"You're done here. Get out. Now, 'fore I have to get the lads from downstairs to throw you out."
The words wound their way through her thoughts, round and round, slowly weighing more and more heavily on her shoulders. The factory hadn't been the best job ever, it was true, but it had been a job, a sort of rock, one island of security in an uncertain world. Who could have believed a mere year ago everything was different? She still had a home, then, albeit a small apartment, shared with her whole family, and she'd been happier at the factory, working with her sisters. There were even a few boys who kept catching her eye, and one or two of them had finally gotten bold enough to start saying hello to her as she passed. She was on the verge of saying hello back.
Then the fevers swept through her neighborhood. Her mother was the first to catch it, and she seemed to get sick, and then better again, but by then, the twins had it too. Everyone else was kept away from them, but as they got sicker, mama got sicker again, too. They were gone the same day, buried in paupers graves because the rent was due, and the rest of them needed to eat.
Not that eating, or a roof and walls could stop an illness. Maura went next, Caitlin just after, and then papa. She got sick, too, but somehow, for some reason, it spared her. By then, though, papa had long since been fired, and she'd come close. On her factory wages, she couldn't keep the family apartment, or pay for funerals. The rest of her family joined her mother and the twins, and she packed up and sold off the precious reminders of better days, packing what she could into a small bag, and finding herself a room in a women's rooming house near the factory.
But she wasn't the same. More than just the loss of her family, the fever had left her a bit sickly, it was harder for her to manage the work. She started making mistakes, getting yelled at, threatened. And then the foreman finally cornered her. She had one chance to save her job- she was pretty enough still, and he had a son who needed a wife. Only she had met this son, and he was a drunken, odious thug who spent his time bullying anyone weaker than himself. The idea of being more or less secure for the rest of her life was appealing, but knowing she'd spend it miserable and beaten down, working while her husband drank away her wages, and she and her assuredly eventual children slowly starved to death was unacceptable. She turned him down.
"You're done here. Get out. Now, 'fore I have to get the lads from downstairs to throw you out."
And with that, she was homeless- she'd never find work fast enough to earn the wages she'd need to pay the rent, due the next day. Homeless, and alone, and frightened, in a numb sort of way. The enormity of it, not having any idea what she would do, or where she would go, where she would sleep, when she would eat again, it was so overwhelming that she just sort of ignored it, drifting into the rooming house, gathering her things and drifting back out again.
It was late fall, and the nights were getting colder. It would only get worse, and there was really nowhere for her to go. Everything was sort of spinning in her head, a slight roar in her ears, blinders on as she wandered forward, not paying any attention at all to where she was going. Several times she was jostled to the side by passing pedestrians, but she barely noticed, just kept her head down and moved forward. She had half a mind to walk right to the edge of the island, and right off of it, into the river. It was cold enough that she might freeze to death when she got out, if she didn't drown. It wasn't as though she could swim.
But then, there was a buzzing sort of noise. It kept repeating itself, until she stopped and turned, frowning faintly at a tall boy with a cowboy hat, who was smirking faintly at her. "I said do you want a pape, miss? Least you could do is answer me. Sheesh."
"A what?" Her life was beyond things like newspapers, trivial things. What did the news of others matter to her? She was going to starve or freeze or drown. Why should she care about idiotic headlines?
"A newspaper." The boy emphasised his wares by waving one in her face, before his smirk slowly became a frown. "You alright, lady? You look like you're about to fall over."
"If I do, I do." Shrugging, she turned, and intended to begin walking again, by this point completely lost. She had never been to this part of town before, she wasn't even sure what part of town it was.
The cowboy caught her arm, surprisingly gently, and stopped her. "Hey, that's no way to talk. Ain't my place or anythin, but nothing could be that bad."
She turned, and the blank expression on her face slowly turned into a frown. Who the hell did he think he was? "Of course it could."
"Try me." The boy at least let go of her arm, leaning against the wall just behind him, arms crossing.
She had half a mind to just walk away, but something about his expression angered her. She took a step forward, her voice getting harder, colder. "My family is dead, I just got fired, I have no home, no money, nothing. I'm going to starve to death on the streets, and the only ones who will care are the damn rats, who'll probably tear my corpse apart. At least they'll get something out of it."
The boy shook his head a bit, and pulled his hat down a bit over his eyes. "Look, I'm sorry about your folks, and your job, but it ain't the end of the world. It hurts, but it's no excuse to just fall over and lie there until you die. My ma died when I was a kid, my pa's in jail, I have no idea where my older brother or younger sister have gotten off to, I've been on the street, all alone, since I was 7. I ain't dead yet, now am I?"
She recoiled slightly, her face scrunching. "I don't know. Are you?" She was being sarcastic, hiding in it, because it was easier to do that then attempt to feel empathy for him.
"Alive as can be. Sometimes I go a bit hungry, but I manage. And I ain't the only one." The cowboy smiled slightly, and then sighed, shaking his head. "Look, like I said, it ain't my place. Just think about that. There's always somethin. Hope, you know. There's always hope."
"No, there isn't." Her insides were twisting, and hope was the opposite of what she was feeling, blanketing her. Of course he'd survived, he was a street urchin, they were bred to it, they knew how to survive, stealing and cowering in alleys and corners. She didn't know any of those things, and she was too old to learn them now.
The look on the boys face made it clear he knew this wasn't a battle he'd win, and he physically backed away, his hands up. "Alright, Goldilocks. But if you decide to not just fall over and die, and you've got a nickle or two to your name, think about turning your hand at flower selling, or newspaper selling. Buy-in ain't much, and you make back double what you spent. It's rough at first, but it gets better."
She realized, somewhere, deep down, that she wasn't, perhaps, ready for it to be better yet. And that, somehow, was worse than the plain hopelessness. She didn't know what to say to say to him, to his logic. She didn't want logic, she wanted her mother back. She wanted her sisters, the twins, her father back. She wanted to be safe and warm and back at home, not to be presented with horrible, soul-crushing options for plain survival. She didn't want her life to just be plain survival. She wanted happiness. She wanted to say hello to the butcher's boy, maybe flirt with him. Have him ask her to step out with him, so see a show some night. Maybe she'd let him kiss her, maybe not. But either way, she wanted him to ask her father if he could marry her. Happily ever after. She wanted a happily ever after, and she would never get one, now.
"M-my name's not Goldilocks." Was all she could snap at him, as her own arms crossed fiercely over her stomach, and she stormed away from him, jaw shaking, feeling far more miserable than she had when he'd stopped her, more hopeless, more inclined to just walk off the edge of the island into the cold water.
"Sure it is!" Came the reply from somewhere behind her. "I'll see you again, Goldilocks!"