Page 35 of Someone Like Me
“I missed a dose yesterday and couldn’t get more until today, and it messed me all up.” I have no idea why I volunteer this. The words seem to leave me on their own.
“Did you…” She’s looking at me closely, but I don’t feel like a curiosity. A freak. “Were you depressed before you went to prison?”
I snort a laugh of derision. “Hell, no.” I think about the witless asshole I was back then and taste metal.
“So…” Evie seems to choose her words carefully as if she’s afraid of offending me. I don’t know if it’s because of the cover night gives me or because she speaks so softly, but her questions don’t rankle. Not at all. “Did living in prison make you depressed?”
I shake my head. “No. It was what I did to get there.”
I can tell she’s not looking directly at me, and I’m glad because I couldn’t meet her gaze now if I tried. But maybe the reminder that I’d actually committed a crime has spooked her. A ridiculously foolish part of me hopes it hasn’t.
But we turn the corner onto Howard Street in silence, and I grow more certain that she’s had enough of my company, finally, and is ready to keep her distance.
And then she slips her hand into mine.
It’s not a come-on. Far from it. But a buzz of awareness wraps around my hand and climbs up my arm before sluicing over my whole body. Her touch is like a gust of wind scattering ashes. Or sweeping clouds from the sun.
It wrecks me.
Because I can’t do anything else. Lost as I am in the depth of her kindness, I just hold on. Until we turn the final corner onto her street.
When I’m able to release my hold on her fingers, she lets go as well. Her house comes into view.
“Have you ever tried yoga?” she asks. “For your depression, I mean.”
I arch a brow at her. “There’s not a whole lot of yoga in prison, Guppy.”
She rolls her eyes. “You calling meGuppyis not a thing.”
My smile is automatic. It stuns me, considering where I was a moment ago; I couldn’t have spoken past the knot in my throat. “Oh, it’s a thing.”
“And thereshouldbe a lot of yoga in prisons. It would make a huge difference.”
I nod in pretend agreement. “Yep. It would mean a lot more inmates would getcabiared.”
A line appears between her brows. “What does that mean?”
I palm my forehead, trying not to laugh. “Forget I said anything. You don’t want to know.”
Evie glares at me, looking a little impatient, and she sighs. “Whatever. But you’re not in prison anymore.” Even though it’s dark, I can see some of that ire I spotted the other day. “I could teach you the basics, and then we could go over some poses that help with anxiety and depression.”
I begin to shake my head. “That’s just not—”
“Do you work tomorrow?”
I shift my jaw back and forth, not wanting to outright lie. “I have stuff to—”
“Can I come see you?”
My mouth hangs open like a stupid Christmas nutcracker. I need to tell her no, but the word won’t come.
A smile like sunlight on water claims her face. “I’ll be there a little after eleven.” And before I can say anything else, she grabs the leash and takes off for her front door.
“I-I might be busy,” I call after her.
“You’ll be there,” she hollers back without turning around.
I watch the swish of her dress as she skips up the steps, the way her hair — pinned up in a barrette — spills down her back in dark springs.
