of the road with a speed that sent water and mud spraying up and off the road in a large wave. Before Raegan had any time to react, mud was splattered across her face, clothes and hair.

As the truck flew by and Raegan slowly peered down at her ruined clothes, something inside of her began to break. She froze there on the sidewalk, bit her lip, and blinked away the hot tears that stung behind her eyelids. She knew that there was no point in trying to try off or clean herself up; she was already soaked through and the cold wind cut right through her regardless of her jacket.

She held the end of her sweater sleeve between her pointer finger and her thumb, then quickly wiped a smear of dirt off her cheek.

Wrapping her arms tightly around her chest and trying not to shiver, Raegan turned and slowly continued the long and tortuous trudge back to her car parked in a lot that seemed infinitely far away.