Every winter she paces the pavement, nimblefingered hands stealing wallets from slickhaired men. She sleeps on rags and cardboard stuffed deep into the steel and concrete vaults of overpasses, nests made of necessity and spite.
She walks when it’s too cold to sleep, or dozes in all night diners, bumming cigarettes, tipping heavily for endless coffee, reading worn copies of paperback books, writing notes in the margins, trembling so much she’s forgotten how to be any kind of still.
She’s lost and she’s been lost for so long, she’s feeling more and more certain she’ll never be found.
“It’s just me then,” she mutters to the empty seat across the booth. “Just me.”