Chapter Text
I don’t know why it bothered me.
I don’t think of myself as pretentious by any means, however, if someone tells me I’m the best at my job, I’m not gonna argue with them. I don’t find myself above the law, I don’t look down on someone with a lower paygrade.
I had been here a million times, the same thing every day. I walk up to the counter, get my usual latte, and I sit here with my current book for a solid half-hour. That’s just my every day, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.
I am trained to see the small details, any some sort of movement from the corner of my eye, I’m supposed to see it and then assess the situation. I do what I have been trained to do my whole life, I make a decision based on the small details and then I hope to God that I made the right one. At that point everything is on the line. I don’t have the option to redo it, it’s not a practice, I have to go all out. This is just my life.
Any other day I would have ignored it, but I guess the universe didn’t want me to. When I saw her, she was just walking out of the café bathroom. Fixing her shirt, she walked up to the counter. She seemed kind of timid at first. Being what I am, I am also trained to hear the smallest of sounds, so when she spoke to the young man behind the register, I managed to hear every word.
As quietly and discreetly as she could, she asked how much a sandwich was. The cashier told her it was somewhere around $5.50, then she nodded and thanked him. I then I heard her ask what time the café closed. The cashier smiled slightly and then said it closed around 9:00pm.
I hear many conversations every day, this should have just been added to another one of those, but for some reason this was different. I picked up on a certain shyness in her voice.
The girl thanked the cashier again before scurrying outside and walking just to the left of the door. I still don’t know why it bothered me so much. It was just another conversation that I had overheard in my favorite café. I hear conversations from cheating wives to someone losing their job because they swear where their boss is out to get them at this café. This was just another one of those right?
You know how sometimes you get this weird feeling in your gut? Like, you have to do something and you feel it in the core of your being. Well, I had one of those right now. I watched out of the corner of my eye as the young girl kept her head down and winced slightly at the cold weather outside. It was none of my business, but I kept watching her. I guess now I’m glad I did. As she walked out of the café I saw her take a small piece of cardboard out of her backpack. She sat down and with a sigh pulled the cardboard in front of her chest. She seemed to be ready for another long night.
And that’s when it hit me, she wasn’t some cheapskate looking for an easy buy.
She was homeless… and she was starving.
Now that I think about it, she did look a little thin. She was also a little pale, but oddly enough, still sporting a slight suntan. Clearly she had been doing this for a while. Now, I’ve given to the poor plenty of times, given the few dollars to random stray, but something about her was different. I almost didn’t think it was real, I mean, she was so young. She had to be in her mid-twenties, definitely older than college student, but still bright-eyed and full of life. Could this really be her situation?
I guess so.
I sat and watched long after my coffee had gone cold, and she was still there. Every once in a while she would ask a passerby for a dollar or two, they would make up some excuse that she had heard before, and then they would go on their away. I watched that happen one too many times, but she never seemed disappointed. She would always look up at the strangers with a wide smile and finish off with, “God bless you”.
It was far past time for me to go home, but something kept me rooted in my seat. I had really only seen her distorted reflection in the giant windows when she walked out of the café earlier. There wasn’t a puppy dog look to make me feel guilty, she didn’t have any sadness in her voice to make me stay, I was just stuck.
She waited and I waited until the sun went down. It was about half hour to closing time, I should have been home by now, but I watched and waited for someone to give her some sort of sympathy. How was it that in a nice area like this, no one stopped to help her? It’s kind of funny, all growing up the world tells us to help the poor, but when the time comes around, we are told that we shouldn’t. We are told that they could use our money for bad things. Drugs, alcohol, you name it. Kind of ironic isn’t?
Be a good person, but only to the people that look like good people. The poor? No, not them, they could be bad. You don’t know them, you don’t know their intentions, stay away from them. That is what our parents, society, the media, and God knows who else has told us. Only help the people that you know, only help the people that we tell you to.
I had been raised this way, just like everyone else, but this one time it was different. When I heard her quiet voice through the small crowd, something in me twisted in the most painful way. She tried to hide it, but like I said, I’ve been trained to hear things. I could hear all of the hurt and feelings of inevitable disappointment in her voice. She wasn’t asking for pity, she was just prepared for the usual empty outcome. Something in me hurt for her, the heart I swear I didn’t have, bled for her.
It’s like someone had punched the in the gut, not exactly a feeling I enjoyed.
