Risk

Chapter 1: Slip

It was a downpour, enough to be literally considered a heavy shower, for when it struck the flesh, it cleansed everything. Let's leave alone how everyone would be sporting the after-shower wet-hair look. If not for their bobbing sea of umbrellas lining the sidewalk, those people with makeup would find it running down their faces.

Leaving those Bostonian streets to find the sanctuary down the subterranean steps was supposed to be a relief. For not being considerate, I had neglected the fact that everybody would be closing their umbrellas and discharging those swollen droplets upon the wet steps.

...And inevitably, I slipped.

Flailing my hands wildly, I had grabbed onto someone by accident! For a split second, I was more frightful of the danger I put this random person in if I caused us both to tumble down from the stairs.

Luckily, they actually had the correct response to grab a wall railing -- like I should’ve had done. In that precarious instant, and due to this random guy’s firm grunt work, we pulled ourselves straight up along the wall. It took me a moment to breath again, noting that this tumble would have left a severe mark if we landed just right... or wrong.

"You okay?"

Turning up to the query, I nodded with a sheepish grin, "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. Last week, the same thing happened to me as well."

Now that I felt secure, I looked and I saw my savior. This guy seemed kinda cool. He looked familiar too, but couldn't place where I'd seen him before. 'Maybe he commutes between the stations often?' I wondered.

"Have we met before?" Again, I tried to figure out where I'd seen this guy before, but I had just drawn a hazy blank. I thought, ’In my childhood, perhaps?’

With that thought in mind, I assessed how he looked now and tried to compare him with my past. This dude had broad shoulders, but if it was from way back in the tyke-age, that wouldn't matter. He'd have grown those shelves out while getting older, not popping out of his mom like a natural quarterback.

As I finished evaluating how he would’ve grown into a man, I drew closer to him and stared at his more distinguishing features. At the time, I thought, ’Maybe I’ll recognize a mark?’ But the issue with that idea was that he was perfect.

Instead of giving an answer, he broke my concentration with a simple gesture: he pointed down the steps for me to indicate that I should get moving. I'd been lost in judging his looks and did not realize that we had become an incredible pair of road-blocks. A few faces streamed by us with a steamed look. Again, I displayed a guilty smile and got my ass in gear.

While descending, I heard him over my shoulder speaking to me, "Which BPS did you go to? Class of Fourteen?"

Okay, that had marked him out from school. I’d only recently graduated and got the hang of what I needed in my upcoming college days to leave and live out the years to come. So my next thought was, ’Maybe the same neighborhood?’

"The JQU, but Class Eighteen, sorry. Maybe from the neighborhood? Chinatown?" I kinda hoped that my own looks would’ve given that away, but that he might have been more considerate than me in assuming something from appearances.

"South, a block and kitty-corner from the theater." A Broadway boy. For being around there, I wondered, ’Does that mean he’s wealthy?’ And before I could have thought more on that, he departed, announcing: "Take care!"

Paying at the subway check and going through the rotating arms, I had been distracted only long enough to lose the guy. I might have spotted him, but I couldn't be sure. All I saw were a wide spread of black rain-coated shoulders hunching to enter one of the trains. Unfortunately, it wasn't the one I'd be heading up in.

With a pout, I realized I didn’t catch a name. And I also realized I was just as guilty for not giving mine. He could’ve remembered my name and said something to trigger my memory in remembering him from someplace. But I lost that chance… I sighed, shook the rain out of my hair, and moved on.

I had to keep moving.

I was invited to an after-graduation party. It was nearly fall, summer having already come and gone, but better late than never, right?

Those social events were not something I would have been capable of attending. My old man and the woman of the house wouldn't permit me to go out. They thought that time would be better spent encouraging my studies. Well, I was not a kid anymore and I had a window of opportunity to book one of the dorms at one out of the eight colleges I had applied for.

Which meant I could go wherever I pleased. Woot!

Taking a seat on the train, I leaned forward to ruffle my wet black hair with both hands -- the floor was already wet, so I couldn’t make it worse by adding onto it.

