Hailey

“Now departing, southbound train 594 to Virginia Beach. All aboard!”

When you’re in a hurry, especially if that hurry has anything to do with you shooting someone, you don’t pay attention to much. Point A, point B, simple. But getting to where you’re going can get a little tricky if you’re clumsy or unobservant.

I’m both of those things, so you can guess what my odds were like. I mean, I could handle things like morning traffic, bulky suitcases, and getting down steep flights of stairs without too many problems. I go to Union to visit my Mom around this time every summer, so, I’m used to the landscape. But broken glass bottles are a different story. Especially if they’re clear, and this one was invisible—to me, at least.

 There I was, no more than about five steps away from my train, and completely stoked that I’d actually made it on time, and just like that, I impaled myself.

 Sharp-object-right-through-the-arc-of-your-foot impaled.

The pain sent me reeling, and I barreled face first down onto the grimy glittering concrete.

“Hold the train!”

The voice of an unfortunately placed hero buzzed through the sides of my cheekbones. Apparently, I’d face planted into the center of his chest and used his sternum to cushion my fall. Nice.

“You alright?” he asked, clearly amused by my lack of coordination.

I lifted my head out of the crater I’d made in his shirt and adjusted my glasses to try to get the guy’s face into focus. He was the modern image of a boyish, brunette James Dean; cheeks tinged with natural blush, slightly grey baby blues, and a sense of style reminiscent of East of Eden.

“I’m fine. I just lost-”

“Your shoes or your senses?”

He helped me to my feet, and tried to hide an obvious half-smile, but his dimples gave him away. His arrogance was bittersweet, one part irritating, three parts attractive, so I let it slide.

I mean I’d like to say that I let it slide ‘cause it makes it look like I had the situation under control. But the truth is, I couldn’t talk to him for a good minute and a half. I couldn’t even look at him straight. I’d never admit this on any other occasion, but this was the first time a guy actually intimidated me a response out of me. I tried gathering my bags and re-boarding the train like I hadn’t fallen at all. Maybe he’d forget it happened.

“Thank you-“

“Caleb.”

He shot me a glance the devil would envy, and my legs went numb. I dodged his stormy blues, and took up a staring contest with the floor. Checkmate.

“Do you have a name?”

“It’s Hailey.”

“Have you always been the shy and clumsy type, Hailey?”

My face caught fire, and he grinned a mile wide.

“No, I’m just uncomfortable around strange people.“

“That’s one way to mutually end a conversation.”  

“I’m sorry, it’s just if I keep talking to you I'm gonna miss—“

And that’s when my train left.

Apparently, Amtrak didn’t care that I’d nearly killed myself trying to board; they just chugged their merry way out of the station. Perfect.

 “Son of a beach ball!”

I didn’t realize how loud I’d shouted until three or four passer-bys made a point to stare at me. Stares I don’t really mind but, getting laughed at bothers me, and Caleb couldn’t seem to stop himself. My cheeks lit up like an electric stove.  

“If it makes you feel any better, you’re not the only one who missed a train this morning. Misery loves company. ”

There was that smirk again.

“And two’s a crowd," I came off more snarky then I wanted to, but he didn't seem to mind.

"Look, Caleb I really appreciate you helping but if you don’t mind I—"

Out of the blue, he picked up my duffle bag and purse, ran back towards the station, and eventually zipped out of sight.

“Perfect. Stranded and mugged. At this rate I’ll make tomorrow’s headlines, ‘Hailey Anderson, 18, dies of gangrene infection after cutting foot on train platform. Mother devastated, Father refuses to attend memorial service. Her belongings were never found,”

It took me a minute or two to realize it, but Caleb, who’d returned from God knows where, was staring at me like I was some sort of crazed, caged animal. He’d come back with a luggage cart sometime in between my accusing him of being a thief and my monologue.

“I won’t ask,” he said, ogling me with the kind of sympathy specially reserved for nut jobs.

“It’s probably best not to. Thanks for the cart but I think I can handle it from here.”

Prouder than I should have been, I tried pushing the bag buggy back to the station, but limping wasn’t conducive to much progress. The guy’s eyes had a fifty-foot creep zone, and it felt like he was watching me struggle all the way down the platform. Call me paranoid, but I really couldn’t figure out whether his intrigue was something I should be frightened of or flattered by.

I shifted my focus down to my throbbing, mangled excuse for a foot. I’d spent so much time being flustered over missing my train that I hadn’t noticed how much I’d been bleeding. Apparently, I’d been trailing little red swimming pools across the concrete. All of a sudden I started to feel like JELL-O. Most people call it squeamishness, I call it the “JELL-Os”, but either way the sight of blood all over the place got the best of me, and I leaned into a concrete pillar to keep myself from falling.

If you’ve ever been to an amusement park and gotten off the Tilt-a-whirl dizzier than a sloppy drunk, you’ll understand how I felt. Trying to keep my eyes open was useless, and closing them didn’t stop the spinning. Somewhere  between nausea and vertigo I thought I heard someone’s shoes hitting the pavement right behind me, just before I toppled over backwards.

