We Leaned on Each Other To Survive

1

It was the seventh year Ryan and I had struggled in the city and the fifth year we had leaned on each other to survive.

Ryan worked as a food runner at the restaurant where I was employed. One day, on my way home after work, some thugs followed me and cornered me.

Faced with their vulgar taunts, I desperately locked eyes with passing pedestrians and silently pleaded for help. But everyone turned a blind eye.

One passerby couldn't stomach my struggle and finally spoke up for me. "Hey, don't do that to her. She's just a young woman."

"Look at her ugly face. Who'd want her anyway?" one of the thugs sneered.

"She owes me money. Otherwise, how would I care?" another chimed in.

"She's just a tramp. Look at that huge hole in her pants. What's she trying to show off?"

The passerby shook his head and walked away. One of the thugs grabbed my backside and laughed as he said, "Damn, you walked around at such a late hour with a hole in your pants. Who are you trying to seduce?"

The hole in my pants had been torn earlier that evening when a nail sticking out of a table corner snagged the fabric as I was cleaning up.

Now, it had become evidence against me.

I grabbed a rock and hurled it at the thug who had touched me.

That was when Ryan appeared. Under the dim streetlamp, he seemed to emerge from the light itself. He stood firmly in front of me with some discarded vegetable scraps. He threw them at the thugs with all his might.

I recognized those scraps. The boss had thrown them out to feed pigs.

Ryan grabbed my hand, and we ran away. Then I noticed the back of his head bleeding. The rock I had thrown earlier had left a bloody gash there. The blood trickled down and formed a crimson mark that seemed to etch itself onto my heart.

We ran onto the bridge that stretched across the river. At the far end, the city lights sparkled, and the river below reflected their glow. I could almost hear the clinking of wine glasses in the distance.

We stood at the end of the bridge. The darkness seemed to be swallowing everything like a gaping maw.

Ryan and I walked back into the abyss hand in hand. Scolding, beatings, and tears were all due to poverty.

Ryan escorted me back to the cramped apartment building where I lived, and then he turned to leave.

The next morning, I found him sleeping under the bridge near my building. His head was covered with a few old newspapers, and he was snoring softly.

I shook him awake. "Why are you here?" I asked.

He turned his head away and pretended not to care. "I've got nowhere else to go. The boss kept pigs in the shack where I stayed before."

A few days ago, the boss's son decided to raise a guinea pig, so Ryan lost the place where he had stayed.

I opened the door to my apartment and gestured for him to go in. His face flushed red, and I smiled.

"We'll hang a curtain in the middle. You can stay here with me. It's fifty bucks a month."

"Aren't you afraid I might be a bad guy?" Ryan asked.

I smiled again, and my hand unconsciously brushed the ugly scar on my face.

It was a jagged reminder of the time I fought a stray dog for food when I was a little girl. "It's fine. No one wants to be with me anyway."

Hearing this, Ryan said nothing. I could feel his gaze on me from behind, but I couldn't tell if he was sympathetic or disgusted.

So Ryan moved in. If it hadn't been for what happened the night before, I never would have known he had been living in the shack behind the restaurant all along.

I had seen him in the fleeting moments in the restaurant and even assumed he was related to the boss.

He was so bright and warm, like a ray of sunlight cutting through the muck we were stuck in.

We began walking to the restaurant together. After our shared defiance the night before, we seemed to have forged a bond and a strength born from going through hardship together.

When Ryan went out of the kitchen, his eyes sparkled as he motioned for me to follow him outside.

I went outside with him and watched him take out half a piece of a donut from the pocket of his worn jeans and hand it to me. "You didn't have time to have breakfast. You must be starving," he said.

I recognized it immediately. It was from the last customers yesterday evening. The plate had been piled high with untouched donuts, which the boss would serve to the next table.

The broken pieces were usually tossed into the slop bucket to feed the pigs.

I took the donut with a smile, broke it in half, and handed one half back to him. It was sweet.

That plate of donuts cost twelve dollars. It was an entire week's wages for me.

It was the last time I ate something sweet in my life.

Among the vegetable scraps Ryan had thrown out the night before, there was a broken blade. By some cruel twist of fate, it had lodged itself in one of the thug's eyes.

2

I never imagined the thugs would come back and trash the restaurant. By the time Ryan and I walked out of the restroom after we finished the sweet donut, the restaurant was already in ruins.

The boss's massive frame shielded his son. The boy's dark eyes peeked out from under his father's arm and darted around.

When he spotted us, he shouted, "There they are..."

The boy's voice was clear and piercing, and it cut through the noise of breaking furniture and shouts.

I froze, and Ryan grabbed my hand and pulled me into a run. Behind us, the thugs' curses and footsteps thundered closer.

Ryan shoved me into a broken urn in a nearby alley and ran off to draw the thugs away. I could hear the distant sounds from them, including their yells, the dull thud of blows, and muffled grunts, like the dull thud of a cleaver hitting meat.

When the noise finally subsided, I heard Ryan's faint voice. "It's safe now. Come out."

But I didn't dare move. I was terrified that the thugs might come back.

I didn't know how long I stayed hidden in that urn. Only when the moonlight filtered through its cracked lid did I finally crawl out.

Ryan lay crumpled at my feet, and his body was battered and broken.

Dirt was caked under his fingernails, and one of his eyes was swollen and injured, oozing a milky white fluid.

I checked his breathing and found it was faint but steady.

All my money was stolen by the thugs the night before. Ryan's empty pockets told the same story.

I had no choice but to drag him back toward home. Just as I turned the corner out of the alley, I heard their voices again.

"Stupid bitch. She hadn't come back at such a late hour?"

"Simon, we already searched her. She's got no money."

"A broke waitress wouldn't have anything. Let's just have some fun. Hey, did you even wash your hand after you grabbed her ass with it yesterday evening?"

"It's been ages since I touched a woman. My hands are itching."

Their laughter grew louder and more menacing.

On my back, Ryan stirred slightly. He rested his head on my shoulder and said with great difficulty, "Go back to the restaurant."

Then he murmured weakly before falling silent again.

I carefully turned around in the narrow alley and headed back to the restaurant. Under the dim light, the boss was cleaning up the wreckage. When he saw me, he turned his back and muttered angrily, "You've got some nerve coming back. Your wages won't even cover the damage. Get out. Get out now."

I looked at Ryan and waited for him to wake up.

He didn't.

The boss finally sighed and asked, "Is he still alive?"

"Yes. But he won't be if he doesn't get treatment soon," I replied.

"Here you are. Take it." The boss handed me a note. It was one hundred dollars.

I didn't take it. Ryan couldn't keep living like this with me, drifting from place to place. I stared at the pigsty behind the restaurant and said nothing.

The boss said, "I can't afford to cross those thugs either. If they find out I helped you..."

I nodded, picked up the hundred-dollar note from the floor, and held out my hand again. "And his wage?"

The boss's pity turned to disgust. Finally, he pulled fifty dollars from his pocket and threw it at my feet with disdain.

He spat. "Take it and leave. You're nothing but trash."

In that moment, I imagined a thousand times over grabbing the cleaver nearby and hacking at his fat, greasy face.

But Ryan's faint groan brought me back to reality.

I dragged him, and we walked through the night. We finally crossed the bridge.

The autumn night wind cut through me like a blade, and Ryan's trembling body on my back was the only sign that he was still alive.