Free Autumn in the City of Angels by Kirby Howell Page B

just was asking if you needed anything you’d like to look for.”
    “Um... just food, right now.  I’m running pretty low.  Water, too.”
    “You can look through what Rissi and I have and take what you need.  And hey, we’re neighbors, so you know, maybe we can be friends or something.”  Ben gave a lopsided half smile, and he adjusted his glasses.
    I chucked and said, “Of course.”
    “That’s a great movie,” he said, indicated the DVD I held.
    I looked down at it and realized I was holding A New Hope , the very first Star Wars movie.  I must have picked it up unconsciously.  I grinned and said, “I grew up watching these with my dad.”
    He laughed and said, “Me too.  Empire’s my favorite.  Irving Kershner was a genius.”
    “Totally!” I exclaimed and laughed.  “Maybe we could have a Star Wars marathon one night.”
    “That would be awesome,” he agreed and tapped the case in my hands.  “You should take it.”
    I smiled at him, and he strode back into the hallway, calling Rissi’s name.  I stared down at the DVD then slid it back onto the shelf.  It felt wrong taking something that wasn’t essential for me to live another day.  This movie had been purchased by someone who might still be in this apartment, concealed behind one of the closed doors Rissi knew not to open.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Over the next several months we became a team.  I worked with Ben and Rissi to find supplies and organize us so life resembled something relatively ordinary.  We entertained each other and tried to forget the violence we saw happening in the streets below.
    I asked Ben and Rissi to move in with me only one week after meeting the siblings, when Rissi showed me the hiding place in her apartment for when the “bad people came.”  It was another grate in the wall, just like one in the office.
    “When the bad people come?”  I’d asked Ben while we were busy sorting through bottles of cough syrup and other medications we’d accumulated.
    He looked up at me with his eyebrows raised.  “This is a huge building, Autumn.  Over three hundred units. That’s a big draw, aside from the fact this place was pretty expensive.  Karl’s raiders have stuck to the first five floors or so, but they’ve wandered up higher before.  That’s why Rissi has her hiding spots.”
    I immediately saw how safe and separated I was.  How much extra space I had.  How well it would work to have us all in one, big, safe spot.
    They moved in that very day.  Ben’s face turned cherry red behind his glasses when I suggested it.  But his embarrassment disappeared when Rissi exploded into exclamations about a never-ending slumber party.
    I decided to let Rissi have my room.  I knew she’d like the brightly striped comforter and yellow bean bag chair. I even found some of my childhood toys and put them on shelves around the room.  I moved my clothes, books, journals and music into my parent’s room, where I would sleep from now on.
    I took a deep breath as I turned to look at my old bedroom once more before Ben and Rissi arrived with their things.  I crossed the room and plucked a frame off my windowsill.  It contained a picture of me when I was ten, sandwiched between my parents on a ride at the small amusement park at the end of the Santa Monica Pier.  I was sticking my tongue out at the camera, and my parents were kissing above me.  My dad was clad in his standard green college sweatshirt and jeans, and my mother’s vibrant red curly hair was blowing in the sea breeze.  I felt the familiar ache in my stomach as I looked at my parents’ faces.  The flush on my mother’s cheeks.  How my dad’s large hand rested on my shoulder, even as he kissed my mother.
    I touched the glass where his hand touched my shoulder and allowed myself five seconds of self-pity, and then I raised my head and closed the door to my old bedroom.
    Ben moved into my dad’s office, where there was a pullout couch.  I cleared off the