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E lizabeth Fellowes hated noise.

Which made her current living situation in New York City either a cruel act of fate or the result of her own nonsensical choices – knowing herself well enough to weigh the possibilities, both options were on the table.

As was the silverware she’d been rolling into the soft cotton napkins for the last hour.

A silver fork slipped from her grasp and clattered to the ground, the noise ringing unpleasantly in her ear.

She glared at it like it had done something offensive rather than being a victim of her sweaty palms and butter fingers.

Bending low to pick it up, a strand of light brown hair tickled her exposed collarbone.

Brushing it back in a huff, she tucked it behind her ears as a pair of nonslip black sneakers appeared before her.

Her eyes rolled. First the fork and now this?

The universe was punishing her for not holding the elevator for Mr Lennings that morning, but she’d been in a hurry, and Mr Lennings liked small talk.

Elizabeth believed small talk to be a section of hell carved out on earth just for her personal torment. Her habit had always been to get to the point with as few clipped words as possible to end the interaction swiftly so she didn’t say something mortifying to screw it up.

“Bette, still here? Were you waiting for me? And on your knees, no less.” Randall, a fellow server who had been at Madame Rose’s far longer than Bette, gave her a slimy smile. She winced like she’d just experienced something revolting.

Randall seemed to have that effect in general.

Placing the fork gently back on the table, she straightened her aching back, attempting to stand taller than the man leering down at her. “Why would I be waiting for you, Randall?” She said it curiously, as if she didn’t know what he’d been suggesting, blinking her wide brown eyes at him.

Bette found it much easier to act as if she didn’t understand people’s meanings when they were trying to offend her. It was nothing if not entertaining, watching them stumble at her lack of comprehension with slight panic at the prospect of explaining themselves.

Randall wiped underneath his nose with the back of his hand, his eyes roving to the ceiling. “I was just teasing you, Betty girl. Boss told me you’re cut and can head home. It’s dead tonight.”

It wasn’t, of course – dead that is. They were in the Lower East Side of New York City, the place was still packed with people, and Bette was almost certain Randall was trying to be rid of her so he could commandeer her section.

Well, fine. She was at the end of her rope, she’d surrender it happily.

Pasting a small smile on her face, she brushed her damp palms against her black apron. “That’s so considerate Randall,” she said pleasantly. It wasn’t. “I’m so appreciative.” She wasn’t.

But she’d already sacrificed enough to the restaurant gods for the evening; the red wine stain on her new white shirt was ample proof. Courtesy of a patron who’d drunk her weight in merlot and was generous enough to ‘share’ it with Bette.

It had been the woman’s birthday and Bette had to assure her for fifteen agonizing minutes that it was fine, and she could get a new shirt and ‘no this isn’t a big deal, I promise you it happens all the time.

’ The woman had relented and given her a hug and pathetically Bette almost wept into her shoulder at the contact.

She couldn’t remember the last time someone had hugged her, and she hadn’t realized how much she missed it until a drunk stranger was holding her tight and patting her back.

It wasn’t a cry for help. More like a scream.

Without a backward glance, she kept her middle finger clenched tightly to her palm in the tentative hopes she wouldn’t flip anyone off on her way out.

The evening summer air was balmy and damp.

The sweat she’d just wiped from her palms was now seeping from the top of her forehead and the back of her neck as she re-tied her thick hair away from her face.

Only three more months.

If she continued making the tips she was, she’d only need to do this for three more months before she could finally afford the down payment for the small cabin she’d been eyeing in the Poconos for the last year.

The real estate agent had warned her that it was a fixer-upper, that she’d be secluded, away from the major roads and therefore cut off from most of civilization.

Her co-workers had called her out of her gourd, and maybe she was, but the city had held no appeal since her parents passed.

The paramedics had called it an accident. To her, it was the day she was forever altered. Sweet Bette had both her wings clipped when she’d woken up with two parents and had gone to sleep with both dead.

