The Not-Outcast(25)

Thoughts… I was mentally watching them. They were wheezing by. I could almost feel the breeze from them.

Slow. Down.

They slowed.

I turned the thoughts into words. Words I could read.

I read one at a time. One word at a time, and as I did this, knowing Dean was now focused on talking me into coming tomorrow, it was working. I was calming down.

I could tune in, pick up what he was saying, and he was saying, “—I never know what Boomer is going to make if you’re not here. He loves you. Worships you. He’ll make everything great and something worthy of a magazine spread, but if you’re not here, he gets all adventurous, starts thinking our budget is ostrich egg and lamb chops, and we don’t ever have the budget for that.”

He was right. Our grant was good, but not that good. We allocated most of it to education, recruiting, and general resources for everyone. Not to mention, the food. Food was expensive, but we tried to maintain a healthy standard, and it helped land us in multiple magazines, even a television show interviewed us, including Boomer.

Boomer got a kick out of Dean getting a kick out of that.

Me. I hated it. That’d been an extra bad day on paying attention. The reporter had been extra extra on everything. Extra smiles. Extra flirting with Dean. Extra perfume. Extra makeup. Extra loudness in her voice. Extra jewelry. All that went away the second the camera came on, and that whole segment showed me sucking in air like I’d been dying in a desert.

Not my best moment, but really, there was a whole long list of them, and maybe that wasn’t too bad after all.

“Cheyenne!”

Crap.

He got me.

I’d been slipping and I was saying something. I had no clue. I recognized my voice and my own tone. Okay. That was convincing. Dean would be convinced I was paying attention, but I had to be adamant. “I’m not coming tomorrow. You know I don’t always come to these days. And I can’t. Sasha needs me.”

He snorted. “What does Sasha need you for? Writing a grant for new stripper poles or something.”

I frowned. Could I do that? Was there a grant for that?

“Stop.” He leaned forward, planting his hand on the desk. “I can tell you’re struggling right now.”

I thought I’d been so sly. Crappers.

He kept on, “You think I can’t tell, but I can. And like right now,” he raised his tone, “You’re starting to drift—”

“This is why I can’t be here tomorrow! It’s too much. I just can’t—” Dean didn’t know about my history, or my medical file, or any of it. He didn’t even know I’d been homeless at times. “Dean. Do not push me on this.”

Cold sweat was forming on my forehead, and I felt it on my top lip, but my words were spoken quietly, and slow, and that meant they’d come across as clear and articulate to him. But also beseeching, almost begging, and who could say no to that?

Well. Most people, but Dean had a soft spot for me. I wrote the magic and he knew it. I knew it.

He was quiet.

Now was my chance, and I shoved all the distracting background thoughts and noise to the far reaches of my mind and I pounced. “Boomer can bring Gail.” He was quiet again, pensive. I recognized that look on his face and added, “You know that everyone loves Gail, and everyone adores Boomer and his wife being the duo they are in the kitchen.”

He mashed his mouth together. “We don’t know if Gail can do it—” Score! Because that meant he was open to that idea. “—and I still think you should be here tomorrow.”

I was so not needed, and I was gone again.

I was doing cartwheels. I mean, I was sitting, but the inside of my body was fully doing somersaults, and I was a gymnast and flying in the air, and none of this would make sense to a normal person.

Sigh.

Because I wasn’t normal.

I tuned back in for the rest of what Dean needed to talk about, and we only agreed on one out of the eight items, but all the while I started replying to emails. Dean was used to this. It was how I worked. He knew I needed to do two things, sometimes three if I was really distracted, in order to actually pay attention. A while back he asked me what was wrong, why I always had to be busy, and I just answered, “I have a really hungry brain.”

I knew it wouldn’t make any sense to him, but I’d long given up hope that some people would understand.

Some did. Most didn’t.





11





Cheyenne





Sasha called when I was getting off work, said she was heading to Melanie’s for a pit stop, so I went to meet her. Dino’s Beans was a cute hipster coffee bar downtown that Melanie worked at not far from where Come Our Way was. Because of this, it wasn’t uncommon for me to see a few of the same guys there who came for meals at Come Our Way. Some of them had enough coinage to grab a coffee. Some didn’t and knew Melanie had a soft heart, and she gave it out for free, but only if they came in with a good attitude and had recently showered. The ones who hadn’t, she still didn’t refuse them and had them sit outside with their coffee.

I wasn’t surprised when I saw a couple of our regulars.

Petey. Moira. Dwayne. All saw me. All raised their hands. All sent me mumbled greetings, but they knew this was my friend’s place, so they didn’t come over to talk any more than that.