I had made up my mind, if no one else helped her, I would pay for the sandwich she wanted. I mean, I think that was what I was feeling? I have helped plenty of people before, but this one felt different, this was the first time that I had hurt for someone in a worse situation. This was the first time I had really felt empathy for someone I didn’t even know.
I kind of hated it.
I looked back up the clock on the wall above the door and saw that it was 15 minutes until closing time. A few people had stopped and told her that they didn’t have money, or some other bullshit excuse, and she simply smiled. With every smile, my soul hurt a little more. I kept telling myself not to get sucked in to this sweet innocent act that she had going, but couldn’t ignore the pull inside of me whenever her bright eyes looked up at another passerby.
I downed the rest of my cold coffee and stood up swiftly. Yes, I was going to act on my gut instinct. Part of me was surprised at myself, I had rarely ever done this.
I walked over to the counter and asked the cashier what she had asked for earlier. He said he didn’t know and didn’t seem too worried about it. I then told them that I would pay him and then send her in to let her order whenever she wanted, he could keep the change. He looked slightly puzzled, but then nodded and rang me up for a sandwich meal.
So that kicked off the hard part, or, the hard part for me. Now all I had to do was walk outside and tell her that I had bought her meal for one night. When I really thought about it, it didn’t seem like much, but it would at least give her a hot meal for tonight.
So, I gathered up my courage, and walked out the door. I had my perfect movie picture of what I was going to say in my head. I would walk up to her, shoulders back and chest out, and be some sort of hero to her. I would introduce myself and then tell her that I had graciously bought her a meal. That made me sound like a decent person right?
Sure.
When I approached her, I saw the faded scribble on her cardboard sign, to be honest I was so nervous that I didn’t even really read it.
In all of my confident glory, I marched up to her and forgot everything.
She looked up at me slowly and that’s when I finally saw her eyes. They were bright, just like I figured, but also questioning. I could tell that she wasn’t sure why I had walked up to her. So many people try to avoid people like her, so why did I prance right up to her?
That was a good question, again, I had completely forgotten why I had walked up to her by that point. In that moment, I had forgotten not only what I had done for her, but everything that the world had taught me about people in need. I could tell that she had not seen a warm place to sleep in weeks, she had not known very much kindness lately, and she had a thin layer of dirt that she was trying to hide.
As her face grew more confused, I guess it snapped me out of my thoughts.
“H-hi,” I stuttered out.
“Hi,” she said still slightly confused.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Kelley.” She answered quietly. Kelley, so that was the name of this young, intriguing, woman. Well, I guess it’s a good thing to know, now I can put a face to this bizarre feeling that I had.
“I’m Hope,” I say bending down and sticking out my hand out towards her. She slowly brings her hand into mine and gives me a strong handshake. She still has a confused look on her face, but she’s looking up at me with the most endearing amount of wonder.
“It’s nice to meet you.” I continue, my courage returning. “If you go inside and tell the cashier what you want, he’ll make it for you.”
Her eyes light up and she starts to get up, but then stops.
“Are you sure?” she hesitates.
I almost laughed, I guess I thought it was humorous, she thought I was joking. The look in her eyes told me that she was serious. I realized that maybe this had been a joke at one time to her by someone cruel. She was honestly asking if I was paying for her meal. I think that broke my heart the most.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” I answered.
She quickly jumped up from her spot and shoved her cardboard sign back into her backpack with a huge smile on her face. Not one of happiness, but one of relief.
“Thank you so much.” She said with a look of extreme gratitude. As I stood back up, I watched as her smile never left her face and she walked towards the café door.
“Have a good night.” I say as she looks back at me and smiles even bigger and throws back a, “you too”.
As I walked back to my car I smiled to myself, that felt oddly good for something that society deems as bad. As I sit my car, I watch as she excitedly tells the café cashier what she wants. She looks like a kid on Christmas morning as he makes her sandwich. Something warm settles in my chest, a feeling I’m not used to. Her smile never leaves her face as he wraps up her sandwich and she looks like she thinks him a million times.
My smile grows as I watch the exchange. I did the right thing, I don’t care what my parents taught me, I don’t care what society thinks, I know that I did the right thing by helping her. As much as I should move forward and write off what I did today, there’s a big part of me that doesn’t want to. This should just be another day in the exciting life of Hope Solo, but I find myself pining for something else. I find myself hoping that the next day will bring me a juvenile desire.
I hope she comes back tomorrow.