And he caught me.

He really caught me, and I swooned a little because I kind of felt like Ginger Rodgers for a second.

It was only a second, but it was different.

Once I realized how progressively crazy I must’ve looked, I got over it, quick. I couldn’t balance well enough on my own to walk yet, so he carried me back to the cart and sat me down on top of my luggage.

“This is a little unorthodox,” I said. He didn’t look like he was listening.

 “Me wheeling you around on a cart is pretty normal compared to running around the city without any shoes on.”

He plopped down by my foot, and pulled out a bloody glass shard the size of a quarter. What a grade A day this had started out to be.

“I took the bus most of the way here, the shoeless thing was just me being forgetful.”

“ You’re a mass transit type of girl? You don’t look it.”

“Not at all, my Dad’s driver usually takes me everywhere.”

He rolled his eyes at me, and I wanted to smack him for it. I don’t know who he thought he was, but I didn’t like him making me feel like a priss.

Maybe I am—I don’t know.

But I wasn’t going to admit it, not to him at least. 

“Well ‘la-di-da’. Is your chauffer on strike today or just taking the weekend off?”

“I’m on strike, actually. If you haven’t heard I’m the newly self-elected president of the anti-senator’s league.”

I thought the name was pretty clever, and from the looks of it, Caleb did too.

“Well, that’s an unexpected thing we have in common. What’s your beef?”

I’d caught his interest, and that felt pretty cool for a second or two.

“I walked in on my dad screwing some underage intern in my house earlier this morning.”

His nose crumpled like an eight year old’s.

“Sounds like father of the year.”

“Well, daughters can’t be choosers.”

He stifled a laugh, but I think he knew where I was coming from.

            “Did you say anything to them?”

            “No, but I shot him. Well, I hit a box of cornflakes first and then I nicked him in the ass.”

            Caleb burst out laughing. At first, I wondered if laughing about the whole thing made me crummy person, but Caleb thought it was so ridiculous that I realized maybe it was alright to loosen up a little. Maybe it was okay to feel a little less guilty, ‘cause if I didn’t soon I would’ve gotten really depressed about how bad things were.

“Where were you headed when we ran into each other, sharpshooter?”

“Charlottesville, my mom’s down there.”

“That’s a nice area. My Dad’s out in Prince William County, but I haven’t been back there in couple years though.”

He lost himself in a thought. My iphone started buzzing.

“Alert Issued for Washington Metropolitan Area at 7:00 AM. Hailey Anderson, 18. Potentially armed and dangerous. Last seen at Chevy Chase Residence at 6:30 AM. Officers on full alert at Amtrak Union Station.”

My Dad had taken our relationship to a new low.

“Well, that’s great.” I said, trying to swallow the bile curdling in the back of my throat.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing really. My dad just sent the police out to arrest me is all.”

“That’s a little extreme. Had it been my Pops I’d walked in on, I would’ve killed him. You’re a better person than I would’ve been.."

What he said unsettled me because for a minute or two, he looked like he meant it.  But I would’ve taken Caleb’s weird statements over the Amtrak police tearing down the platform in my direction. The two of them flashed a Xeroxed photo of me to a couple people waiting around for the next southbound train.

“Thanks for talking with me Caleb but—”

“Are you going somewhere?”

“Prison, apparently.”

“Not if you don’t want to.”

When he said that, as crazy as it sounded, it didn’t seem like a bad idea. Well, technically it was ridiculous, but getting arrested for being freaked out about my dad cheating on my mom sounded more ridiculous. I thought about college, and how they’d take back my acceptance when they heard that I shot my dad, and how my scholarship that would go to some other overachiever who got straight A’s. But then I looked at Caleb, this rough around the rims guy who didn’t look like he cared about straight A’s or college, or too much of anything, and I thought, “screw it”.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“Do you have a jacket, hoodie, or something like that in your bag?”

I pointed at my duffle, he opened it, and pulled out my high school soccer sweatshirt. He flipped it around so the back was facing him and read my monogram “H. ANDERSON” out loud.

“Really, Hailey?”

“Sorry, next time I’ll make sure to pack my fugitive clothes.”

Caleb grinned a little, and then started running with the cart in the opposite direction of the cops.

“Just put it on inside out and no one will notice.”

He was smarter than he looked. I shoved my head into the sweatshirt and fidgeted my way through until I found my way out. Right as we zipped into the main part of the station, this heavy-set Amtrak staff woman starting yelling at us to stop—but we didn’t care too much.

 “Excuse me! Young man! You can’t run in here with that baggage cart! And tell your girlfriend to get off the front! ”

We zoomed right past her. I was so nervous before we did it because I’m usually someone who follows rules pretty well. I’m also usually someone who doesn’t shoot people.

But today was different.

I was different, and I liked the potential.

