Taking a walk through the city every morning had become a sort of routine for Benjamin Nicholas Logan. He just woke up and did it. He never really thought about it anymore, never thought about what time he was going to get up, whether or not he was going to eat breakfast beforehand. But it helped him to clear his head and think about what he really needed and wanted to.

Ben would think about all kinds of things when he took his walks. He’d think about his job down at the gas station; he’d think about how he was planning on saving up money for a small flat-screen TV; he’d think about how he was about to pass level 56 on one of his favorite X-Box games. He’d think about whatever. But the point is, he’d think. Most people didn’t take the time to seriously think about their lives and what they were doing or going to do, or the reasons why they were going to do something. Ben did.

And so it was that he was walking down the street, thinking about the fact that he had to work eight hours today, but he might work a little overtime just because he had no other pressing matters to attend to that day, when it happened.

- - -

Ben laced his fingers together and rested his arms behind his head as he walked along the empty New York sidewalk. He sighed and leaned his head back, tilting his face toward the sky. He loved the feeling of the sun on his face. He didn’t know why, he just did. For some reason, whenever he got up to go for his walk each morning, he just got a sudden urge to just lay back and soak up the sun. And so he did.

“…ggggaaaahhhhhhh!!!!”—crash—“…stupid can…”

Ben stopped suddenly when he heard a loud noise; a sort of tinny sound, followed by a clanging. Like aluminum; a can, maybe. Slowly, he turned to look down the alley he had just been about to pass.

That’s when he saw her. Standing in the middle of the alley. Suddenly, she pulled back and kicked an empty Coke can up against the opposite wall, where it rebounded and came back to land once again at her feet. She cursed at the can, and was about to kick it again, but stopped herself. At that point, she backed up until she bumped into the red-brick building behind her. Ben watched as the girl angrily slid down the wall until she was sitting on the alley’s littered pavement. Something metallic and shiny in her hands. He frowned.

Slipping his hands into the pockets of his jeans, Ben started down the alley toward the girl.

“…do it,” he heard her say, “Just pull it.”

He saw her raise the gun to her temple. It wavered there, never really staying still. Then she lowered it again. She held it in her lap, looking down at it.

“Hey.”

His voice must have startled her, because she turned quickly, her eyes wide. When she saw him, though, she relaxed and turned back around to look down at the gun in her hands.

Ben stood above her, looking down at her. “Can I ask what you’re doing?”

“You can ask,” she said, “but there’s no guarantee I’m going to answer you.”

“Well, then, do you mind if I sit down, too?” he asked.

She waved her hand around beside her in a sort of be-my-guest gesture.

“Thanks.” Ben sat down beside the girl and crossed his arms. He leaned back up against the building behind him and tilted his head to look sideways at her. Her hair fell just past her shoulders, and although at first glance, he thought her hair was closer to chestnut, when he looked closer, it turns out he couldn’t have been more wrong. It seemed to be made up of nearly every color imaginable; all sorts of darks and lights; tan, dark brown, maybe even a little strawberry-blonde. She had a nice, fair complexion, not too tan and not overly pale. Her eyes were a great contrast to his though. Whereas his eyes were a simple dark brown, hers were more of an emerald green. And as Ben hoped to find the girl smiling and her eyes filled with happiness, he only found frowns and desperation. There was no joy in her eyes, in her facial expression, no matter how hard she tried to hide it.

Ben supposed that she probably wasn’t the type of girl you’d find walking down a cat-walk in California or the kind of girl who fashion designers would be following after to get her to wear their clothes. Most people would think of her as simply average, but the way he saw her, she was beautiful. Very. Which is why he didn’t understand why she was sitting in a dirty New York alley arguing with herself to pull the trigger on a gun already and end everything.

He was silent for a moment, but then he asked, “What’s your name?”

“Like I’m gonna tell you,” she said, a bit of an edge to her voice. She paused. “Why do you want to know, anyway?” She looked sideways at him, and he could tell by the look in her eyes that she didn’t exactly trust him.

He took a deep breath. “Well,” he said, “if I’m going to sit here and talk to you, I’d like to know what I can call you.”

“Who says I want you to sit here and talk to me?”

“Who says I don’t want to sit here and talk to you?”

The girl’s mouth dropped open, to once again come back with a witty response, but she couldn’t seem to find one. She angrily clamped her mouth shut, and turned away from him. Why did this guy insist on talking to her? It’s not like she asked him to. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone and get back to his own, likely pathetic, life? When she turned back around, she said, “Why would you want to talk to me, anyway?”

