The blonde’s eyes left my face for a brief moment and skirted the trailer park around her. Her face stayed neutral, though. I could only imagine how disgusted she was. I bet politicians and their families practiced the unbiased face so whenever they went to the shitty neighborhoods they could get the people’s votes without seeming like stuck-up assholes. Her impassiveness pissed me off. Parts of me wanted her natural reaction. I wanted to see her lips and nose curl up in repulsion. I hated her composed stance when I bet every nerve in her body screamed for her to run to safety.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

“What are you doing here?” I asked rudely. I made the face of disgust that I’m sure she wanted to make.

She blinked away her shock at my non-welcome. Then her eyes met mine directly. Her eyes took me in and I felt as if she looked right through me. She nervously picked at her fingernails and bit the inside of her mouth. Finally, she dropped her hands and spoke.

“I just wanted to say thank you for last night. Most people would have left me there to die.” She fiddled with ends of her hair.

She had more nervous ticks than any other person I’d ever met in my life. She was like a little fawn on the edge of escape. She looked out of place. Her clean appearance stuck out among the dirty rock road and rusted trailers that surrounded her. Her name brand clothes and expensive purse were begging to be swiped by the nearest hood rat. She had to be smarter than this. Didn’t she know she’d walked through the gates of hell for that pitiful thank you? Didn’t she sense the danger that was all around her? She needed to leave. She was too fresh for such polluted air.

“You’re welcome. Now go back to your side of town,” I snapped.

I didn’t mean to sound so rude, but it pissed me off that I was once again worried about her. It felt unnatural to me and it was starting to freak me out.

Her cheeks turned pink and a frown pulled on her pouty mouth.

“I shouldn’t have come here. I just wanted to say thanks.” Her eyes cut me before she turned and walked away.

She made it to the hood of the waiting car that was still running before my conscious peeked out and slapped the shit out of me.

“Hey,” I called out to her.

She stopped and faced me again. Instantly, I felt like the biggest dick in the South when I saw her eyes brimming with tears. Someone so sensitive didn’t stand a chance around a person like me, but knowing that I’d probably never see her face again made it okay for me to kind of apologize for being myself for some reason.

“I’m rude, but you’ve seen firsthand what happens to shiny things in a chop shop.” I gestured to the world around us. “Your best bet is to stay away from these parts, princess. A pretty thing like you wouldn’t last two hours out here. How long were you at The Pit last night before you were dying on the bathroom floor? An hour, tops? Think of my rudeness as a blessing.” I adjusted my guitar case in my sweaty palm and turned toward my trailer door.

I looked back to get one final glimpse of her. The contrast between her and the trailer park around her was alarming. Although, with her fair skin, white hair, and pale-blue eyes, I’m sure she stuck out just about anywhere she went. She was unique, a single snowflake with her own icy patterns, and if she stayed in my hell of a neighborhood any longer she’d melt.

“Have a nice trip back to Wonderland, snowflake,” I said as I opened my trailer door.

“My name is Patience,” she snapped.

Patience… it was as unique as its owner. I liked it, although I’d never admit that out loud. Instead, I shook my head and laughed like she’d told me a joke, walked inside, and shut her out.

Four

Patience

“What an asshole!” Megan said once I got back in the car. “He had no right to talk to you like that. All you were doing was saying thank you. Geez, how hard would it have been to say you’re welcome and politely walk away? Chet said he was a dick to girls, but damn.”

She was right, of course. It took everything I had in me to get out of the car and spit the words “thank you” out. I’m already a naturally shy person, but the fact that he’d seen me in the worst state I’d ever been in made me even more uncomfortable. No matter how shaky my body was or how nervous I was, I knew thanking him was the right thing to do. He had saved my life, after all.

Now, after he so rudely snubbed me and walked away, I was thinking I should have just let sleeping dogs lie.

“What did Chet say his name was again?”

“Zeke Mitchell,” she said as she pulled off the bumpy rock road to the main highway. “Even his name screams asshole. The girls love him, though. What is it about girls and cocky assholes? I’ll never understand it.”