Without A Glance by N.L.Gallagher (free e reader .txt) 📕

up on my stomach and my feet tucked upwards, touching the back of my thighs. The log was very large in size. I curled my hands into fists tightly, feeling the blood rush towards my fingertips quickly when I uncurl them. I heard a crunch off to my left and cringed involuntary. I closed my eyes tightly, looked away and held my breath as though the person had super hearing and could hear my breathing. I waited a couple of moments then heard a whimper and a scurry of running footsteps. I hesitated before poking my head outside and looking around. I let out a deep breath and turned into big pair of hairy arms. I screamed and tried to run away but I couldn’t move. The arms held me down as I tried to fight back. I struggled and whimpered when they punched me in the stomach, the breath whooshing out of me.
I heard voices saying rude and mean things about me. I wanted to just drop kick them but I am in the most unfortunate position now. I cursed as they hit me again. Then it went black.

The day came back, rushing towards her in a wave of emotion. She tried to fight of the tears that came to her eyes but her will power

She had been running down the street with her beau Charlie Dubbrey, and was in a content state of mind. The day was sunny and beautiful, and the birds were chirping happily. It was your dream day, so unreal, it was almost tacky. She looked over at Charlie, who was beaming at her. She remembered grinning madly back and saying that she loved him more than anything. They kissed and she broke it first and sprinted off gaily in the middle of the unoccupied road, looking over her shoulder once to see him just standing there with a smile on his face. He jogged towards her, his movements’ fluid. He looked down and when he looked back up, his whole face changed completely. Suddenly he was running, faster than she’d ever seen and pushed her out of the way, her face hitting the ground and scraping off skin. The pain in her cheek was like a mosquito bite compared to what she heard next.
Next thing she knew there was a horrifying sound of a metal hitting flesh and she cried out. She reached out for him and tried to go to him but she found that she couldn’t. She looked down at her leg and noticed that it was twisted at an unusual angle. She looked at Charlie’s ghastly appearance that used to be a beautiful face that made her legs weak. She got her arms ready and began to crawl towards him. When she reached him, at first she just looked at him. She touched his face, feeling the pain in her abdomen go into overdrive as she looks at him. She saw his eyes flutter open a little bit and hope filled her whole being. Please be okay, please be okay, she chanted. He looked straight at her and said the last words he’ll ever say.
“I love you, Trinity.” He whispered before the light behind his eyes dulled then was gone. She pulled on his hands, bawling in anguish. She knew that he was gone but didn’t want to admit it. She knew that she would always be different now but she didn’t care. She’d loved him and he returned her feelings. The pain on her face was throbbing now, but not nearly as hard as her heart. It felt like she was about to burst.

“Ma’am, are you okay?” someone asked.

She hadn’t even realized that she was crying.

She looked up and said. “I’m fine, thank you.”

The man was about 4 inches taller than her own frame, which was 5’9. He had really dark brown hair and hazel eyes. He wore that day a very sharp suit that seemed to fit his very muscular frame well. He walked and stood with a confidence, unlike her. She slouched and flinched from any stare. Especially, his own stare that felt as though he could look through her soul and see her pain.

“Come on, let’s go somewhere more private.” He reached for her and she jumped to her feet and away from his touch. She glared at him and seethed.

“I’m not a prostitute, so anything you got in your mind, is not happening. So if you think you’re getting anything from me, you can just go away now.”

He laughed amused by the thought and even as he rubbed his forehead, the back of his ears turned beet red.

She looked at him and huffed in disgust, as though he were foolish. She wasn’t a charity and wouldn’t be treated as though she were. When she told him this, he seemed to be contemplative over the idea.

He rolled his eyes and it only struck her then that he was playing around with her. He was just like a child! She walked away from him, not bothering to hold back the rage as it showed clearly in her stride. She heard him snicker and walk in the other direction. Fine, she didn’t care. He was childish anyways.

