I ran for several minutes without any real direction. Sure that I was on the far side of the park, I turned back in the direction I thought the fence was, where Meek and I had entered. I’d made a good guess because I went right to the building I’d seen Meek enter earlier. However, when I went in, Meek was nowhere to be seen.

Not wanting to risk another run in with that security guard, I mean he may have saw the office on fire and thought about coming back for Meek. Oddly, until now, it hadn’t occurred to me that maybe he thought I was still inside the burning office.

With no other ideas where to look for Meek, I headed for the fence. God I was so glad to see Meek there.

“Alvin! Over here!” he said waving to me.

The rain was really coming down as I reached Meek.

“You alright?” I asked.

“Me? I’ve been looking for you all this time!” he lied and in some weird way, we both knew he was lying but I made the conscious decision to not call him on his lie.

“You were?” I asked and then told my own lie, “Well I was running around looking for you?”

“Too Funny!” Meek said nervously, “Come on! Let’s get back to the hotel. All right? I want out of this rain!”

The two of us scurried under the fence just as we heard the sound of a fire truck cutting through the rain and wind from the far side of the park.

We both turned and saw the flames.

“Wow! Something is on fire!” Meek said loudly.

“Well glad we are out of there then!” I said while looking into Meek’s rain drenched face.

Again, we both knew what the other was thinking, but neither of us said another word as side-by-side we jogged at a fast pace all the way back to the hotel.

Back at the room, we found Destiny out cold on the bed nearest the window. Cold and wet, Meek and I quietly closed the door and went to the bathroom where we stripped out of our wet things. I got in the shower to wash off my filth while Meek left me alone to do so. I dropped the spent GoodNite into the trash. Meek was kind enough to tie the plastic bag shut to keep the smell from wafting through the whole place.

Upon closing the bathroom door, I started to take off my rain-drenched shirt when I noticed something weird smeared all over the front. I suppose had I not been so wet and cold, I would have guessed then what was all over my shirt and how it got there. It would also explain why my shirt had been wadded up and tossed in the trashcan back in the security office.

When I came out of the bathroom Meek was already in bed. I didn’t know if he was awake or not, so I quietly found one of the dry GoodNites and slipped it on. I got into the other side of the bed with Meek and lay on the very edge, unable to sleep for several hours.

I’m not sure when sleep finally overcame me. I do however remember lying, looking up at the ceiling and thinking about how long this day had been and just how much had happened since Meek and I woke up and watched the sun rise together.

Sometime in the night, I was awakened by the soft, gentle sobs of Meek beside me. I wanted to roll over and comfort him; but to be honest I was too scared to do so. What could I possibly say to him that would make what happened to him any better? What do you say to someone you watched being raped? I wanted to cry, but knew if I did, that I wouldn’t be able to stop, so instead I bit on the inside of my cheek so that the pain would distract me from everything going on in my head.