Free I See Me by Meghan Ciana Doidge Page A

stomach.
    He slid into the booth across from me, filling the other side as much as two smaller people would have.
    I slid my coffee mug across the width of gray-speckled table. He pulled his hands out of his hoodie pockets, swallowed the mug with them, and lifted the still-warm coffee to his mouth.
    He looked like he could crush the ceramic mug without even trying. But then maybe he’d be sorry about breaking it afterward.
    He scared me stupid — stupid enough to offer him a seat and accept the pie.
    “You’ve been walking … in the rain,” I said, aware I sounded like an idiot stating the utterly banal.
    He nodded. “Couple of hours. Since the last Greyhound stop.”
    I figured the bus ran anywhere and everywhere, as long as you were willing to wait for the next one. The only reason to get off and keep walking was because you’d run out of money. But I didn’t mention it. That was his business, not mine.
    He started to pass the coffee back across the table, but I shook my head. “I don’t drink it.”
    He smiled. His teeth were startling white against his mocha skin. “Just needed a reason to sit, huh?”
    I shrugged. No need to explain I was cold. Cold in a way that made it seem I’d never be warm. Cold in my core, and afraid that if I stayed alone, I’d sleep. Sleeping directly after an episode was one thing. But waking and then sleeping again meant the hallucinations would haunt my dreams in a more visceral way.
    The waitress dropped off two pieces of pie and two forks. She put the one with the ice cream in front of me, then lingered to fill my coffee mug, which was now in front of him. She deliberately placed her hand next to his as she leaned on the table. Her nails were lacquered carnation pink.  
    He didn’t take his eyes off me, nor did he lose the easy grin.
    I didn’t look away from him either.
    “Thank you,” he murmured.
    “Yeah, okay,” the waitress said, her tone tinged with disappointment. She wandered back to set the coffee pot in the machine.
    He reached over and switched the plates.
    “Warm,” he said, pleased.
    He took a bite, making sure to spear both ice cream and pie on his fork. Then he said, “I’m Beau.”
    “Rochelle.”  
    I took a bite of the pie. It was warm. It was also too sweet and the crust was tough, but I could taste the apple. Apples always made me feel better somehow. More grounded.
    “Is that French?” he asked.
    “No,” I answered. “Well, I’m not anyway.”
    “My sister’s name is French,” he said as he took another bite. He was going to finish his entire piece in three huge mouthfuls. “Claudette. But she’s not, you know, like me.”
    I had no idea what he meant. Maybe that his sister wasn’t mixed race?
    “Isn’t your name French? Beau?” I realized what I was saying before I said it, but continued despite my embarrassment. “As in, good looking?”
    He looked up at me without answering. I felt like I was missing something in his ‘not like me’ comment. I had no idea what it could be, though — or why it would hang between us so tangibly.
    His gaze fell to my piece of pie, or maybe to my hands. I didn’t fiddle with my fork. He unnerved me, but it wasn’t at all unpleasant.
    “No,” he said, with a definite shake of his head.
    I’d forgotten what we were talking about.
    Then he reached across the table and — barely touching me — turned my left hand over until the back rested on the table. With a touch so light that I felt only the shiver of its passing, he brushed his fingers across the black butterfly I had tattooed on the inside of my wrist.
    “Rochelle,” he murmured. “Who are you?”
    My stomach flipped again. This time the feeling was accompanied by a rush of what was unmistakably desire. This was a thing I had heard many a teenaged roommate gush about … endlessly. Though I’d never experienced the feeling myself, not even during my previous, brief sexual encounters.
    I stared at the tattooed butterfly as he