Delayed by Nathan Kingsly (best manga ereader txt) 📕

comes from down the hall, the same little girl from the other day clutched in the arms of a woman I can only presume is her mom. Even with her still round child-like features, they look so similar. The glaring differences were their expressions. The girl wears a smile, and her mom’s eyes are big and weary, mouth agape, ready to scream. Unfortunately, I don’t have the patience to reassure them. Sighing, I give them my back, head down the hall, then down the stairs before I make it to the lobby.

I’m so distracted that I only now identify the low hum as voices. Only a few steps and a corner separate me from the packed hive of people out there. After this morning's events, I'm more anxious than normal, more exposed. I feel insane, locked in this reel of reactions that I can’t seem to cut or unspool. I’d gotten a taste of how it could be while with Emma, and now that it's ripped away I’m close to a breaking point that’s been coming for years.

Anyone else could walk out there and be oblivious to the possibilities and potential danger. I would give anything to be ignorant. My fists clench at my sides, ready to let out my frustration on the nearest wall, but it wouldn’t do me any good to fuck up both hands. Instead, my back hits the wall, and I slide down until my ass connects with the floor. My hands, grabbing my bag in front of my bent legs. Closing my eyes, my head thuds against the wall, and I try to regulate my breathing.

“Wh...”

My eyes jerk open at the same time I press myself harder into the wall.

“Darn it all. I did it again.” That older woman stands over me, and her lips twist as she stares. “I’m sorry, hun, I don’t ...” She gasps, the extra skin on her neck trying to follow the sway of her head as she shakes it. “What happened to your hand?” She reaches, but I hold onto my luggage harder.

“Nothing.” My voice hardly sounds like my own. It’s rough like sandpaper against my eardrums.

She stands tall again, her hands going to her hips, and my chest aches, remembering how Emma had done the same thing. “I may be old, but I’m not blind. That, young man, is not nothing.”

She gives me her back as she starts to walk away. Before she disappears around the corner, she calls over her shoulder, “Get up and follow.” I debate brushing her off. I’ve had many years of practice doing that to others.

A giggle interrupts my inner debate, and I look up to see the little girl again. How I would love to be carefree like that? Her mom has her pressed up against her side. Fear appears in her eyes as she looks between me and the hall that will lead her to the crowd. I’ve never struck a woman in my life, but the way she’s watching me, it’s something she believes me capable of. The bruising on her slender arm and the fading grey under one eye is evidence enough why.

She understands what’s going on in my head because she too knows the world is cruel.

She flinches and curls away, shielding her daughter as I stand. Waving a non-threatening hand, but when her eyes grow even wider, I realize it’s my scrapped one and know what she must think.

“Look, I’m sorry if I scared you back there. I’ve had a rough morning.” I grab the back of my neck and rub at the muscles tightening there. “I can tell you’ve had it rough too.” My hand glides over the top of my head and drops at my side. “I’ll get out of your way.” I shouldn’t, but it needs to be said. “If not for you, but for your daughter, I hope you’ve left him.” In the second I say ‘him,’ her eyes see me. There’s a lifetime of pain in those whiskey eyes. We may not share the same pain, but pain is universal. She gives me a small nod, and I give her a small smile.

As I promised, I walk down the hall and out of their way. My body grows stiff with awareness as I get closer to the lobby. My goal, however, is already standing at the end where the wall falls away into the lobby—her wrinkled hand holding a small floral bag.

“Glad I didn’t need to grab you off the floor. I’m too old to do that now. When I say follow me this time, I mean it.” She stares up at me like she’s the one that’s taller and waits for my nod before walking off again.

We step inside the conference room they set up for Subway the first day. After she takes a seat, she gestures for me to take my own. She grabs my injured hand before I’ve even sat all the way in the chair. “Figured you’d be more comfortable in here. You’re as guarded as my husband when he first came home from the war.”

“Where is your husband?”

“I could ask the same about your wife. You didn’t do this by hitting her, did you?” Her grip tightens, and my mouth twists in pain. She peers up at me with no remorse, and it’s now I find she has eyes of faded blue jeans that have more steel in them than most men.

“I’d never hit a woman. As for where my wife is, I don’t know.” I say honestly.

The wrinkles around those blues increase with her smile as she loosens her grip but then pokes a few more times around my knuckles. It's possible her husband showed her some techniques for torture.

She nods as she shifts through her little bag of who knows what. “My husband is at home. We started to take one vacation a year without one another. It all started when we couldn’t decide between France and Ireland.” She puts some Neosporin on the table,