The inner monologue of an underage girl waiting for an older guy to come pick her up

I had to wait a long time for Peter, but I knew he would show up. I had had to spend a lot of time convincing him to come get me, which was no surprise either. Truthfully he was my best bet, which might seem pathetic to you but I was glad there was someone, anyone, at the end of the phone buttons.

I’d finally had it with the foster family; I knew every youth facility in Denver; and I’d tried the streets enough to know that was not the glamorous choice. I’d kinda wanted to keep Peter in reserve, not use him up until I figured out what was the best thing. He was low maintenance, stuck out in that pomuck town, trying to keep his rep up while being the new funny-looking lawyer working for the D.A. Being lonely. A sucker for the big questions and give me some advice here. I'd throw out something profound and vary it over a couple of follow up e-mails. He'd get all big brotherish and write these long thoughtful answers. Good for passing the long winter nights.

I’m not telling you it was all about thinking. If he’d wanted that he had six ex-girlfriends, four sisters and numerous ex-clients. The difference in our age was part of the fun. Naughty. I’d talk about sex in a serious but direct way. Like I’d say, “I wonder if I’m attracted to the wrong kind of man.” or “Some people think sex is all about the physical release. I like the physical but it's better when there’s something real between me and the man.” His next e-mail would have that spark.

Like I said, he was easy. Which is why I stood outside in the winter night for two hours after the drug store closed. It was cold too. I had on my tights but that coat was never really warm and my gloves were lost somewhere in Patty’s house.

It wasn’t like it was anything different that night. Patty got on my case real hard but that was how she was. It started when she got home from work and I waved her away from the computer for half an hour or so. We never got our competition for computer time worked out and, since everything in the house was hers, she could get real ownershipped about it. She knew it wasn’t fair because I had nothing and realistically couldn’t get my own stuff when I was too young to work on the books. That made her tense because she tried real hard to be fair. Which is ridiculous. She knew enough about my life to know that nothing in this world is fair. Think about it. Is it fair that a baby comes into the world with a crack addict dad and a mother flat out on the floor depressed even after she popped the anti-depressants? Oh, I could detail you chapter and verse but if you don’t get the basic fairness problem, you just aren’t gonna get any of it.

There’s times the anger gets to rage gets to wanting to kill someone or kill yourself in about two minutes. I could run my head into the wall or I could grab Patty by the neck. If I had a gun or a knife I could do some real damage. This I understand.

Peter was all about books and what you can learn when the songs are so deep any normal person can’t hardly figure them out. He didn’t know much.

When Peter got mad, he did one thing, the tight mouth and sulk in the other room thing. Me, I’ve been to the limits of anger. I’ve beat kids up and been beat up. I’ve run off and I’ve slammed my fist into a door and broke three fingers. I’ve screamed it out in cuss words, soaked it up in beer and smoked it away in marijuana. It was Peter who told me the beer and smoke was all anger and he’d probably have said the meth was anger too. He was right but that doesn’t change that I had plumbed my anger and the pipes went deeper than anything he’d ever laid down. This time I had some control. I grabbed my coat, walked away and dialed Peter.

I’ve stood outside that drug store for so more hours than I could count. This one or one like it in the other places I’ve lived. The bright parking lot lights, the big windows in front that are all covered up with plant displays or cheap racks during the day. I’ve had many a smoke, cruised the locals, waited for friends to drive by with cars to take me somewhere more interesting. I can always figure out stuff about drug stores. I know more than the employees who work the cash registers or stock the shelves. I sure know more than the managers and the customers in their I’m-so-free-look-at-me cars. At night like this, when the people are gone and it’s only me, the buildings and the sky, sometimes these empty places seem to belong to me.

After Peter got busted, lost his job, his house, his reputation and got sent to the state pen, his people hated me. I don’t exactly blame them but they are only seeing it from his point of view. He doesn't hate me, I’m sure of that. He knew it wasn’t something I planned to happen. I’m not dumb enough to get my best resource busted on purpose. Besides, he wasn’t the only one in trouble. I got sent back to the Holding Tank, which is where they keep all us kids that they don’t know what to do with. They told me there wouldn’t be any more foster homes for me, just this mean monitored life with all the other kids everyone’s given up on for five more years and then I end up on the street anyway. You can’t get the internet at the Holding Tank but eventually I got another library card. I managed to find another guy and it only took about five months. This time when we got busted I was smart enough to keep him out of jail by saying my hallucinations confused me so I couldn’t tell whether anything was real or not.

Did we have sex? Well, I thought we did, but these dang hallucinations, they make it so hard to tell.

If I could have done that for Peter, he wouldn’t have dropped me like a spoiled apple the way this guy did. He wouldn’t have kept me in his house again but he would have still tried to help me. Not that he could. Help, I mean. He just didn’t know enough. And it would have been against the law so maybe, now that I think about it, he wouldn’t even have been someone to be on my side.

Well, I had to wait a long time for Peter. Someone else will show up. I just have to keep my focus and wait.