You don’t have to do this. One more night. The bus station bench isn’t that bad to sleep on. You can do this, Zed.

I took deep breaths as I repeated those words in my head over and over again like a mantra, the chilly spring night air burning my nostrils. My mantra was the only thing keeping me rooted to my spot. My eyes were trained on the women standing at the corner where the convenience store was. I knew what they were waiting for. Or rather, who. I was tempted to join them.

It had been three days and two nights since I was kicked out by my father, Peter. This time. Tonight would make the third if he didn’t text me to come home soon. It happened every now and again, but this time I had been asking for it. He had drunk-pissed all over the rough paper draft of my essay, leaving me with vague memories of what I had written down and poorly edited. It was an essay I was already late in turning in and I had no sway over that particular teacher.

Since I’d been in a bad mood from being scolded in front of my college class because of Peter, I brought a guy home just to piss him off. It was his fault I wasn’t able to finish the essay and at least make the late deadline. Peter, who knew too well of my ‘disease’, did just as I had expected him to when he got home to seeing me sitting shoulder to shoulder with a guy I’d quite literally picked up off the street. Peter had jumped to conclusions and started screaming about me whoring around with anyone who had a dick and threw me out of the house.

My temporary homelessness usually didn’t last more than two weeks. However, since I wasn’t caught doing anything other than sitting next to a guy, I thought my father would have made me suffer for a night and called me home already. I was wrong. It was my fault for testing him. I could have been smarter, but I had a knack for pissing people off.

It wasn’t like I didn’t have options on where to go. In fact, I was staring at one of those options. I watched a silver car pull up and a woman who’d disappeared two hours before came stumbling out of the vehicle. I could tell she was satisfied by the look of her hair and clothes. Fuck, that could have been me, I thought. Only, I always managed to convince them to let me stay the night. It didn’t matter if I got the couch or the floor. As long as I had a roof over my head, I wouldn’t complain.

I’d been trying to walk the straight and narrow for about three weeks now. The straight and narrow for me meant going to all my college classes, not getting kicked out as often, staying out of my father’s way, staying away from any mind-altering substances, and not fucking around with random strangers. Trying to walk that thin line meant I had slept at the transit centre on the cold, hard benches for the past two nights instead of easily finding a roof over my head like I usually did. Spring nights weren’t kind to the homeless.

I was so close to giving up. My eyes were focused on a woman who was sliding into her third car for the night. How much money had she made so far? Upwards of a thousand, I betted. She looked to be in her late thirties which made her older than the other women standing around, but she carried herself better, had more confidence, and stood apart from her competitors who didn’t seem to like her very much. Out of the five women, two of them hadn’t had any passersby take their bait.

Easy money, easy access to alcohol, drugs, or at least a cigarette, easy roof over my head. It had rained all day, and I could only hope it wouldn’t start up again in the night. I was a fairly thin guy. My body couldn’t withstand the cold.

You don’t have to do this. One more night. The bus station bench isn’t that bad to sleep on. You can do this, Zed.

I clenched my teeth as my knee bounced with my growing restlessness. I needed food, a shower, and a smoke, or I was going to lose my damn mind. I couldn’t remember the last time I ate. The feeling of an empty stomach was something I’d gotten used to.

I could give in until Peter called me back home and then I’d try to stay out of his way. One night, I promised myself, standing from the bench. My ass was frozen from sitting on the cold surface, but I needed to move. To make sure I didn’t veer too far from my straight and narrow path, I needed to find someone I knew to take me in. And I knew just who to go to.

Jeff was Peter’s confidant. He was also one of my safest options whenever Peter tossed me out on the street for a few days. Going to him now was a risk. He’d been trying to get in contact with me for two weeks and I’d been ignoring and avoiding him because I knew what he wanted.

We’d never gone over the terms of our relationship because I never thought we needed to. Even now, when he was getting on my nerves and asking for more than I was willing to give, I didn’t bother having a talk with him about it. It was too much work. To put it simply, he was my boyfriend in the loosest of terms.

I needed him to provide me with basic needs until I was called home again, and while he did so, I’d give him as much ass as he wanted. That was all. But somewhere along the course of the past few years, he’d gotten greedy. Considering I was homeless again, for the time being, I’d let him indulge if it meant I wouldn’t sleep on a bench for another night.

Finally reaching his house about two or three miles away from my own, I banged on the door. Since it was late, I would most likely need to wake him up. I was going to knock for the fourth time when the door swung open and there stood Jeff in all his glory. He looked good for a guy in his late forties. If he worked out a little and didn’t have the growing beer gut and facial hair, he’d be pulling some nice ladies instead of fucking me.

“Get out of here before I call the police.”

“W-Wait!” I said quickly, pushing at the door when he started closing it. “I need a bed for the night. One night.” It was odd. He’d never turned me down before. Unless he was pissed that is.

“Can’t help you.”

The damn man was much stronger than I was which meant I was losing the battle to keep him from shutting the door. “Come on, Jeff, I’ll pay. I promise. You know me.”

He scowled. “Peter kicked you out when? Two, three days ago? Where have you been? Fucking somebody else?”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.” It was the wrong thing to say. I lost the fight and the door slammed in my face. “If you had checked at the transit centre for me, you would have found me!” I yelled, banging on the door. My hands were starting to hurt. “Jeff!” Our neighbourhood had a reputation, so a noise complaint from the neighbours wouldn’t be taken too seriously. The door opened so suddenly again that I nearly fell backwards.

“You slept at the transit centre?”

“Yes,” I told him, wrapping my arms around my shoulders after I’d managed to steady myself. Maybe it was because I hadn’t eaten in a while, but the sudden movement of almost falling left me lightheaded. “It’s cold out here, Jeff. Come on, let me in.”

He stepped aside and I slipped into the house before he could change his mind. It wasn’t much bigger than the cramped two-bedroom I shared with my father. However, it was in much better condition seeing as he looked like he at least cleaned the place from time to time.

“Take a shower first. You stink.”

I wasn’t offended. I knew I stunk. I hadn’t prepared this time since I thought I was only going to spend a night on the street before I’d get a text to get my ass back to the house. It wasn’t like the time I was outed in front of him, or the time he found my collection of sex toys. I’d just broken a rule of having a guy in the house.

The hot shower was amazing. I felt reborn after scrubbing myself clean from head to toe. I glanced in the mirror I was passing on my way out of the bathroom. My ribs stuck out much more than I remembered. If I ever had a steady appetite, I would pay more attention to myself. My red-brown hair was dull and dry, and my grey eyes were dead. I didn’t understand what attracted anyone to me in the state I was in. I wouldn’t want to sleep with someone who looked so breakable.