Pagan Pov

Sandusky, Ohio

May 15, 2024

My limbs are heavy. Gravity drags every muscle down. Only the ticking clock and the radio host keep me company while I sweep crumbs into a worn dustpan.

Between the same five hits I’ve heard for months, the host mentions a stomach bug ripping through the country. Irrelevant. Even if I catch it, I won’t get Paid Time Off. Rent won’t pay itself. I’ll be here anyway, dragging through shifts, in this bright prison that reeks of burnt espresso and sugar glaze gone cloying under the heat lamps.

Some days, it feels like the same day on endless repeat: class until afternoon, work until night, a few stolen hours of sleep in my apartment, then back again.

By closing time, after I lock the doors of the Brewing Bean Cafe, I peer through the dark glass at my own reflection. No sleep tonight. Memphis will be in one of his moods, especially after what I have done before my shift.

I just want the loop to end. One clean break. Anything. Even something awful. An apocalypse would be nice.

That’s what was running through my head when I poured every last beer down the sink. Watched the foam swirl away. One small, irreversible act. Proof I still exist.

I slide the key from the lock, drop my lanyard into my beat-up purse—mostly junk and one thin wallet—then walk to the bus stop.

A brief glance at my cracked phone screen: just the usual emails from my professor. More work due by midnight.

The bus is nearly empty when it screeches to the curb. Sullen faces stay glued to windows or phones, eyes dull under flickering yellow lights. Even the driver’s shoulders sag against the wheel.

I take a seat up front, close my eyes, and clutch my purse on my lap, idling away the minutes to my stop. The cacophony of one man’s rumble numbs my brain. Until a wet, retching explosion from the back. I twist in my seat to take in the scene. 

A middle-aged man—glasses perched on a familiar face from this route—lurches up, skin corpse-white, hand clamped over his stomach. Others around him shift forward as dark goop splatters the floor like boiled soda. The stench of bile and half-digested food rolls toward us.

A teenage boy with green-dyed hair slides his headphones back, pinching his nose. “That doesn’t look good. And it smells—oh god. Fuck.”

Noses pinch all around me. Someone gags quietly. I press my sleeve tighter over my face, stomach churning. Just what I need.

The driver glances in the rearview, clicks his tongue, flips on hazards, and pulls over. He shuffles back, jaw tight, a wad of paper towels already damp in his fist. He drops them over the mess; the towels drink it up fast. A thick mist of lavender air freshener follows.

It barely helps.

The sick man stumbles off the bus, spraying more black vomit across the sidewalk and sewer grates before collapsing on hands and knees. Drool strings from his chin.

I watch from the window, fingers tight on my purse straps, nose still clamped. Part of me wants to check on him. The rest remembers class tomorrow, the paper due tonight. We can’t sit here forever.

The teenager cranes his neck, yelling out the window. “Dude, you okay? Need an ambulance?”

The driver ties off a trash bag. “He’ll live. Probably that bug going around.” Quieter: “Probably infected us all.”

I keep staring. The man wipes his mouth, then flops onto his back halfway in his own puke. A memory slams into me—Memphis outside his favorite bar, same position, same summer heat, same mess all over my work clothes while tourists stared.

“Or he has had one too many drinks,” I mutter.

Heads turn. Heat crawls up my neck; I shrink into the seat.

The driver steps out, checks on the man. A weak, frantic wave sends him back. We pull away, the bus reeking of hot bile and lavender. I used to love lavender.

One by one, passengers escape at their stops. Eventually we pass the dark shores of Lake Erie—downtown Sandusky, home.

I step off, breathe clean air, and start walking. Distant trucks rumble down the boulevard, and a lone motorcycle sputters past. Ahead, the closed amusement park rides glow against the water. No matter how many nights I pass it, the sight steadies me a little—until tonight. The bile taste lingers, sour at the back of my tongue, and my stomach keeps twisting like it’s still on that bus. Every step toward the apartment tightens the knot.

It’s not fair.

I dread the apartment building, the lobby, the slow climb toward 202. Naps in the public library between shifts feel safer.

I take the stairs instead of the elevator. At our door, on the faded welcome mat, I almost text my friend for a couch. Too late. I have to go in. I’m exhausted, and that paper won’t write itself.

Inside, smoke coils thick in the air. Another rule he ignores. The familiar sting of frustration flares, then dies.

I set my purse on the greasy marble counter. Out of the corner of my eye, he’s on the couch, back to me, thumbs flying over his phone. Probably one of his buddies. Or worse, a girl that isn’t me. Maybe Sophia in 303—the one he bums cigarettes from, the one whose brother sells him weed because “medical stuff is poisoned by the government.”

I confronted him about her once. Mistake. That day cost me a tooth—chipped by his knuckles, later pulled. My PTO went to swelling and dentist chairs instead of anywhere else. At twenty-three, I wear a retainer with a fake tooth. My tongue finds the smooth edge, presses against it until the old ache flares.

His silence is loud. He’s furious. I spot the beer cans—except now they’re drained. My doing. This morning’s quiet rebellion.

Petty. Stupid. Irreversible.

Regret settles in my stomach like the last drop of foam circling the sink.

He tosses his phone. It clatters. He stands.

He rises to his full six-four—the same height I once bragged about, the one that drew strangers’ smiles and comments about what a cute couple we made, him so tall and me so short.

His shadow swallows the light. Every inch of that height feels like leverage now. I regret everything—every joke, every smile, every time I mistook his size for safety.

He steps close. Tears prick before he even speaks.

His hand cracks across my cheek, hard enough to snap my head sideways. I stagger back. He grabs my shirtfront, yanks me forward.

“Was it necessary to touch my shit, Pagan?” His voice grates low, thick with the familiar snarl that starts in his chest and scrapes out like gravel. “To dump every single can? You act like we’re made of money!”

“I’m sorry!” I jerk, trying to pull free. Heat floods the side of my face, sharp sting turning to dull throb. “I was upset… I wasn’t thinking—” I force it out, the plea that sometimes works. “I’ll replace it from my next check. Please, Memphis, just calm down.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it.”

He shoves me. My back slams the fridge, and everything inside rattles.

He snatches my purse, digs for my card—the only money we have, the rent money.

“Memphis, don’t! That’s for bills!”

We wrestle my purse back and forth. He wins. He always wins. My card disappears into his pocket.

I lunge for it, nails raking his hand. “NO! Give it to me! It’s my fucking card!”

The scratch blooms red across his knuckles, and something in his face goes flat—pupils blown, breath shallow, mouth a thin line—like a switch flipped behind his eyes.

His fist comes fast.

Pain explodes. Ears ring. I hit the floor.

He screams down at me, fragments cut through my sobs, “Did you really think you could dump my shit and not replace it? That was MY money that paid for my beer! Then you attack me like some crazed whore!”

He rubs the scratch, flexes his knuckles. “You crazy cunt. Until you calm down, I’m not coming home.”

I hear one last “Fuck” growled as he slams out of the apartment. And then silence.

I already know whose fault this will be.

I sob on the cold tile until there are no tears left—only pain that makes rest impossible.