"Wake up, hey, Anybodys, wake up! Breakfast,"
Action was gently shaking her good hand. Anybodys blinked and yawned. She was in a strange little room, in a rickety bed beside two chairs, a large easy chair, which Action lay in, and an empty wooden one. She sat up jerkily then winced.
"Where am I?" she asked, touching the unfamiliar shirt.
"Doc's," Action said, a piece of toast in his hand that he was hurriedly munching. "I brought you back here, last night… remember?" Anybodys nodded slowly, the events of the night returning to her in a haze.
"Yeah.." she said slowly. There was something else she wanted to remember, but she couldn't as yet. Suddenly, the scent of newly-buttered hot bread filled her nostrils. "Say, Action, could I have some of that?"
Action grinned. "Doc's making a new plateful. He reckoned you'd be hungry." He looked approvingly at her. "Your eye looks better." Anybodys smiled.
"I'm a casual, I guess." She touched the eye gingerly, and recoiled at the uneven swellings. "Jeez, I must look great. What exactly happened?" There were gaps in her memories… as yet she couldn't remember how she'd got all these wounds. Action looked at her in concern… did she have concussion or something?
"You don't remember…the Puerto Ricans? What Chino did to Tony-" Chino! Anybodys dream flooded back to her. Tony-Chino. She had kissed him-how could she? How? She pushed Action's proffered slice of toast away. "I ain't hungry no more," she murmured, and lay back slowly against the pillow. Action looked at her in concern.
"Anybodys, tell me who hurt you, and I'll-" Action pounded his fists together menacingly. Anybodys hardly saw. The traitorous kiss with Chino was overwhelming her. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and she slid with a low moan onto the floor.
"Anybodys! Anybodys!" She opened her eyes. Doc's worried, bloodshot blue eyes met hers, filled with fear. You wouldn't care so much if you knew, Anybodys thought, sickened. The light from the window hurt her eyes, and she turned her head weakly towards the safe gloom of the floor.
"Listen to me..do you need to go to a hospital? See a woman doctor?" Doc was asking. "Did one of the PRs…" Anybodys moaned. Her guilty conscience had only heard one word.
"I never did anything with no PR," she said softly. "I hate him, really… please.."
"That does it!" Action yelled, and raced out the door. He knows, Anybodys thought. He knows about Chino. They think I'm mad…maybe I am…
"Don't make me go to no hospital.. please, I don't need a doctor, really!" Doc looked dubiously at her.
"Anybodys, please!"
"I'm fine…leave me alone! Please!" She thrashed impotently against him.
"I have to find Action," Doc said, indecisively, leaving the room. Anybodys fell back onto the bed, and cried to the empty ceiling. When her sobs passed, there was only silence. She sat up and wiped her nose tearfully on the red shirt. Silence.
Hardly knowing what she did, she got up and walked to Doc's closet. Rummaged through the boxes and bags of junk. Her own, ripped jeans would have to do; Doc's heavy grey trousers were too large. The red shirt was too distinctive… quickly, she removed it, and pulled on a pale blue, the oldest she could find. She had no sneakers…where were they? Frantically, she searched the room and found them in a corner.. beside Action's cap.
"Sorry, Action," she murmured, and slipped it on, pulling it low over her black eye. Her strands of red hair she pushed into the hat with her good hand, already heading for the door. Hesitantly, she made her way into the store, checking through the windows that the street was empty. Finding only silence, she snatched a sheet of paper lying on the counter, and scrawled on it in a left-handed scribble.
FIND A WAY OF FORGIVING Anybodys.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to the empty room, then darted out into the street, heading straight down the steps into the basement yard. Stealthily, she checked the deserted sidewalk, sleepily quiet in the morning light and birdsong, stretching to left and right; Shark and Jet territory. Fear of Anita kept her going one way, her guilty conscience and the thought of meeting the gang the other. Better to die at a PR's hand than at Action's- and surely that was inevitable if he did know about her dream. Anybodys had always worshipped Action as a Leader and an Aceman… in seemed inconceviable that there was anything he didn't know about her. Well, apart from one thing. But never mind. Anybodys brushed the clouds from her mind and turned left. The thought of encountering the Sharks no longer scared her. Well, you're in love with one, aren't you? Her traitorous mind told her.
"No, I'm not," Anybodys said, suddenly afraid and shaky.
"I'm NOT. NOT, NOT, NOT!" She repeated, but nausea was rising in her mouth. She gave a choked sob and just about made it to the gutter before she began to vomit.
"I don't love him… I hate him, I HATE HIM," She repeated, as the green bile turned to blood. "I HATE him…"