But still, I was soaked to the core, and seriously regretting that I had not brought an umbrella. I tried to dry off while awaiting my stop. Maybe, just maybe, if I hadn't decided to brave the weather, and hadn’t been distracted, this wouldn't have happened.

Staring down at my soggy looking shoes, I wondered if it would’ve been better to take a cab?

No. When I was a kid, interactions with any of my surviving family members was difficult, and anyone I didn’t know was off limits. My parents had filled my head with enough stories to not interact with strangers. Despite keeping my social life to a bare minimum at school, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut when directly called upon.

But I never did the calling. So grabbing a cab was out of the question… But if I were to take a public transport, and stay out of trouble, I could do so within a crowd or in plain sight.

“Ow!”

A sharp pinch, right in the center of my spine, caused me to sit upright and straight in shock. I sat like this for almost an entire run to the next stop. The person sitting right next to me had placed a hand immediately on my shoulder, which grabbed my attention, and I saw the concerned look as he leaned towards me.

"Hey, you alright?" In response, I silently nodded to the man, but I supposed he missed that when he asked me again. “Miss? You okay?”

“Miss?” As I questioned if I heard him correctly, I had to wonder, ’Do I really need to deepen my voice for them to get the message?’ “I’m a guy.”

In response, the man laughed as he said, “With a soft, feminine --

“Feminine?”

“-- appearance like yours, I’d say being a man is a mistake.”

“...Huh?” If I wasn’t in pain right now, I’d turn and address this man directly.

It had only been a pinch, but it was where that pain originated that had me concerned. My mind raked over one possibility, 'Did I pull something?' That thought had been going over in my mind.

"Okay, just checkin'," he said, gave me a comforting pat, and a second later, the train came to a halt. At the stop, the guy got up to leave.

In that moment, I realized I’d been keeping absolutely still. So I finally moved by turning to see what the concerned fellow looked like. But I didn't get a good look at him because my eyes decided to go all double-vision on me. Only thing I did see was him looking back at me with an outstanding big, bright, smile just as the doors were about to close him off from my view.

“Have a pleasant night, Miss.” And that was the last time I was to see or hear from that odd man.

Just under my breath, I whispered exactly what I thought of the man: “Wacko.”

First of all, I was a guy, and second, tonight was not pleasant at all. I wasn’t dripping wet for nothing.

As the train started moving again, I calmed down and thought more rationally. There were weird people like him all over the city, but that was the first time someone said to me being male was a mistake.

His behavior worried me and had me wondering, ’Maybe I’m not so okay?’ There had been plenty of time for someone to do something to me with my back turned -- or in my case, bent over.

Taking a moment of this free time between the stop and mine, I pulled open my jacket. Not taking it off, just for me to reach a hand in, travel down and around, and feel behind myself. At that moment, the soaked flannel button-up shirt wasn't giving me much of a sense if I could feel anything out of place. Second thoughts ran through my mind, 'I dunno, maybe a cockroach bit me or something?'

That thought gave me the heebie jeebies and left me feeling unsettled.

On that thought, I decided my jacket should come off for a dual purpose. It would be the next article of clothing to get flapped dry, but also to ensure I had no buggy stowaways. As I shook it out, I was being very alert if anything would tickle my skin in any six-legged manner.

The wet tips of my black hair was a psychological torture to my neck and shoulders, which caused a paranoid and tormented tick to emerge in me. Okay, I was more freaked out about bugs than I would be if a random psycho assaulted me.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled on the front of my shirt to disturb anything that might be clinging to my back. I had assumed that, if I flattened the wet back of my shirt against my skin, I could detect the scurry of whatever might have bitten me -- that was, if I really was bitten.

After a minute, I didn't feel anything and let my shirt go. Either there was something that bit, stung, or scratched me and was now gone or it was a muscle, tendon, nerve, or my own imagination that caused the spike pain in my back. I was already doubting whether that man had done something to me.

Now I was waiting for my stop without much more worry.

Pulling my jacket back on, I left the train and made my way to the block where the party would be held.