“Yup.”

Mercedes keeps her hands shoved in her pockets and her face down as we wait along with a couple of guys who look to be in high school and whom I dutifully ignore, positioning my body between them and her.

“They were checking you out,” Mercedes hisses as we find a couple of empty seats across from each other on the warm bus.

“They were just talking.”

“They were checking you out.”

I pull off my hood and tighten my ponytail, ignoring her comment as the bus moves forward. She doesn’t mind. She moves her attention to the other passengers, sometimes staring too long at a person, bringing their attention to her. When this happens, she doesn’t look away. She keeps their gaze, and I watch as each person who meets her stare, smiles. It’s as though the gesture is inescapable. Today Mercedes’ long hair is once again winding down her back, dark as coal. Her skin is becoming a lighter shade of olive as we spend more and more time inside with the rain becoming a constant. It’s her eyes though that catch everyone off guard, with the clarity and rare color that is such a stark contrast against her dark complexion.

“You’re staring again. It’s weird.” I blink a few times to stop focusing on details and take in her expression. When I attended my first art class that Nell signed me up for when I was ten, the teacher came over to me. Her hair was wiry and gray, falling to the small of her back, and she always smelled of coffee and stale cigarette smoke. Her voice was gravelly and her eyes were coated with too many shades of blue eye shadow, but there was something I innately liked about her, and when she leaned beside me and said, “You have the attentiveness of a true artist. I can see it in the way you watch people,” I felt like she understood me.

“I want to go to the mall first,” Mercedes says, looking out the bus window.

“What do you want at the mall?”

She shrugs and turns to look back to me. “Whatever I want. I’m not poor.”

Her comment is delivered as an insult, but it doesn’t make me blink. Not having money isn’t something that I’m ashamed of. It doesn’t define me. However, the fact that she obviously believes that this creates a division between her and others bothers me for several reasons.

We get off at Pike’s Place Square and follow a train of people to her desired destination, my thoughts stuck on wondering how she has become so jaded.

We wander through several stores in the mall, Mercedes pulling farther and farther away from me with each new store that she rummages through.

I’m staring at a large photograph on the wall of kids wearing nicer and more adult-looking clothes than I own, and notice Mercedes shrink behind a clothing rack. I peer around the store, looking to see what could lead to a reaction like this, and notice a couple of girls around Mercedes’ age coming toward us.

I look back to Mercedes and find her eyes fixed on me with a scowl that has me taking two steps back and raising my hands in surrender. I’ve never been the quote unquote cool kid, but I was never seen as a social leper before either. Babysitting is not only honing my cleaning skills, but it’s also thickening my skin and teaching me how to brush off being looked at as a loser from a ten-year-old.

“Is there something I can help you find?” an employee asks from my other side. She’s around my age, and like so many here in Portland, her outfit screams fashion.

“Thanks, but I’m okay. I’m just waiting on…” I whirl around, searching the entire store, coming across the girls who entered, but not finding Mercedes. “Oh, God.”

I dash out of the store and whip around, looking in each direction for her dark hair. “Mercedes!” I yell, catching sight of her on the escalators across from me. She doesn’t look up, keeping her attention focused on squeezing past a man in front of her.

“What the hell?” My nearly silent question is meant for both of us as I race toward the escalator and mutter apologies as I step around people, working to not trip and watch where she’s heading.

“Mercedes!” I yell again as she sprints toward the exit doors of the mall. She doesn’t stop. She doesn’t even slow down.

The air is cool and wet as it’s carried against my skin by a strong gust of wind that has my eyes instinctively closing. I shield my face with a hand and look each direction before I spot her.

“Mercedes!” My steps increase of their own accord because I’m too frustrated to think clearly. “Mercedes!” I yell again, louder this time.

She stops and her head turns ever so slightly, making her dark hair shift.

Then she runs full out.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter, shaking my head. “I’m not chasing you!” I’m not sure if she can even hear my words over the wind, rain, and traffic. She certainly doesn’t slow down to indicate she does. A heavy sigh empties my lungs before I grit my teeth together, considering a thousand ways to repay Kenzie for this job opportunity. Then, I run after Mercedes’ small silhouette.

My long strides cover more distance, but she’s fast and too young to be suffering a side ache after running down the escalator, outside, and a brief sprint. The idea of yelling her name again to see if she’ll stop crosses my mind, but I can’t waste my breath on calling out to her and keep running, so I gulp more cold air and feel a burning sensation along my shins.

Mercedes runs along the sidewalk, oblivious to the leaves swirling and rain pelting us from what seems like every angle. The rainfall here in Portland is like nothing else. The drops are the size of quarters and are so dense it takes mere seconds for your clothes to become sodden. Even my Toms have been penetrated.

The cars beside us begin moving with a wave of exhaust as they pass through the green light, and Mercedes follows with their movement, crossing the intersection without hesitation. A thick chunk of my wet hair wraps around my throat as I continue the race, making me feel nearly strangled by the combination of it and my obvious lack of conditioning.

A truck unloading a crate of boxes slows Mercedes’ steps down and brings her head to jerk in each direction twice before I catch up to her and pull her thin jacket tightly in my fist. Her head falls, her long hair protecting her like a shield as we move forward at a slower pace. My lungs are burning, working so hard to try to hold air that I can’t speak. It’s probably for the better—nothing running through my mind is appropriate for her ears.

My heartbeat is pumping in my ears; it along with my heavy breaths drowns out the sound of the traffic that’s becoming more congested with the late hour, and the slap of our footsteps on the wet sidewalk, until a sniffling sound mutes everything. I turn to get a better angle of her face, but her head is still down. My fingers begin to loosen with guilt, and my mind begins to wonder how to sound caring and authoritative at the same time.

“You can’t do that. You can’t run around downtown Portland, trying to get away from me. If you don’t want me to be your nanny or whatever, just talk to your dad. Getting hit by a car isn’t the right way to resolve this.”

“It has nothing to do with you.” Mercedes’ tone is verging on angry, but the vulnerable side of her has won, making her words quiet and hitched.

“What happened?”

“What do you think happened?” Her seafoam-green eyes are rimmed with red as she flips her face toward me, and I shake my head, clueless and caught so off guard by how hard she’s working to conceal her pain that it squeezes that maternal need building inside of me once more. “They hate me. They all hate me.”

“The girls at the store?” I think back as I pose the question, seeing the way Mercedes had recoiled. I thought it was directed toward me but realize I had absolutely nothing to do with her reaction. “What happened?”