Sasha’s eyes widened. She squeaked and immediately hated herself for it.

“No…no David?”

Darryl must have seen the fear in her face and taken pity, because his tone softened.

“Listen, I uh…” he glanced at a small screen wrapped around his wrist, tapped it a couple of times and looked back to her. “I got about fifteen minutes left here before I got a meeting downtown. I can drop you off. Folks there can help you get set up, if’n you decide to stay.”

“I would appreciate that very much,” Sasha said. Her face reddened again when she asked, “Is there a restroom I can use around here? I’d like to clean up a bit.”

“Ayep,” the man grunted and nodded toward a red door in the back of his office. “That one’s private. No shower, but the water runs.”

Sasha couldn’t really smell herself anymore, which she knew meant she probably smelled terrible. The thing she wanted most was a long, hot shower with shampoo. Holy God, she realized, shampoo is amazing. She was so preoccupied with the thought of clean hair that she didn’t even chastise herself for the blasphemy. Sasha knew she wouldn’t find shampoo in this restroom, but any kind of clean was better than her current level of filth. She thanked Darryl and stepped into his bathroom.

Sasha told herself it wasn’t the worst bathroom she’d ever seen, even though that was a clear lie. The floor, once white tile, was so crusted with black and yellow she could only tell there’d ever been tile by the slight suggestion of square-ish shapes underneath the filth. The toilet had been shattered almost completely; all that remained was a little circle of busted ceramic around a hole in the ground. It seemed to function as a squat toilet, now. The sink was intact, but it also looked like it hadn’t been cleaned at all in the last year. The metal of the faucet was green where it should have been silver.

Sasha held her nose, turned the hot water on, and hoped for the best. It took her a round minute to stop hoping for hot water. Of course this place didn’t have a functioning water heater. This is a warzone, you stupid girl, Sasha cursed herself. She felt tears at the edge of her vision but fought them down. Slowly, deliberately, she pulled off her top, undid her bra, and hung both from the doorknob. As she did she thought of the Book of Romans.

“…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”