But she couldn’t help but look back at him as he walked away. His steps were agile and precise as though he was thinking about how exactly to walk. He seemed absorbed in his own thoughts so when he looked over his shoulder, she was totally surprised. She stumbled a little in her walk so she turned back around to focus on her steps. That was the longest conversation she’d had with anyone since the accident. She didn’t want to admit but she had been lonely over the grieving four years. She turned the first corner, walked in a normal pace again. She walked with a very slight limp on her left leg, and a scar marking that day when her life completely changed. She was very beautiful and stood out among the crowd of the people around her. She coughed, spitting out phlegm and a little blood. She knew that she was sick; she could hardly fall asleep at night, she coughed so badly.
Usually she slept with the homeless people and always cried when she woke up and saw that something was gone from her little bit of what she had. She almost turned around to take the man offer but her stubbornness was too much too handle, so she turned and just kept on walking.
. . .
“What do you want with me?” Kayden Reynolds asked.
“Oh shut up, you big baby.” She said playfully.
He was sitting in his chair, looking at his flirtatious boss, Sandra Kelly, who was just telling him that she thought that he deserves a raise because he works so hard. But he was beyond caring at this point. He was dressed nicely today; he could see her thinking it as he met her eyes. She was beautiful, yes, but simply not his type. She was too desperate. He didn’t like the type that just threw themselves at him, he liked a challenge. Make his life more interesting. He looked at his watch, feeling like a fidgety kid in school, yearning to be free of the torment of being caged in. He tuned in for a second to see if she was done talking yet. That’s another unappealing thing about some women, they can talk for ages.
He smirked, wondering if they talk even in their sleep. Maybe even when they are dead and buried, they still babble on and on. Mostly about themselves. He was snapped out of his thoughts when a primped, manicured, never-worked-a-day-in-my-life hand waved in his face. Sandra was bending over him, her face inches from his. It was sickening. He jumped out of his chair, and ran out of the room, sprinting away and out of the building. He ran into many people but never stopped. He should have went to his car and gone home but knew that he needed to just take a walk. He doesn’t how long he walked, but soon he found himself in the poorest part of town. This place was a complete wasteland.
He looked around, taking in his surroundings. He saw homeless people and drug dealers and addicts. He shuddered, remembering when he was like that. He shook his head and turned to leave, but saw a flash of red out of the corner of his eyes. He looked over and saw a girl – a woman. She was small and had a head full of red hair that seemed like the only clean thing there was about her. She walked with a limp and had a scar running down her cheek and was dirty. She was pretty though. You know in that rugged sort of way. She looked sad- No, she looks miserable. She sat at the bus stop quietly, looking at all of the people passing by, and then he saw her eyes glaze over and tears stained her face and made the dirt smudges, mud smudges. He walked over to her confidently and then crumpled when he looked down and asked her what’s wrong and she looked at him with the saddest look he’d ever seen.
“I’m fine, thank you.” She said in a soft high pitched voice. Then he asked if she wanted to go somewhere private, to discuss what was wrong with her and offer her a bath and room at his house. But what happened next threw him off.
“I’m not a prostitute, so anything you got in your mind, is not happening. So if you think you’re getting anything from me, you can just go away now.”
He laughed, embarrassed that she thought he wanted to do anything of that with her.
“I had no intention of doing what so ever with someone in your sorts. I simply want to help you. Maybe give you some food and some clothes.” He stepped closer to her and said, as he wrinkled his involuntary nose in disgust. “A bath wouldn’t be a bad idea either.”
He doesn’t think she realized it but she’d just huffed in disgust at him and started to tap her foot impatiently, but he saw behind her façade. She was hurt over something.
“I’m not charity and I won’t be treated as such.” She said.
He pretended to contemplate over the statement and then he rolled his eyes to show her he was kidding around, but she huffed again, and turned and walked away. He snickered though he was perturbed over the fact that he just got turned down by a homeless woman. He smacked his head as he walked away, angry at himself for being so stupid. The woman was hurting and –Wait, had he seriously sunk so low. But he still couldn’t help himself from looking over his shoulder at the woman and cursed at himself again when he met her eye again. Her eyes were a light gray. He watched as she turned away again, hastily. He nearly tripped over a tree branch as he continued to watch her back, even as she disappeared in the crowd, he still looked for her. Until he was sure that she was gone from his sights, he continued on his way. One footstep at a time.

. . .
She was tired and sick of being homeless. She was tired of the other unfortunate to take all of her stuff and run off. She walks to the north, taking a path, all too familiar to her from her old life.