One Day Soon (One Day Soon, #1)(78)

But time was running out and I was afraid that no matter how tightly I held on, it wasn’t enough. That he would always slip through my fingers.

Maybe after all these years I was still just that girl standing in the rain. Waiting for a boy who would never come.

He would always run from what I wanted so desperately to give him. I could scream my love, but he wouldn’t hear me.

Hopeless, my cries tangled with his in that dark, lonely night.





Fifteen years ago

“Check it out, Yoss! It’s the Kimber doll from Jem and the Holograms! I had one just like this!” I ran my finger over the smooth face of the toy.

My mother never had the money, or the inclination, to buy me new toys. Most of my favorite things as a child were leftovers from someone else. My Jem and the Holograms dolls had been given to me by some distant relative who had lost interest in them.

But to me, they were the most amazing things in the world.

The table was piled high with someone else’s junk. Broken model airplanes. Alvin and the Chipmunk glasses. It all looked like treasure to me.

On a whim, Yoss had decided we should spend the morning at a local flea market housed out of an old factory at the edge of town. The days were shorter, the air was colder and it was becoming hard to stay warm at The Pit.

More and more people seemed to be crowding within its walls. I felt claustrophobic. And afraid of the staring eyes and noisy whispers that surrounded me every morning when I woke up and every night as I fell asleep.

Last night he had left me for longer than he had ever done before. Hours went by and I couldn’t fall asleep. A man was shouting at a woman who sobbed loudly only a few feet away. I tried not to listen to their argument, but when he began to throw things, I pulled the smelly blanket over my head, terrified.

Last night wasn’t the first time I thought about leaving before Yoss had a chance to return. I had entertained the idea briefly over the last six months. It flitted in and out of my head before taking root. Because I’d never be able to leave Yoss. He was my anchor.

Last night was different. The shadows were darker. The terror was stronger. The noises louder.

It was the first time that I had allowed the idea of leaving Yoss and running home feel like a very real possibility.

That’s what fear did. It destroyed hope.

And when Yoss was gone it was all too easy to lose it.

I loved Yoss.

But I hated the things he did. I wanted to hit Manny every time he came for him. He would wait with his arms crossed, a look of barely concealed impatience on his fleshy features.

“Come on, Yoss, we’re going to be late,” he would say, giving me a smile that would have been kind. But I knew better.

Manny was the worst kind of evil. The kind that preyed on the desperate. The kind that smiled all the while he killed you.

He was killing Yoss. By making him believe that to sell his body was his only option.

“You don’t have to go, Yoss. We don’t need that money,” I allowed myself to whisper as I watched my boyfriend put on cologne for men who didn’t care what he smelled like.

I felt sick.

So damn sick.

Yoss wouldn’t look at me. He never did when Manny came. I saw his shame so clearly.

“I’ll be back later. We can get breakfast in the morning,” he had said.

“I don’t want breakfast! I don’t want you to go!” I had shouted. Manny heard me. He frowned, looking annoyed.

“Yoss. We’ve got to go now. Ray and Dean are waiting,” Manny all but snarled.

“Yoss,” I begged. I pleaded. I would get on my hands and knees if it would mean he’d stay.

Yoss’s eyes were wet but they would never meet mine. “I love you, Imi,” was all he said.

Then he left.

And I began to question his promises. His love. His devotion to our future.

I found myself being jealous of the anonymous men in forgotten corners who stole parts of my Yoss that I had yet to know. It was ridiculous to feel that way. Disturbed that I could desire anything he shared with those faceless monsters.

I loathed myself for hating Yoss for how he had chosen to survive.

But in the end, the love was so much stronger.

And I didn’t leave.

Of course I couldn’t.

I was tied to him in ways my seventeen-year-old heart didn’t understand.

Later when he finally crawled under the blankets, I could feel him trembling as he took me in his arms. I hated myself all over again for the reprehensible thoughts that had consumed me only hours earlier.

Lightning had flickered in the distance. We didn’t speak. There was no need too. His face had been streaked with dirt and tears.

I wiped the blood away from his busted lip. I didn’t ask him what happened. His ghosts were his own.

I knew he’d never share them anyway.

I pressed my ear against his chest and listened to the steady cadence of his heart. Beat. Beat. Beat.

If I listened hard enough I wondered if I could hear it breaking.

He smelled like cigarette smoke and something else that I couldn’t quite place. It smelled soiled. Wrong.

He shuddered with each intake of breath as though he wasn’t sure he should still be breathing.

He couldn’t run fast enough. The demons always caught him.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up,” he had whispered. I felt his lips in my hair. He touched me only as much as he could handle. Nothing more. Nothing less.