The brick wall of the alley was damp, the kind of cold that seeped through my thin denim jacket and settled right into my lungs. I took a drag of the cigarette, the cherry glowing a defiant, angry red in the shadows behind The Rusty Anchor. It tasted like ash and disappointment, which was pretty much the theme of my life lately.
I kicked a loose stone, watching it skitter across the oily pavement. Twenty-one years old. I was supposed to be somewhere, anywhere else. Instead, I was back in this suffocating town, living in a studio apartment that smelled like damp carpet, serving eggs to men who had been sitting in the same booths since before I was born.
The depression was a physical weight, a gray fog that made my limbs feel like lead. I was tired. Not just "eight-hour-shift" tired, but soul-deep exhausted. I hated the way people looked at me here. I hated the way the air felt. Most of all, I hated that I didn't have the energy to do anything but kick rocks in a dark alley.
The heavy steel door of the bar groaned open, spilling a rectangular slab of warm, amber light across the trash cans and the gravel.
I didn't look up. I didn't want to see some drunk looking for a place to vomit. I just took another long pull of my cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke into the freezing night air.
The footsteps were heavy. Solid. Not the stumble of a drunk, but the measured pace of someone who knew exactly where his feet were landing. The shadow that stretched toward me was massive, broad shoulders, a tall frame that seemed to swallow the light.
"You know, those things will kill you faster than the cold will."
I knew that voice. It was low, smooth, and had that thick Southern drawl that usually made me want to scream. It was the guy from the diner. The one with the expensive truck and the "perfect gentleman" act.
I finally looked at him, squinting through the smoke. He was leaning against the opposite wall, hands shoved deep into the pockets of a dark wool coat. He looked like a goddamn whiskey commercial, rugged, stoic, and far too put-together for a place like this.
"Maybe that's the point," I snapped, my voice cracking slightly. I hated how small I felt standing near him.
He didn't move. He just watched me with those calm, observant eyes. It felt like he was looking right through the "I don't care" mask I spent all morning pinning on. It felt like he could see the fact that I'd been crying in my car ten minutes ago.
"You're the one from Martha's," he said. It wasn't a question.
"And you're the guy who thinks he's a hero because he caught a mug," I retorted, the bitterness in my chest rising up like bile. I was tired of being looked at. I was tired of men like him, men with money and "charm" who thought they could just wander into a girl's space and fix things with a slow smile.
"I'm just a man out for a drink, Alina."
Hearing him say my name made my skin prickle. It sounded too intimate coming from a stranger. The frustration I'd been carrying all day, about my rent, about my dead-end life, about the suffocating weight of this town, suddenly found a target.
"What are you even doing out here?" I stepped away from the wall, tossing the cigarette butt and grinding it into the dirt with the heel of my boot. "Following me? Is that your thing? You find the girl who's clearly having a breakdown and decide to play the concerned 'gentleman'?"
Silas straightened up, his expression unreadable. "I didn't follow you. I was inside."
"Sure," I laughed, a harsh, jagged sound. "You've been staring at me since the diner. I see you, okay? I see the way you look at me. You're forty, Silas. You're a predator. You're just another bored, rich perv looking for a young girl to distract him from his mid-life crisis."
The air between us went dead silent.
I expected him to get angry. I wanted him to. I wanted him to yell so I could yell back, so I could feel something other than this hollow ache in my chest.
But Silas didn't yell. He just stood there, the amber light hitting the side of his face, showing a flicker of something that looked dangerously like disappointment. Not for me, but for himself.
"Is that what you think?" he asked quietly.
"I think you should go back inside and leave me the hell alone," I spat, my voice trembling now. "I don't need a hero, and I definitely don't need a babysitter."
I brushed past him, my shoulder hitting his arm. He was solid as an oak tree, and for a split second, the heat radiating off him made me want to stop, to lean in, to let someone else carry the weight for a minute.
But I didn't stop. I kept walking into the dark, my vision blurring with hot, angry tears.
"Alina," he called out, his voice low and steady.
"Go to hell, Silas!" I yelled back over my shoulder, not stopping until I reached my car and locked the door, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.