multiplez

The showers here were free, which was good, because Z was running seriously low on money. She’d left her bag in a locker with a broken lock, but honestly she wasn’t that worried about it--there was no one around to steal it. She took her time enjoying her shower, letting the hot water beat down on her and banish the memory of the cold outside.

Then she came out, toweling her hair and humming some song she’d heard in the last truck, just in time to see a girl about her age running off with her backpack. “HEY!” she yelled, and tore off after the girl, hoping to hell her towel didn’t slip. “She’s got my bag!” she yelled as the girl tore through the main area. Z was losing ground, no way would she--

She slammed through the doors and out into the parking lot just in time to see the girl hop into a car full of other teenagers and drive off. With her bag. The part of her that had been planning to be a cop after high school screamed at her to get the license plate number, but it was obscured by snow.

Z stood there, up to her bare ankles in fresh snow, for about a minute, thinking about how everything she owned now fit in a toiletries caddy (at least she'd stuffed her mp3 player in the soap compartment) before a waitress with grey hair and a nametag that read ‘Sarah’ came out and said, “Hon, come on inside, you’re going to catch your death.”

“She’s got my bag,” Z said, stupid with cold. “I haven’t got any clothes.” Stupid, stupid, why hadn’t she created a replicate, she could’ve grabbed the bag and--

and everyone would have seen, and this wasn’t the island. No. Better to be naked in the snow.

Sarah gently rested one hand on Z’s back and said, “We’ll get you some clothes, hon, come on inside and let’s get you dried off.”

“Damn teenagers,” one of the truckers muttered. “Damn stupid prank.”

“Don’t just stand there, Harold,” Sarah chided as she ushered Z back into the warmth of the truck stop. “Get her a dry towel, her hair‘s wet as it can be."

"That was the Wyatt girl's car," another waitress muttered. "I'm going to call her mama, see if she knows where her hellcat daughter is.

"You do that," said Sarah, her tone suggesting she didn't think it would get Z's bag back. "What’s your name, hon?”

“Z. I--I‘m Z.” Z let Sarah lead her back into the locker room, where she toweled off and squeezed the water out of her hair. Then she was bundled into sweats and warm socks and a blanket, magically produced from somewhere, and installed in a booth near the heating vent, because she could not stop shaking. They gave her coffee and pancakes and a waitress named Pearl asked her her shoe size, then left, for Wal-Mart, from what Z gathered.

Sarah sat across from her and watched her with careful eyes. “Z, is there anybody you could call?” she asked. “You can use my cell phone. A girlfriend, maybe?”

Z shook her head. “No. No, I don’t have any girlfriends,” she admitted. “I don’t have a lot of friends. I don’t. I. I‘m not good with people,” she finally settled for. “They don’t like me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Sarah said.

Z couldn’t tell her why it was, so she turned her attention back to her pancakes. As she chewed, she looked out the window. Across the parking lot and the highway, there was a pasture with some cows in it. Snow and cows, she thought, and borrowed clothes, and never ever ever being able to be herself, because 'herself' was a freak of nature. But there were other freaks of nature out there. Some of them even understood. “Sarah?” she asked. “Can I see that phone?”

((For Bridge; OOC OK))