Page 2 of A Little More Hope

Bang, bang, bang.

“Jesus.” My heart leapt again.

The door. It’s just someone at the damn door.

Carefully hauling my ass out of bed, I managed to pull on my sweatpants and a T-shirt, the same ones I’d worn for I don’t remember how many days, and stumbled into the living room and over to the entrance to my apartment.

Bang, bang, bang.

“I’m coming. I’m coming,” I grumbled, stabbing the button on the video screen on the wall beside the door, then sighing heavily at the face on the small display.

Gabe.

Turning the deadlock and newly installed bolts and iron bar, I unlocked the reinforced door and opened it wide before retreating into the kitchen.

My friends had come to a decision among themselves to become my nursemaids. Messaging or calling at least once a day or, like now, dropping round to check up on me, making sure I was okay.

What a banal term: “making sure I was okay.”

I’d never be okay again.

Gabe sauntered in carrying a takeout bag and flicked the door shut with his foot.

“You gonna lock that?” I groused. He rewarded me with a glare and a look of disbelief. My friends knew the routine, and I waited, tense and silent until all the locks and bolts were engaged, only then releasing my fingers from their stranglehold on the back of the bar chair.

Making his way straight over to me, he placed the food on the countertop, and after a couple seconds for the aromas to reach my nostrils, salt beef and sauerkraut filled my senses and made my belly rumble in appreciation.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. A couple of days ago perhaps, maybe more?

Gabe stared at me. “Christ, you look like shit.” Leaning closer, he sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “When did you last take a shower? You stink.”

I couldn’t remember that either. Probably longer than when I’d last eaten. Gabe looking immaculate as usual didn’t help. Dressed in a navy three-piece suit, handmade, knowing him, white shirt, pale-blue tie, and black Italian leather shoes, also handmade. He looked the epitome of a successful businessman. Me not so much.

I smoothed my rumpled clothes and gave another sigh. “We can’t all be so damn perfect.”

His laugher echoed around my empty apartment, filling the space. “I know, right?” A couple seconds later his brows furrowed, and he stared at me seriously, his eyes losing their humor as he switched into protective friend mode. “Go clean up, and I’ll sort out the food,” he ordered me gently.

Nodding, as I really did need to wash, I shuffled back to my bedroom and into the attached bathroom.

Turning on the shower, I shucked off my two items of clothing and climbed in, letting the hot water rain down on my tired body. As I dipped my head under the shower, a stinging pain zapped through my skull. “Shit.” Snapping out from under the spray, the intense throbbing a vivid reminder of the wound in my hairline, I lifted my hand and gently ran my fingers along the line of stitches holding together the deep graze in my scalp.

I was so, so lucky. I shouldn’t be here. I should be dead. Yet I wasn’t, and I had no idea why or how to handle the fact.

Everyone at the hospital kept telling me how fortunate I’d been to survive. If the bullet had penetrated a few millimeters deeper or a fraction lower, the outcome would be very different.

I knew that. Fuck, did I. It was my fucking head, after all.

Shivers racked me as my internal TV screen flickered to life and replayed the attack scenario for the thousandth time.

The fear and pain, so much pain…

Forcing the memories away, I grabbed the body wash from the tray and squeezed some into my palm and then lathered my battered body.

Gabe mentioned I looked like shit, but he didn’t know the half of it. My body was covered in bruises. Some purple, others a sickly gray-yellow color. They covered almost every inch of me, and I hated them with a vengeance as they were yet another visible reminder of the trauma I’d suffered. Like I needed one.

Emotion caught me unaware, encircling me with sharply barbed edges, digging deep, and I desperately tried to fight back the tears before they overwhelmed me. The cycle was the same each time. Why had they picked me instead of somebody else? Did I look weak, helpless? I must have. Otherwise, out of all the other people on the street, why choose me? The endless questions in my mind were a continual downward spiral I fought hard not to let suck me into oblivion.

But I refused to break down. They’d win if I did, and I’d never let them have the satisfaction. The police had informed me I’d done nothing wrong—simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If the assailants hadn’t picked me, they’d have chosen the next person who happened by.

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