Strangers

Langston ordered two sandwiches. One for him, one for the ragged woman by the dumpster. She wouldn’t accept it, so he left it nearby on the sidewalk and retreated inside a bookstore.

There, half-hidden by the window display, he watched her. She snatched the free meal and darted behind the garbage, already scarfing it down.

The weight in his chest rose up his throat and choked him. She may not have recognized him, but he remembered how she always passed him notes in ninth grade chemistry, how she used to doodle a heart in the corner of each one.