Never Been Loved Read Free

award.
    I finally close my eyes, and get my pillow into the perfect shape, ignoring Aly’s soft snores or the temptation of her naked body. She doesn’t like to be woken up from a dead sleep and I’m spent anyway.
    In the safety of the darkness of my eyelids, and the silence in my apartment, my dumb brain decides to bring up the question it’s unconsciously been thinking about all fucking day.
    Who is Ponyboy Curtis? And can I take him in a fight?

 
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 2
     
    I ignore the hollow feeling in my gut, and head out to do the one thing I don’t want to do.
    I lock up, not bothering to even make coffee for Aly. She can do it herself, not like she hasn’t been over a million times to know where I keep everything. I rub my head, hating that I have to go pick up the kid, and all the shit he’s going to give me for making him sleep over at his grandma’s. Fuck.
    Oh, Christ.
    The babe from next door locks up next to me and I freeze, caught in some sort of paralysis when I want to go ahead and say hi, welcome her to the building or some shit. Although I shouldn’t do that. I shouldn’t even tempt myself with someone like her.
    Surprise, surprise, her nose is in a book. The same one from yesterday ’cause the cover looks familiar, with the smallest amount of pages to go to the end.
    She pays no attention to me, almost as if I was a wad of blackened gum on a sidewalk – just background noise to the eyes, and hardly worth walking around. I’m just there, like I should be. I have no business talking to her. But fuck, she should at least be paying attention to any kind of non-normal activity.
    Oh, how like you’re just staring at her?
    She’s completely oblivious, instead aiming and missing several times before she gets the elevator down button to light up. I watch like it’s the most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen. Damn it, that fucking book is starting to piss me off. What the hell is she reading? It’s like the words on the pages are magnets and she can’t take her eyes off of them.
    There’s nothing special about her. She doesn’t rock out her body like she knows what she has going on. She stands with most of her weight settled on one leg, the other cocked at the knee. As I get closer to her, I notice her sneakers. Converse, like yesterday, but the shade of blue is almost eye-searing, and I think I see a rectangular blue box where the stars are supposed to be.
    Maybe my sugar isn’t so good right now, and I’m seeing things. Doesn’t matter, s’not like I can comment on anything she’s wearing.
    I do sort of wish she’d turn around so I can see what shirt she has on. See who she’s given her heart to today. She doesn’t, but I follow her in the elevator and watch again as she goes into a corner, turns around to face the door, and jabs the RC button to get us down to the lobby, barely glancing up to make sure the thing is lit.
    The doors take their time closing, leaving a pause between the button pushing and the doors moving, as if testing all the busy people in the world, forcing them to take a few minutes to calm down.
    I don’t move forward to press the basement button, instead, I’m gonna be a sick pervert and just watch her...out of the corner of my eye. I’m not a sick bastard, but I just want to make sure she gets to where she’s going, that she’ll be safe. Fuck, I don’t even have the balls to ask her what she’s reading, or where she’s going.
    I just really don’t want to go pick up the kid. I can hear him now, whining and crying because I didn’t pick him up last night. I’ll have to bribe him with a movie he wants to see and some junk food that’s going to spike his sugars, but I don’t know what else to do.
    My jaw cracks, and I hadn’t even realized I’d been clenching my teeth together. Nice. I don’t have the money to go to the dentist if I’ve gone and split a tooth. Who knew having a kid was going to make me want to kill myself?
    The elevator