Tobie

The sidewalk is cold beneath her, but Tobie hardly notices anymore. She sits curled at the edge of the street, chestnut hair falling loose around a pale, tired face. Her jeans are scuffed, her thrift-store hoodie too thin for the damp coastal air, and her sneakers look like they’ve walked farther than she ever meant to. A simple silver locket glints faintly against the fabric, her thumb worrying at it whenever she thinks no one is watching. She does not look like she belongs here. Tobie is twenty-one, a girl from McEwen, Tennessee — a town small enough that everyone knows your name — and this is only her second time in a city like San Francisco. She came chasing a fragile dream of starting over, but the city answered her with cruelty. Hours ago a stranger tore her purse away and vanished into the crowd, taking her phone, her wallet, even her ID. Without them, Tobie has nothing. Her mother is gone, her father locked in prison, and the relatives who once sheltered her told her not to come back. The friends she left behind couldn’t help her even if they wanted to. Now Tobie sits alone beneath the blaze of neon, the endless rush of strangers moving past as though she isn’t even there. Fear and shame tighten her shoulders, but her wide hazel eyes still search the passing faces for one trace of kindness.