The main hall of the station buzzed with passengers and police who were searching the crowd for my face. Oddly enough, I'd managed to keep myself fairly well hidden for a girl in a gaudy red sports hoodie. Well, at least I thought so, until we noticed the cops questioning everyone coming in and out of the Massachusetts Ave. exit. I didn’t have a shot if we tried to go out that direction, so we changed our plan.

“Well, this sucks.”

“Are you sure you didn’t kill the guy, Hailey? The Pentagon's practically out for you.”

“My dad’s a drama queen.”

“It’s probably genetic.”

I hit him that time. He deserved it.

My phone started ringing from somewhere inside my purse, and the longer it took me to find it, the more I panicked. When I panic, I get kind of weird, like wave-my-hands-all-over-the-place weird. A couple people started staring at me, and Caleb looked nervous ‘cause the way I was carrying on, we both were gonna get arrested.

So he picked up my purse, dumped practically everything I own on the floor, picked up my wallet and phone, and kept walking.

“What the hell was that?” I said.

“Which is more important to you, your bag or getting out of here?”

“That bag was expensive—does Prada mean anything to you?”

“Not really. Spoiled, maybe?”

I didn’t have much to say to him after that, mainly because I’d never been talked to that way.

“How do you turn your phone off? Is it Prada too?”

Apparently, Caleb hadn’t seen an iphone before, and to tell you the truth, at that moment I don’t know if we were from the same planet.

“Hold down the button at the top.”

He did, then pocketed my phone and tossed my wallet to me.  I felt weird about that, but I let it slide. I had bigger things to worry about.

Caleb and I doubled back, and the Amtrak woman we’d seen earlier was pointing three MPDC officers in our direction.

“Trouble at 3 o’clock.”

Caleb motioned to the cops, then dropped down to the floor and began rummaging through my bag a second time. He pulled out a gym sock and tied it around my foot.

“Get ready to start walking your highness.”

I didn’t have much of a choice.

The two of us were running out of time to figure out an escape route sans security check. Mid-search, an announcement was made over the PA system that put the whole station on alert for my whereabouts. I wanted to stop walking, sit down, and disappear into the crowd. But I couldn’t do that anymore. Every Hudson newsstand we passed had my face and Caleb’s plastered all over the seven o’clock news. Someone must’ve snapped a photo of us on the platform.

“Caleb, look!”

I started freaking out again. He glanced over at the television, and picked up his pace.

“Stay close.”

We pushed through a crowd of what had to be over a hundred people to try to keep off the radar. I kept my head down, hoping I wouldn’t be recognized by a wary stranger or bypassing officer.

I spotted a German Shepherd moving through the masses just a few feet away. I grabbed Caleb tight enough for my palms to pale. The dog stopped, whipped it’s head in our direction, and took in the scent of the blood trailing from my feet. The Shepherd pulled away from its leash began barking wildly, thrilled at the excitement of the hunt, and Caleb broke into a sprint. The crowd split down the middle, revealing our position, and the officer gave chase, barking orders into his radio as he ran.

We broke away from the police and ended up in the west wing of the station, our last option for a corridor with an unmanned exit. Caleb darted over to a line of telephone booths on the adjacent wall and pushed me in between the silver slabs to keep me out of sight.

“Get rid of that hoodie!” 

I pulled it up over my ears, handed it to him, and he tossed it into the nearest trash bin. He took off his t-shirt and gave it to me to wear over my clothes, then pulled down his undershirt to hide what looked like half-faded scars on his body. He pulled two beanies out of his back pocket and put one on and handed me the second.

“Take your hair down.”

I did as he asked, and let my wavy brown monster loose. He stared at me and an uncomfortable silence settled in. The optimist in me wanted him to be a new age prince charming; but all the while I was blind to the extent of danger I was in.

It was quiet for a long while before the Shepherd’s barking echoed through the corridor. Caleb pinned me to the booth to keep me out of sight. I couldn’t believe how close he was. His breathing was slow and labored, each breath falling down on me, tussling my bangs back and forth.  

The heat between us was electric, and for the first time that morning I felt alive—really alive, like the girls in the movies with the wind in their hair and their problems behind them. Maybe he was my escape. God knows I needed one.

“Do you trust me to keep you safe?”

 His eyes were wild enough to frighten me. I choked on an answer. He turned around to see the police running in our direction, and then reached into his pocket and shoved something under his tongue.

“Hailey!”

 I looked back at him; stupidly confident in his character, and nodded.

He kissed and cut my lips with his teeth, staining them as he pushed me back against the booth. The tip of his tongue was bitter.

I squirmed to pull away, and something dissolvable disappeared into my taste buds. Caleb held me steady, forcing the kiss until I settled into an unnatural calm.

            Something felt wrong.

My muscles went to Jell-O, my legs gave out from under me, and I clung to Caleb to keep myself upright. I looked up at him mortified, searching for any honesty in his eyes but he averted them. I dug my nails into the length of his back, hoping to keep from collapsing under my own weight.

“You’re too quick to trust, Hailey—and if you’re not careful, that’ll be what gets you killed.”