Page 10 (1/2)

New York City better get used to my face I was here to stay

I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t call At the very least, parents should call on a girl’s birthday She shouldn’t spend it huddled in a corner of a crowded bar, pretending to be happy She should be able to have one real conversation with so She shouldn’t have to sloves from her best friends when all she really wanted was her cell phone bill to be paid

The s He nodded, pushing them aside, and reached for my watch, a sixteenth birthday present froe of my pinky, my nails nude for the first time in years I’d tried to paint them myself, the result a disaster--dark purple polish that looked like it’d been applied by a child, as much off my nails as on

"You have a receipt for any of this stuff?" The man peered at me, suspicion in the worn lines of his face, the contents ofthe velvet surface before hi theCasio watches, for God’s sake He should be tripping over hi I’d keep a pair of diaraduation Kept an e with a handful of other senti else, sadly, was here In this di their inventory of jewelry An upscale jeweler had beena hefty sixty percent cut, and I had needed cash now So there I was, in my first visit to a pawnshop, and hopefully, ive you four thousand" Theover s

"What?" I stared down at my pieces, several of them worth that alone "That’s ridiculous" Panic welled innot to lose s were easily ten grand, and I just got them last month"

"This is a pawn shop" He looked at ot to h to sell" He lifted up"Notfor pieces like this"

Glancing at his other inventory, I believed thefor the watch, and he handed it back I studied the face of it, thinking of the day I received it, then glanced back up at hi the watch onit "Without the watch That’s more than fair"

"Forty-five hundred Cash"

"Okay" I nodded without looking at hi of the apartment I so desperately wanted I didn’t have to sell these toso wouldand soreed upon, the rest was quick He inventoried my items, wrote out a receipt, and counted out a stack of hundreds I pulled my wallet out and passed overhim count out the bills, my chest loosened He put it all neatly in an envelope, one too thick to fit in my other jacket pocket I stuffed it in my purse, carefully zipped it shut, and was out the front door, steps quick and happy, feeling rich for the first tiht and I stopped in theout my phone to find an Uber

The shove was brutal, square in thefro the sidewalk hard, a gasp of pain all I could , an Alexander McQueen, was jerked arenching my shoulder in the process, my shout of protest taken by the wind

The asshole wore a brown jacket and had dark hair That was the only thing I saw as I hobbled to e of h the crowd, then rounded a corner and was gone

I yelled, I pointed, and was ignored, the crowd retful frown as she stepped past I stared after hione Just like that One , like the hundreds that happened every day It wasn’t worth a call to the police; I hadn’t even gotten a gli out of the pawnshop with a giant smile on my face I should have had Dante drive me I should have worn sweat pants and a fanny pack I should have just sold the stuff on eBay like Caested