For as long as I can remember our car always had problems. It was an old Subaru, older than me by about eight years, and a seventeen-year-old car was "pushing it" as my dad would say. It had a lot of problems, whether it was stalling at a stop light, running out of gas at the most inconvenient times, or just not starting when you wanted it to, and although all these problems were pretty annoying, my family became accustomed to them. So when my mom and I came out of the grocery store and the car wouldn't start, it wasn't a total surprise. My mom and I just finished putting the groceries away and started to walk to the nearest gas station. The air was just cold enough that it felt like it was biting at your nose, making you want to curl up into a ball and drink hot chocolate. I kept my hand in my pocket fiddling with the quarters I always kept in my coat, I rubbed each quarter between my thumb and ring finger trying to pass the time as we walked, feeling each bump and crevice on the quarters trying to distinguish which side was heads and which was tails. my other hand was tightly linked with my moms as we walked down the street.

I was very observant, and each time I would see someone new walking I would study them, I would try to guess why they were out walking in the cold, where they were going to, where they were coming from. My mom noticed all the people walking as well, each time someone was walking towards us on the sidewalk she would hold my hand just a little bit tighter and pull me closer to her side.

As we finally reached the gas station I noticed a bus stop right across the street, a big group of people all stood around it waiting for the bus. I examined the group of people as we entered the gas station, each person different than the person standing next to them. There was a man in a suit, a mother and her child, a teenager with headphones in, a woman holding grocery bags in both of her hands, along with at least a dozen more people.
As my mom talked to the worker behind the counter in the gas station about our car, I watched as the big blue bus approached the waiting group of people. Most filed on quickly, trying to escape the cold. As the bus pulled away it revealed 4 people still waiting for the next bus. I had seen two of the people before, but the other two were new. There was a young woman, she couldn't be much older than twenty years old and a new man who was most likely in his fifties. As we left the gas station I kept my eye on the people waiting at the bus stop they all looked irritated by the cold, but still just standing there.

As we left the gas station my mom grabbed my hand tight again, pulling me through the door, the cold hitting me hard in the face making me squint my eyes, and shoving my free hand back into my pocket finding my quarters again and rubbing my thumb against the cold metal.

As we walked back to where our car was parked, I watched as a new man walked up to the bus stop, something seemed off about him the way he walked up to the people already waiting for the bus. None of the people at the bus stop really took notice of the man except the young woman.

She seemed to tense up as he came closer to her, and my grip on my quarters tightened as he put his hand around her arm, but none of the other people around them even looked up. I could see her trying to pull away as he got even closer to her, I could feel my heart stop as he tried to pull her closer to him. The way she tried to pull away and still no one tried to help her made my mouth go dry, I found myself putting the quarters between my fingers clutching them tighter than ever, as he wrapped his arms around her.

I hadn't even realized that I had stopped walking until I felt my mom pulling on my hand asking me what was wrong, I tried to speak but the words wouldn't come out of my mouth. All I could do was stand there, my mom not knowing what was wrong, just kept pulling me along. I tried to look back to see what was happening but couldn't see them anymore.

As we got back to our car I was still shocked, I didn't know what had just happened, what I had just walked away from, what I didn't do anything to stop. My mom fixed the car with the new oil she had bought at the gas station, leaving me to sit in the car by myself. Why hadn't I said anything?  why didn't I do anything? was she ok? When my mom got in the car, I still didn't say anything, there was nothing I could do now I thought. I was crushed, how could I have not said anything?

The car started and we were finally on our way home, we drove past the bus stop that I had watched and I held my breath, hoping that she would still be there, and be ok. The sigh of relief I had when I saw her still standing there, seemly okay, and he was gone. It was like my whole body was frozen until I saw the bus pull up and her get on.

I remember that girl every time I walk outside, day or night and have the overwhelming feeling to always be on guard, to always have something between my fingers in case anyone ever tries to grab me, the way that my breath catches when a man walks past me on the street. I remember that girl every day, and hope and pray that she is somewhere safe, somewhere okay.