Free Risk by Jamie Freveletti

 
    RISK
    S EBASTIAN R YAN NEVER saw the drug that was slipped into his drink, so as he heaved into the bushes behind the Miami Beach nightclub, he blamed himself for mixing alcohol with the medication that he took daily. His stomach emptied and he remained still, taking deep breaths and hoping that the moment was past.
    It was hip hop weekend in Miami Beach, and hundreds of thousands of revelers swarmed the area, filling the streets and dance clubs. Like with Carnival in Rio, or Mardi Gras in New Orleans, they were in for a three-day-long festival of dancing, drinking, and drug overdoses.
    Under normal circumstances Ryan would have never risked fighting the crowds and going to a club on this weekend, nor would he have risked mixing alcohol and medication, but in the past four months not much was normal in his life.
    He straightened up and stumbled home, dodging a bead necklace thrown by a woman standing in a limousine’s open sunroof and making a wide circle around a group of break dancers spinning on the street corner. From somewhere in the distance he heard the sharp report of either a firecracker or a gunshot, but he wasn’t surprised. The nearby gangbangers brought their weapons with them to the party, and clashes between rival gangs meeting at the same club were often deadly. The year before, the police had engaged in a shootout on the streets. Several people died and hundreds were arrested.
    He wound his way through the crowds and walked in the warm, humid night toward the apartment, already bracing himself for the moment that he would open the door to emptiness. Once inside, he took a double dose of a sleeping aid and fell into bed.
    He never saw the person that followed him home.
    The next morning, Ryan walked to the ocean’s edge and struggled to decide whether he should continue walking until the water engulfed him or return to his house to face another day. He had engaged in this debate for the past four months and had no hope that it would get easier. He watched the sun begin its rise, red beams of light streaking across the ocean’s surface and orange lighting the sky above, and even in his despair he appreciated the beauty of the dawn and the new beginning it represented. A fresh start for others, but not for him.
    From the corner of his eye he saw the motion of the runner as she approached. This, too, was a ritual. He watched her run, her smooth strides and fluid motion a study of efficiency. She had brown hair, a slender athlete’s body, and straight legs that carried her in an effortless rhythm. She wore running clothes, a watch, and an armband that he presumed held an iPod, because he saw the cord snaking from it to the earbuds she wore. She looked to be younger than his thirty-five years, perhaps in her mid-twenties.
    She came closer, flicked a glance at him, and he saw recognition in her expression. Usually she ran right past, but today she gave him a nod. They were the only two on this section of the beach and he supposed she felt compelled to acknowledge him.
    He nodded back. The act, though slight, was enough to break his reverie. He sighed, turned from the water and walked toward the boardwalk, away from the ocean and its possibility of eternal peace. He’d face another day.
    Ryan headed toward News Café, a large coffeehouse in the Art Deco section of Miami Beach where he lived. The restaurants were closed, but delivery trucks lined Ocean Drive and vendors delivered bags of bread, pastries, and cartons of beer and bottles of liquor that would restock the Drive for the next night’s influx of hip hop tourists. This weekend the Drive also included a large contingent of bouncers, as the hotels and bars hired private security guards to protect their businesses. The weekend was not sponsored by Miami Beach or Miami, and with the crowds came a corresponding uptick in crime as the local thieves headed to the beach in search of easy pickings. In prior years the massive crowds