Free I Found You by Jane Lark Page A

physically, and foolishly stumbled back, nearly falling into the bath. He caught my arm.
    “Steady.”
    “Thanks. I’m forever saying thanks to you, aren’t I?”
    “It doesn’t matter, Rachel. I’m happy to help.”
    “Well, I’m glad you’re happy, because it’s gonna be a couple of weeks before I can get out of here.”
    His smile was gentle. “That’s okay. There’s no hurry.”
    I smiled again, too. “And again, thanks. Now where’s the beer you offered me. I’m gonna thrash you on your Xbox––and, women’s prerogative, I get to pick the game.”
    He laughed.
    I found him so easy to get along with.
    Think like you’re his sister . Sister… Sister… Sister …
    I sat down on the beanbag before the TV and leaned forward to turn it on.
    The beanbag was the only piece of furniture he had beyond the mattress in his bedroom. I doubted anyone else had been in his apartment but me. It was hardly set up for entertaining.
    He really did need something beyond an Xbox in his life.
    I switched the game on and then picked up the controllers.
    He came to sit next to me, handed me a beer and then sipped from his bottle before slouching sideward and resting his elbow on the beanbag next to me.
    Fuck!
    Think like you’re his sister, Rachel…

Chapter Five
    Rachel rushed out of the back door of the restaurant, waving her pay packet. “Got it! Are you ready for our big night out?”
    I laughed at her over-exuberance. It was just a pay packet. But she was bursting with pride, or perhaps her excitement was over our planned night out.
    She’d suggested it. It had been Thanksgiving yesterday but she’d had to work and she’d known I was going to be sitting about the apartment on my own, so to celebrate Thanksgiving, albeit late, and her first pay packet, she’d said we should let our hair down, and go a bit wild––all her words. She’d insisted I went to a club with her. She wanted to get me out of the slow lane, as she called my life, and get me to take a bite out of the Big Apple.
    She did make me laugh, and for the last week and half she’d carried me on the tide of her high spirits. It was great having her around, and it had become normal. We were good friends. I felt like I’d known her all my life. Although I still knew very little of her past, and I knew nothing about why and how she’d ended up standing on Manhattan Bridge, wishing herself in the water below.
    But that really didn’t seem to matter anymore, because this Rachel was a different person than the one I’d met that first night. This Rachel was constantly smiling, and vibrant, and happy.
    I’d eaten at the restaurant during her shifts twice more and both times I saw her laughing and chatting easily with customers, and flirting with men for bigger tips. But it was like she drew energy off people. Like she consumed other people’s smiles into herself and fueled herself with them.
    “So, you up for this?”
    “Course. I’m not running away now, you’d call me boring again.”
    “Well, you are boring.”
    “I’m not going to be tonight, I’m up for anything tonight. Call my bluff and I’ll prove it to you.”
    Her smile broadened and it shone in the jet heart of her eyes too.
    She wasn’t just an incredibly good-looking woman; she was an incredibly sexy woman when she had her vibe on like this.
    She winked at me then, and pursed her lips as she started down the street. “Mmm… Now let me think how might I call your bluff…?” She turned and walked backwards a couple of steps, her pay packet still bobbing up and down in the loose grip of her thumb and forefinger, with the rhythm of her backwards steps. “I’m gonna have to think of something really reckless … ”
    I laughed again, at her teasing. She was always teasing me. I loved it. I loved the way she lightened my mood whenever she was around. I’d begun really looking forward to picking her up after her shift. New York no longer seemed like this fog of stuff I