The City | GirlxGirl

twelve ➳

Turning the corner onto the street of the bar, Skylar saw the usual mess of people lingering outside of the old building. The bar would be closed now, but she knew Ben would still be there. Cleaning up. And he always forgot to lock the staff door behind him.

As Skylar approached the growing crowd of mostly men, smoking cigarettes and cigars, she noticed that this group was different. They weren't chatting about the results of the hockey game, or sharing comical stories from their youths.

They were quiet.

The men hadn't even noticed her approaching them. When Skylar followed their gaze, she found them staring across the street, at the cafe that was now closed and dark. No, they weren't looking at the cafe. They were looking at the small figure huddled on the sidewalk in front of it. And although Skylar couldn't hear the girl crying over the rain that was now hammering against the sidewalk and vacant road, she could see her. The movements: hunched, shivering shoulders. Every few seconds, the girl lifted the sleeve of her coat under her nose.

"What happened?" Skylar immediately asked, but she didn't direct the question at the girl. She turned to the men.

For a moment, each of them looked at her with a hard gaze. As if threatening not to tell her anything. And then, after the large, bald man closest to Skylar blew a puff of smoke directly at her, another man said: "That girl over there? She was in hysterics. Screaming, crying. Punching the doors, trying to get in. Looked like a poor attempt at robbery."

"Women," another chimed in, "are crazy when they're drunk."

The girl didn't look drunk, Skylar thought. But from the way they described her, she wouldn't put it past her.

Infuriated, though, that none of the men were doing anything to help her, and instead were watching her-as if her misery was entertainment, a show to watch once the hockey game had ended-Skylar stepped off the curb and paced towards the girl.

She was a shadow. The streetlights in front of the bar and cafe did little to break the night. Skylar peered through it, searching for the girl's face; she heard her cries now.

The sound of bricks falling. Buildings breaking. Steel snapping. Everything falling down to the ground: broken.

"Hey."

Silence. What had Skylar expected?

She couldn't see much of the girl. Brown hair with small curls forming at the ends-a result of the rain-framed a face that was hidden by the sleeve of a white winter coat that engulfed a small girl. The knees of her light jeans were ripped, and Skylar didn't have to wonder if they had been torn by the girl's "hysterics," as the men across the street had called it. There was blood soaking through the fabric, peeking through the slits now formed in the denim.

Skylar cleared her throat, and the girl looked up. Even in the dark, and the rain, Skylar saw the sharp, blue eyes. They were wide. Startled. Alert.

"Is it okay if I sit here?" Skylar asked, suddenly self-conscious of the smoke that must linger on her breath.

The girl nodded, and just for reinforcement, moved over slightly on the pavement. It was rough, damp, and cold. Skylar felt her jeans immediately absorbing the mixture of melted snow and fresh rain.

"Hey," Skylar repeated. She smiled. For effect. "Look at me."

In that moment, she asked herself why she was being so friendly to this stranger. Normally, she would have walked by the crying girl and the watching men, assuming it was none of her business. With that realization, Skylar exhaled deeply, feeling her shoulders fall.

A terrible person, she thought, is what I am. Because this girl, whoever she was, clearly needed someone to sit beside her. Someone to keep her company, to make her look less crazy to the men still watching, discussing the girl who was clearly heartbroken while they blew smoke into the cool air.

As if she had been waiting for someone to say exactly what Skylar had said, the girl followed the command. She lifted her head, then her sleeve, wiped her nose on it, and smiled at Skylar. It was more of a grimace-clearly fake. Skylar was always able to plaster a fake smile on her face. No matter what. But for this girl to have so easily faltered through the smile, she knew something was wrong.

And then she recognized the face. The dark lips, the taut cheekbones and narrow jawline. The ears that stuck out, that broke through the thick, brown hair. And when the girl opened her mouth, she saw features she hadn't seen before: her bottom teeth were slightly crooked, but the top ones perfectly straight.

This was the girl she had seen only days ago in front of the cafe-the very same spot-holding out her tongue to catch snowflakes. The most carefree person Skylar had ever seen. How was this the same person?

"I know you don't know me," said Skylar, "but I'm Skylar. I work at that bar. Right across the street."

Of course the girl knew who Skylar was. She had watched her so many afternoons smoking in the alley beside the bar.

And then Skylar asked if she had been in the bar that night, if she had had too many drinks.

Skylar watched the girl's mouth fall open. The question was another shock to her, but of course, not nearly as bad as her conversation with her parents. And at that thought, she felt she had been shot once again, right in the chest. Another bullet to a body that already felt so far gone.

"I'm Jude." She said after recovering from the question-the assumption-that made her chest hurt even more. "And no, I didn't go to that bar, I've never been there. I didn't have anything to drink."

Skylar, surprised, nodded. "Those men," she pointed her thumb across the street, "told me you were, uh, acting a little odd. Trying to get into the cafe."

"Yeah, I was. I was just panicking, I wasn't thinking straight. Are you going to lecture me or something? Am I in trouble?" Jude held her palm to her face, and was suddenly glad she hadn't worn mascara. It would have been completely gone now. And tattooed on her cheeks.

"What? No." Skylar laughed. "I wouldn't care even if you had gone crazy on the bar. Do what you want-it helped take your anger out, right? Or your sadness, or ... whatever this is?"

Jude sniffed. "A little bit of both," she said.

Skylar nodded. She understood. There had been many times when she felt that strange concoction of both fury and misery all at once. It took over your body completely, not giving you a say in whether you had control or not.

"Let me get you a drink," said Skylar, deciding that Jude needed a little distraction-something to ease the concoction that was boiling deep inside of her.

Jude frowned. "The bar is closed."

Skylar smiled. "I didn't say we were going to the bar."