My 38 Years of Ignoring People Ended When a Stranger Caught My Wrist
Part 2
The dark entry was a painfully narrow hallway illuminated purely by a single, dead glass bulb hanging from the cracked ceiling.
The faded linoleum floor was absolutely spotlessly clean but deeply, permanently scuffed from years of frantic pacing.
I could easily see straight into what was technically supposed to be the main living room.
There was a rusted, incredibly cheap metal folding chair sitting dead center in the completely empty room.
A tiny, severely scratched wooden side table sat completely alone next to it.
A cheap, plastic desk lamp sat directly on the bare, cold floor precisely because there was simply no other furniture to put it on.
A rusted ironing board stood entirely open in the far, dark corner of the room.
A neatly folded, absolutely pristine diner uniform lay perfectly across it, completely prepped for the brutal early morning shift.
There were absolutely no framed family photos anywhere on the stained walls.
There was absolutely no television glowing softly in the quiet corner.
It was emphatically not the warm home of a person who actually lived a real life in a physical place.
It was a completely hollow, dead space a tired person rented while they waited in vain for something in the universe to finally get easier.
“Please, come in,” she said, immediately catching herself and wincing.
“I’m so sorry.
I just… it’s pure habit.
When someone actually helps me, I always offer them a glass of water.”
She shifted her incredibly light weight agonizingly onto her single good foot, leaning heavily against the doorframe.
“I honestly don’t have much else in the world to offer absolutely anyone.”
“I’ll gladly take the water,” I vividly heard myself firmly say before my logical brain could violently stop me.
Massive relief visibly, instantly washed over her incredibly exhausted, pale face.
She limped incredibly painfully away into the tiny, completely dark kitchen.
I stood absolutely frozen in the narrow doorway, intensely listening to the incredibly small, deeply tragic sounds of a woman who had absolutely nothing desperately trying to be hospitable to a total stranger anyway.
The squeaky tap ran in the rusted sink.
The quiet clink of ice cubes from a plastic tray echoed in the empty room.
I thought of my own apartment across town.
I thought of my stainless-steel refrigerator, always stocked whether I was hungry or not.
She came back, holding the freezing water.
I took it from her shaking hand.
She slowly, painfully lowered herself carefully onto the highly precarious metal folding chair, deeply angling her pale face sharply toward the cold floor.
She was clearly, obviously waiting for me to quickly drink, silently leave, and legally let her go immediately back to being totally invisible.
“How incredibly bad is it?”
I asked softly, breaking the crushing silence.
“I’ll pack it with ice tonight,” she said very quietly without even looking up at my face.
“I have to absolutely be at the diner at exactly four in the morning for prep.”
Hearing that completely insane, crushing time spoken out loud in a room this heartbreakingly, devastatingly empty did something utterly permanent to my soul.
“Brenda,” I said firmly, finally using the name she had briefly given me on the long walk.
“You absolutely cannot keep doing this brutal cycle to yourself.”
She finally looked straight up at me then, absolutely not defensive, just completely, devastatingly honest.
“I know,” she said quietly.
“I’m absolutely not doing it because I foolishly think I can handle it.”
She slowly, weakly pointed a shaking finger at the totally empty room.
“I’m aggressively doing it purely because I literally do not see another physical door out of this nightmare.”
I absolutely couldn’t just walk safely away and leave her entirely alone in that incredibly, devastatingly empty room, but how do you actually help someone who absolutely refuses to ever take your money?
