steps leading to the entrance of the Eliza Shirley Shelter, she remembered the first time she had gone there under very different circumstances and was grateful to be returning to the place to provide someone help instead of seeking it herself. The staff was delighted to see her, and after she had greeted each of them, she went into Ebby’s office.
Ebby looked up from her desk. “You ready?”
Alessa took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m ready,” she said. “I don’t want you to come with me, though. Tell me where I can find her.”
Ebby was surprised but pleased as well that Alessa was so decisive about her approach in handling the girl.
Alessa found the teenage girl alone in the day room, sitting on a love seat with her legs drawn up against her chest and her forehead resting on her knees.
Approaching her cautiously, so as not to startle her, she came to a halt a few feet away.
“Hey,” Alessa said.
The young girl looked up. Tears were streaming down her face. “Hey,” she mumbled.
Alessa approached the love seat. “Can I sit here with you?”
The girl shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me.”
Alessa had no way of knowing that the exchange between them in that first minute, brief though it was, was more than what the staff had gotten out of the girl in the four days she had been at the shelter.
“I’m Alessa,” she said. “I lived here for a while a couple of years ago. I had to get away from this asshole that treated me horribly. He was a scary dude, but I was safe here. Are you staying here now?”
Curious, the girl looked up. “Yeah, why?”
“I was wondering, is all. What’s your name anyway?”
The girl looked at Alessa with disdain and a hint of wariness. “Why? You writing a book?”
“I wish. But no, I’m not writing a book. I’m trying to be friendly. If you don’t want to talk, then fine. Screw it,” Alessa answered nonchalantly. She bounded to her feet, irritated with the girl.
The girl flinched, surprised by Alessa’s annoyance with her. “No, wait,” she said. “My name is Regina.”
Alessa turned to face her. “Okay, Regina. Well, I’m going to split now. Nice talking to you.”
Regina jumped up from the love seat. “Look, man. I’m scared. I didn’t mean to be a bitch, okay?”
“Okay, whatever. But you know, most people who come here are scared. I mean, if you’re here, the odds are good that your life is pretty fucked up. It’s not like this place is home to movie stars and athletes. So why are you here?”
Regina sat down on the love seat, and Alessa joined her.
“If I tell, that prick will kill me,” Regina said. “I need a few days to hide so that I can get out of Philadelphia. You know what I mean?”
Alessa rested her head on the back of the love seat. She let out a big sigh as she stared at the ceiling. “Yeah, I know what you mean . . . unfortunately.”
Regina looked at her, and tears spilt from her eyes. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I’m so scared all the time. I hate myself.”
Alessa rolled her head sideways to face her. “We’re all scared sometimes, Regina. It ain’t like you’re alone. When I came to this shelter, I was sure the guy I ran from was going to kill me. I don’t know what to call him, really. He was sort of my pimp, but really my girlfriend’s brother. Anyway, he was pounding heroin into his arm like crazy before I split. That bastard. I hated him. I was scared, scared shitless. I had no idea what I was going to do. I couldn’t ask my family for help because they were as bad as the jerk I was running from. So I came here. They helped me here, Regina.”
“Yeah, like how? How did they help you?” the girl asked, and Alessa heard the first glimmer of hope in her voice.
Alessa sat up straighter. “They talked to me a lot about what was going on. They contacted the local cops to let them know that that monster was looking for me. It was mostly the talking that helped. They seem all straight and shit, but they know what’s going on with people like us.”
People like us, Regina repeated in her head. She leaned in closer to Alessa. A connection was building. And there was a faint sense of being less isolated from the world.
Alessa focused hard on her and dove in. “So what’s your story? What happened to you?”
Regina hesitated, and silence hung in the air like a dark cloud before the rain breaks free. Finally, she spoke. “I was taken three years ago. I was walking home from school and this van pulled up. Someone grabbed me and shoved a needle in my arm. When I woke up, I was in some kind of old basement. There were other girls and boys there, too. We all had a chain on one ankle that was bolted to the floor.”
Alessa thought. Oh no. Now how am I supposed to respond to this?
“Who were these people?” she asked, trying to remain calm. “Did they do anything to you?”
“I don’t know who they are. But after a while, they gave me new underwear and then . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she seemed to close down, as if she were afraid someone other than Alessa would overhear her.
Alessa moved closer and put her arm around the girl. “It’s okay, Regina,” she said soothingly, “you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. Okay?”
Regina clung to her. “I’m scared. I’m afraid something bad will happen to my family. They know where my family lives. I’m afraid they’ll kill them.”
Alessa talked the girl into having lunch with her. She filled the empty silence with her own story about being homeless and how she had met Lucy. Regina listened intently, trading her own dark world for Alessa’s, even if it was a short reprieve from her reality. For the first time in three years, Regina had found a way of escaping her private demons for a while.