Ben straightened up and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his crossed legs. “You look like you need someone to talk to,” he said simply.

“Yeah, well, I don’t,” the girl snapped, her voice absolutely dripping with animosity and bitterness, “so you’re just wasting your time.”

“I don’t think I am.”

“You know, I’m not going to talk to you, or anyone else for that matter, so, yes, you are wasting your time thinking that I need someone to talk to. So, you can just leave now and forget you ever saw me, or I’m going to leave and do my business somewhere else. No one asked you to wake up this morning and come talk to me, and you’re really starting to tick me off.”

“You’re the one who said I could sit down.”

“Yeah, and I’ve regretted it ever since.”

Ben sighed. This girl really acted like she didn’t want him there. But he wasn’t going to leave her there on her own, knowing that moments before he got there, she had been about to blow her brains all over the pavement and building behind her. They were both quiet for a few minutes, looking at each other.

“Why did you want to kill yourself?” he asked.

“Who says I wanted to kill myself?”

“Well, just look at yourself!” he said. “Here you are, hanging around in a New York alley; not to mention with a gun in your hands! I mean, come on! The only people that ever hang around in empty alleys—in New York of all places!—either have to be crazy, homicidal, or suicidal. Psychos and killers. And you seem pretty sober to me right now, not crazy; also, the fact that you were the only one here rules out the ‘homicidal’ part. Which only leaves suicidal.” Ben nodded his head toward the gun in the girl’s lap. “And you’ve got a gun right there. One that you were, not moments ago, arguing with yourself to pull the trigger on. But… you didn’t.”

The girl’s eyes fell upon the gun in her hands and she stared fixedly at it.

“You couldn’t,” Ben said softly. “Why?”

“You know, for a guy I just met, you sure do ask a lot of questions.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I suppose I do,” he said. “But, really. What’s going on?”

The girl was silent, and that alone was enough to tell him that all in her personal life wasn’t going the way she wanted it to.

“It’s ok,” Ben said, nodding as if he understood, “if you don’t want to tell me. Sometimes people just have to think about things, about what they’re going to do or say, before they actually do or say anything at all.” With that, he pulled himself to his feet and dusted the dirt off the back of his jeans. Then he took a small slip of paper from one of his pockets and a pen and wrote a few things down. He held the slip of paper out to the girl, and she looked up at him, hesitating. After a moment, she took the paper, and without looking at it, shoved it into her own pocket. When she looked up again, he was still holding his hand out. She sat there, unmoving for a full minute, but eventually reached out tentatively; gradually taking his hand to let him help her up.

After helping the girl to her feet, Ben’s gaze lingered on her face. Then he glanced down at the gun still in her hand. Without further words, he gave her a smile and nodded his head in farewell. Ben walked away from her, back toward the street to resume his daily walk, hands in his pockets.

The girl watched him walk off. As if she hadn’t been confused enough about her life before she met him. Now this complete stranger had come into her life and made her start to think about everything. His questions had made her think about things she really didn’t want to. Now she couldn’t stop thinking about everything in her life.

There was no way she’d be able to do now what she had been about to do when he had arrived. She had way too much on her mind now.

Just as he reached the sidewalk, she called out: “Kat.”

Ben stopped, mid-stride, and paused. Then he slowly turned back around and looked at the girl. She seemed restless now, anxious, maybe. She was holding the gun in both hands, moving it around as if she weren’t sure she wanted to use it anymore. And he could tell by her voice and the expression on her face that even though she was trying to hide it, she was thinking about other things now and the idea of suicide could wait. She was biting her bottom lip and trying to look directly at him.

Smiling, he chuckled. “Kat,” he repeated. “I like it.” Then he resumed his walk down the street. But before he had gone two steps, he called back over his shoulder: “Ben,” then went on his way down the street, leaving behind the alley in which Kat still stood.

- - -

Kat stood there for another few minutes. She looked down at the gun in her hand, turning it over, feeling its cold, hard surface on her skin, feeling the weight of it in her hand. Then she opened up her jacket and slipped the gun in so that it fit comfortably against her side, yet also so that the shape of it wouldn’t be visible through the material.

Kat zipped up her jacket and went to stuff her hands in her pockets when she felt something in her palm. She pulled the slip of paper out, having already forgotten it, and looked down at it, wondering what it said.


If you ever need someone to talk to:
213-397-4213
-Ben-