Christopher saw Anna on the corner the next week, by the commission flats - government policy that they knew was flawed before the buildings were ever completed. One man's zealousness gone mad, monuments to misery. Building castles.
She smiled when she saw him.
Anna said she was okay, but her sad, puppy dog eyes betrayed how she was really feeling. He couldn't see any marks on her arms. Any new marks.
It gets me through, she once said. What else is there to do?
He gave her a cigarette one Sunday morning, when he was coming home from clubbing off his face. That’s how they met, on the street.
“How out of it are you?” she asked, cheekily.
“Just enough,” replied Christopher, struggling to keep his eyelids open, struggling to focus.
“Got a spare fag?”
She was genuinely surprised. She said no one does, they've all got so mean. She said he didn't judge her, simply in his attitude towards her.
Besides, you're bloody cute, she said.
They'd been buddies ever since.
Her mother died when she was young. Her Uncle abused her, when her father was too drunk to notice. Care. Christopher was born to a middle class family. He was shocked in his middle class naivety that there was nobody else to look after her. She said nobody cared.
She said he looked so different, the day she first saw him in a suit. She whistled like she'd put both her fingers in her mouth, without putting fingers to her mouth. Instead, she curled her lip over her teeth, kind of twice. It looked weird. It made him laugh. But boy was it loud. She ran her fingers down his lapels and said nice.
That morning, he couldn't talk, he was running late for work, as usual. Her eyes looked vacant, as soon as he said he had to go.
He wondered if Ethan had told her anything, but dismissed the thought immediately. He wouldn’t have.
“I’m doing coffee instead of drugs,” said Anna. “Do you want to join me?”
“It would be my pleasure,” Christopher replied.
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