Heart Bones

And then there’s me. The girl who can’t afford a car or a vacation.

I don’t belong on this ferry, transporting these fancy cars full of fancy people who hold cameras like they’re as cheap as a MoonPie.

I look back up at the guy with the camera and he’s still staring at me, probably wondering what I’m doing on this ferry with all his people while I wear my faded clothes and sport my split ends and dirty fingernails and nasty secrets.

I look in front of me and see a door that leads to an enclosed area of the ferry. I dart for the door and duck inside. There’s a bathroom to my immediate right, so I retreat into it and lock the door behind me.

I stare at myself in the mirror. My face is flushed and I don’t know if it’s from the embarrassment or from this intense Texas heat.

I pull the rubber band out of my hair and try to comb through the messy strands with my fingers.

I can’t believe I look like this and I’m about to meet my father’s new family for the first time. They’re probably the type of women who go to salons to get their hair and nails done, and to doctors to smooth out their imperfections. They’re probably well-spoken and smell like gardenia.

I’m pasty and sweaty and smell like a mixture of mildew and grease from a McDonald’s deep fryer.

I toss the rest of my bread in the bathroom trash can.

I stare back at the mirror, but all I see is the saddest version of myself. Maybe losing my mother last night is affecting me more than I want to admit. Maybe my decision to call my father was made in haste, because I don’t want to be here.

But I don’t want to be there, either.

Right now, it’s just hard to be.

Period.

I pull my hair back up, sigh, and push open the door to the bathroom. It’s a heavy door made of thick steel, so it slams when it shuts behind me. I’m not even two steps from the bathroom when I pause because someone pushes off the wall of the tiny corridor and blocks my way to the exit.

I find myself looking into the impenetrable eyes of the guy with the camera. He’s looking back at me like he knew I was in the bathroom and he’s here with a purpose.

Now that I’m much closer to him, I think I was wrong about him being my age. He may be a few years older than me. Or maybe being rich just makes you seem older. There’s an air of confidence that surrounds him, and I swear it smells like money.

I don’t even know this guy, but I already know I dislike him.

I dislike him as much as I dislike the rest of them. This guy thinks it’s okay to take pictures of a poor girl during a slightly vulnerable and embarrassing moment, all the while holding his camera like a careless douchebag.

I try to take a step around him to get to the exit door, but he sidesteps and remains in front of me.

His eyes (they’re light blue and striking, sadly) scroll over my face and I hate that he’s this close to me. He glances over his shoulder as if to ensure our privacy, then he discreetly slips something into the palm of my hand. I look down and see a folded up twenty-dollar bill.

I look from the money, back up to him, realizing what he’s offering. We’re near a bathroom. He knows I’m poor.

He assumes I’m desperate enough to hopefully drag him into the bathroom and earn the twenty bucks he just slipped into my hand.

What is it about me that makes guys think this? What vibe am I putting off?

It infuriates me so much, I wad up the money and throw it toward him. I was aiming for his face, but he’s graceful and leans out of the way.

I grab his camera out of his hand. I flip it over until I find the slot for the memory card. I open it and pull out the card, then toss the camera back at him. He doesn’t catch it. It falls to the floor with a crash and a piece of it breaks off and flies at my feet.

“What the hell?” he says, bending to pick it up.

I turn around, prepared to rush away from him, but I bump into someone else. As if being trapped in a tiny corridor with a guy who just offered me twenty bucks for a blow job wasn’t bad enough, now I’m trapped by two guys. This new guy isn’t quite as tall as the guy with the camera, but they smell the same. Like golf. Is golf a smell? It should be. I could bottle it up and sell it to pricks like these.