When Never Comes

by Barbara Davis

Ravenel, South Carolina January 8, 1994 Christy-Lynn hunches deeper into her jacket as she moves down the puddled sidewalk, kicking herself for not leaving her math and science books in her locker. It’s ridiculously cold, even for January, and an icy rain is falling. She keeps her head down, drawn in like a turtle’s beneath her oversize hood, limiting her field of vision to the three feet of pavement directly in front of her. Her hands are numb with cold, clenched into fists and thrust deep in her pockets. Her apartment key is there. She turns it over in her fingers, already anticipating the cup of hot chocolate she’ll make when she reaches the apartment—if there’s any left. At this point, she’ll settle for tea. As long as it’s hot. She quickens her pace when the sign for the Palm Manor Apartments comes into view, the painted letters flaking off into what might once have been a garden, but is now just a muddy puddle littered with candy wrappers and cigarette butts. Only a few more steps and she’ll be inside, warm and dry, with a mug of something hot to drink. And her copy of The Outsiders.