There was no point staying in New York when every time she closed her eyes, she saw their faces. Her sweet father with his horrific jokes, her mother with her zany tarot readings, and the beating heart in Bette’s chest that missed them so much it was difficult to breathe.

Her hand absentmindedly rubbed her chest as she walked, block by block, street by street.

The lights and the people passing were all blurring together as she made her way to the rent-controlled apartment that had been on loan to her from a family friend.

Something most New Yorkers would kill for, and she was desperately trying to leave it behind.

But grief didn’t leave much room for logic, only for dull, phantom aches.

She passed a comedy club pizza place she used to go to with Emma, her high school best friend with journalistic aspirations.

Bette had received something like twelve unanswered text messages from Emma since the funeral.

The last was a gentle, ‘ I know you’re hurting.

Call me when you’re ready to talk .’ Bette had figured, even then, that she’d never be ready to talk about it. So, she never called.

Her sneakers made scuffing sounds against the pavement as she turned onto her street.

Ivory overgrowth sprouting up between the cracks in the brick buildings’ architecture made the dimly lit street look romantic in a way that caused her chest to constrict.

It was irritating and inconvenient, that every positive emotion seemed to only last a moment before her piercing guilt set in.

Bette halted to pluck one of the ivy leaves and twirled the green stem between her fingers as she picked up her pace.

She needed mind-numbing television, greasy takeout, and the quiet company of her goldfish, Max.

The crowds on the street had thinned out to only a few stragglers and even more dimly lit sidewalks.

This was the part of the walk where her hand drifted to her pockets and put one finger on the plastic tab above her pepper spray, the part of the walk where she became acutely aware she was a young woman traveling alone at night.

That awareness always lived inside her, but there were moments of heart-pumping adrenalin that made the starkness of that fact stand out with a little too much clarity.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she rounded another corner and saw two men booking it down the sidewalk toward her.

She side-stepped them, trying to keep her expression even, and they passed her without a second glance. It made her feel silly, but she’d rather be silly than careless.

“Oh dear.” Bette halted and turned her head at the distressed voice echoing behind her. The two men may not have been coming for her, but they’d neglected to see the elderly woman in their path as they knocked into her shoulder, causing her blue glasses to fly off her nose and onto the sidewalk.

Keep walking, Bette.

The old woman was squinting down at the ground, her eyes tinged in panic as she searched for the discarded lenses.

Surely, she’d find them. Bette should keep walking.

Bette shouldn’t be standing there, thirteen paces up the street, frozen and staring, willing the woman to find the lenses so she could continue with a clear conscience.

But Bette stood there, because despite her parents being gone, despite any trace of them being left on this earth, they’d left their goodwill behind to live on in her. It was the strongest piece of them she still held.

Strongest, and most irritating.

After the sixth person – and yes it was six, she’d counted them in bubbling anger – had passed the old woman by without a second glance, the last person took a wide step over the woman’s glasses without breaking pace.

That was what propelled Bette to turn around, back to the old woman, who looked on the verge of tears.

“It’s alright,” Bette said gently, giving her a small smile and laying a hand on her arm to still her shaking.

Bette’s parents were the storm; they had always called Bette the calm.

‘ Better-than-medicine Bette’ had been her father’s favorite nickname for her.

She tried to summon that side of herself now, though she feared her presence no longer served as a remedy.

Bending low, she picked up the glasses and took the woman’s hand, gently placing the lenses in her age-spotted palm.

“Here you go,” Bette said, her sincerity surprising her after so long in a haze of robotic interactions. “These streets aren’t lit enough; I can barely see my shoelaces.”

Up close, she noticed the older woman was in clothing that would be deemed strange if they were anywhere outside New York City, like she’d just hit the Renaissance faire or Comic Con as a DnD character.

“I like your outfit.” Bette offered the compliment before letting out a nervous chuckle.

The woman didn’t answer, just quietly placed the glasses back on her nose. “Did you just come from somewhere fun?”

The woman remained silent, twirling the end of a long, gray braid, hazel eyes crinkling as they roved up and down Bette’s person. “Hmph. I didn’t think it would be someone so young. Odd.”