“Excuse me?”
I start walking again quickly. “There is a coffee shop down the road here than I like. We can drink and talk in it. You know more than I do about what is going on, about what I am or I’m becoming and I’m not up to pretending I know. There’s a point where treading water becomes drowning.”
The Third Cup was a small coffee shop cluttered with seats and tables, serving coffee, sometimes cookies, and nothing else. The menu boasted that the coffee came as one size fits all coffee and a free third refill. The owner was known to be quietly discreet, and so far in the closet that he made regular visits to Narnia. It wasn’t my place to pass judgement; I did so anyway.
Naomi puts down the cloth, fixing me with dark eyes. “That woman, she is all wrong. Her heart is full of ugly things.” She looks like she wants to spit on the floor, but her fear of inspectors runs too deep. “She is the kind of monster who makes all whores look bad.”
“It’s not like that. We’re not – .”
She cuts me off with a wave of her rag in my face. “Psh. I don’t care about that, boy. But knowing people like that, being friends with: it stains souls. It is not safe, not safe at all.”
“I know.” I smile as I stand. “But I’m not safe at all either.” A sound comes to me; warm water rushing over rocks. I’ve no clue how I know it’s warm but I step back regardless.
I don’t want to take anything, but that I could, that I could call part of her into me, must show on my face because Naomi steps back and lowers her rag. “Maybe you are, but not being safe does not make someone strong.”
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