It was a forty-seven hour drive from Maine to Oregon and took Hannah four days to complete. As soon as she arrived, she sent out a group message on her phone saying only three words, 'just got here'. If she used words any longer than that, the voice option on her phone would have struggled to understand her, replacing the words from her brain into random words in text. She'd had issues with that enough times in the past to only use single syllable words. 

Once she arrived in Portland she changed the address on her GPS, a simple task for others but as she now struggled to spell, she read each letter one at a time from Meggie's text and entered it into the system, which took her roughly twenty minutes. Meggie would still be at work until two in the morning, working as a bartender at some dive bar not far from where she lived. Hannah was meant to go to the bar and grab Meggie's keys. 

The GPS took her through a scary part of town, but never led her out of it. Instead, she arrived at her destination when all she wanted was to drive passed it as quickly as possible. Sirens blared passed her vehicle as she parked on a side street, forcing Hannah to cover her ears over her auburn hair. A delivery truck beeped as it backed into an alleyway next to the bar and passerby's yelled obscenities to a group of woman across the street. 

This wasn't what she'd expected and wasn't something she prepared for. Her doctor's encouraged a calm environment and her symptoms got worse with chaos. Hannah couldn't help but wonder what the hell she was thinking. The chaos of this city, or at least this area of it, would set off the symptoms she rarely had to deal with. 

After getting out of her vehicle and setting the alarm, she placed her hands back over her ears and hummed a relaxing tune in an attempt to drown out the noise. Tears pricked at her eyes as she struggled with each step across the busy street, horns honking at her and driver's screaming for her to watch where she was going. She stumbled before landing on the dirty, cold pavement, small rocks embedding into her palms. 

She felt someone tugging at her body and looked up, seeing the face she hadn't seen in close to five years. Meggie's hair was now jet black, cut into a short bob. But her face still felt familiar and safe. 

"Loud," was the only word she could force out. Hannah shook her head and wiped the tears from her face before placing her hands back over her ears. "Too loud."

"Dammit, David! I need a little help over here!"

It only took a few moments before a man showed up at Meggie's side. His fingertips brushed the hair from her face as Hannah continued holding her palms against her ears for dear life. "What the hell happened to her?"

Meggie shook her head. "I don't know. She said it was too loud, so I guess she's sensitive to sound."

The man scrunched down beside Hannah and glared up at Meggie. "So you had her move to  Portland? What the fuck were you thinkin'?"

"I didn't know!"

Though he didn't appear very tall, he was strong enough to pick up Hannah's body with ease. She was tempted to fight it, but whenever Hannah felt heavily stressed, she became dizzy. Also, her motor skills were unpredictable, so maybe being carried was for the best. It was embarrassing, but so was running into something or having her leg give out on her. All Hannah knew was she had to sit down until her erratic pulse slowed and sitting down wasn't an option in the middle of the street. 

"I got you," he said to her. His strong southern accent surprised her given the part of the country they were in. With each easy step he took, his shoulder length brown hair swept against her face and Hannah did her best to concentrate on the rhythm of that. 

He looked down at her as they approached the bar. "Are you humming Simple Man?"

It probably seemed strange, especially since Hannah hadn't realized she was still humming, but that song always seemed to relax her. She wasn't sure if it was the melody or the lyrics, but she connected with it. "It c-c-calms me."

"It's a damn good song. One of my favorites." Then he smiled. Although he appeared genuine, the smile itself almost looked sinister, making the scar above his lip more prominent. The man, who Hannah could only assume was Meggie's 'terrifying' boss, had several visible scars on his face, neck and arm, making her wonder just how many scars he had that she couldn't see. Either way, she sensed he had a history as dark as her own. 

Meggie held the front door open for them, but the bar wasn't much quieter than the outside. All Hannah could do was shake her head. 

"I'm takin' her upstairs. You get your ass back to work."

"Since when do you go for the unconscious ones?" Someone out of view asked. 

"Fuck off, Donny!"

Hannah closed her eyes once she felt an incline, his formally steady movements now becoming jagged as he carried her up the steps. He fumbled a bit to open the door once they reached the top, but as soon as it closed behind them, she was met with a blissful quiet. 

"Better?"

She nodded before feeling her body set down against a soft surface. As Hannah  removed her palms from her ears and opened her eyes, she was met with the sight of a spotless and somewhat bare apartment. "Do you—live h-h-here?"

"I crash here sometimes. Every now and then let one of my regulars sleep off the booze. That's why there ain't much to it. If you ain't got nothin, they can't steal nothin'. You want some tea? Helps calm the nerves."

All his words seemed to roll together as they entered her brain and she assumed he noticed the blank look on her face. "Tea?" he repeated.

"Yes, please." She watched the man fill a kettle with water.

He was muscular, which seemed more prominent in his shorter frame. A tattoo peeked out beneath the sleeve of his navy blue t-shirt. 

"Somethin' tells me you, little lady, have a story."

She was certain by his tone that he was trying to be nice and make conversation, especially considering her having a story must have been obvious considering she'd just had a breakdown in the middle of the street. 

"I'd give you the short ver-r-rsion, but even m-my short stor-r-ries take a while."

He chuckled beneath his breath. "I got some time."

"Meg-g-gie didn't tell y-you?"

He turned the gas burner on and turned around to face her. "She told me her best friend from high school was coming to live with her and she had some brain damage. When I asked how, she told me the rest of the story wasn't hers to tell. Meggie's definitely a firecracker. Only one of my employees that talks back to me, and she never passes on the opportunity. Not a month goes by where I don't fire her ass, but she keeps showing anyhow."

If she told him her story, Hannah knew what would happen because it happened every time. His eyes would glisten with tears that may or may not fall. His jaw would clench and his gaze would drop to the floor, unable to look her in the eye. He'd become quiet and regret asking. Things would become awkward.

But after everything he'd just done for her, it was only right for him to hear it. Besides that, he was a stranger who'd already physically removed her from the middle of the street and carried her up to his apartment, so things were already awkward. "There was a rob-b-b-ery at a gas st-st-station. I was—shot in the head."

His reaction was similar to the ones she'd received in the past, but his eyes hadn't glistened, unsurprising from a man like him, and his gaze never left hers.  "That's a fucked up story. Lot shorter than you led on, though."

For reasons unknown to Hannah, she smiled at that. Since the accident, her loved ones began to treat her as a child. Since she could barely spell or read and had to relearn how to talk and walk properly, she supposed she must have seemed like one. But him treating her as adult was like a breath of fresh air filling her lungs and all her senses. 

"What?" he asked when he noticed her reaction.

Hannah shook her head, suddenly feeling a bit shy. "You don't t-treat me like a child."

"'Cause you ain't one." His expression was slack, like it was the most casual and matter-of-fact statement in the world.

It may have been a casual response to most, but to Hannah it meant absolutely everything. Her being treated with kid gloves and being seen as one had put a damper on every relationship in her life, though they all meant well.

The kettle began to whistle and he raised it from the burner it was on to another one before going through his cupboards until he found a box of tea. 

"She said your name was Da-David?"

He gave a quick nod and grabbed a coffee mug out of the drying rack. "And you're Hannah."

He placed the bag of tea in the mug and filled it with water before walking it over to her. 

Hannah relished in the warmth it brought to her hands when she accepted it, or perhaps it was the warmth she felt within him, so very different than the man who'd spoken to Meggie only minutes earlier. "It's nice t-to meet you, David."

That sinister, sincere smile crept back onto his face, once again drawing her attention to the scar. "It's nice to meet you too, Hannah."