Missing Waffles

The dirt outside the car door was so fine that as she spat blood into it, tufts of dust exploded. Ruby-red pearls dive-bombed from lazy, glossed lips and coagulated in strange and unyielding fortunes. 

The slap two minutes ago had reopened the ribbon of cuts on the inside of her mouth, undoing the painful saltwater swishes pilfered from a burgertown. 

Walking off his demons now, he’d left her alone with her thoughts and taken a bike rim with him for protection. His explanation could have satisfied a regular fiend or used-up sleeve, but not his brand-new seventeen-year-old. 

Another thing she didn’t know.

It was a shame he kept hitting her, though she’d never say. He was an old head. And willing to teach her. Share. 

Last she saw, though, he was one-shoe bound for the duck pond, wheeling at invisible predators. He’d be back, she guessed and hoped. 

Plop. Bloom. Into the earth, but less this time. 

She kept turning away from traffic. Cops and parents had been searching for them since they’d stuck up that liquor store three days ago. A little more than one-seventy, and all of it had gone to party favors. 

Her one-shoe buckaroo was riding out the last of the cash while she was left to explore the ragged edges of her mouth.

Ninety-five degrees and burning, she wondered if her mom was still feeding Waffles, her hamster. 

She really hoped so.

It still made her cry to think about him. It wasn’t his fault she had decided to grow up. 

Another car passed, and she didn’t turn this time. 

641-619-47…

What were they? 

The last two…

She’d never had to call home before.