He found her in one of the big discarded crates at the back of the building, curled up like a much younger child. Less curled, actually, than crumpled, as if she were a wadded up sheet of paper. Her skin was as pale as paper, anyway, and her tatters of clothing seemed even scantier than he recalled.
“Have they hurt you?”
“Not much,” she said, but when she managed to turn over and look at him, he saw the dried blood at the corners of her mouth, the rapidly darkening bruises marring her face and neck. He tried to help her up, but she pushed him away.
“You weren’t there when you should’ve been. I don’t need you now.”
“Gemma, I’m sorry, I…”
He stopped trying to apologize, to explain his disappearance, when she shoved weakly past him and walked toward the end of the alley.
“Save it, Alan. I wanna go home.”
For a moment some part of Alan that was still the polished young man of privilege found it almost touching, romantic in a way, that the girl considered her small encampment under the bridge “home.” Then, of course, what was left of those ridiculous old delusions was shaken off and he ran after her.
“You need help. A hospital, at least a doctor…”
“I’ve had worse happen to me,” she said, and he could see how painful it was for her to turn her head and look back at him. Still, she managed a smirk.
“I won’t let you go alone.”
“You will. People always do. I’m invisible, Alan. Me and everyone like me. I don’t matter. Just go before they come back and you’re the one getting hurt.”
He did not want to let her go, but she wanted him to let her go. Did she? Yes. So he should. He should let her walk on and go “home” and be alone. Whatever would happen to her, he would hold no responsibility.
He waited an hour, stopping into a small bar and nursing a beer, before he followed after her and, crouched up in the beams of the bridge with his belt looped around to keep him up, watched her sleep.
