Choices We Make

I was driving alone in my own car, returning from pitching my screenplays at a weekend pitch event, going south on the Interstate when my mind drifted off to something or the other. I don't know what I was thinking of at the time but evidently something distracted me because at the Y-intersection where I should have taken a left I veered right. All of a sudden I was in a bad part of town. I checked my gas gauge and it was about half empty so I figured I'd fill it up and then find my way back to the Interstate. There was a gas station that had fast food. I pulled alongside a pump, got out of the car and started to go inside to give the attendant cash for the gas I was going to pump when out of the blue came a young woman about 25 or 26 years old, but I'm not good at identifying someone's age. She was dressed in shabby clothes, hair twisted in all sorts of ways, but with a beautiful smile that you'd want to look at all the time. She didn't know me nor had we met before. She asked me for a few dollars for food, saying she hadn't eaten in two days. My immediate reaction was to ignore her, so I turned my back to continue walking into the building. But she was persistent because she asked a second time. So I turned and stared at her. I got a better look at her face and honest to God she looked like an Angel from the Heavens. Her voice was soft and sweet sounding with a slight accent from someplace I couldn't figure out nor did I care or ask her about. Her skin was light brown and looked smooth as silk, and her hair was dark. She looked fit, in other words, in good shape. For a split second I lost focus. I was really disorganized, but then I quickly pulled myself back together. I then said that she shouldn't be begging for money. I told her to get a job. She didn't seem to listen to me as she begged me for a few dollars, but I refused her again. I wasn't about to give her a hand out. I've fallen for the act before only to see the guy who I gave money to drive off in a BMW. As I turned to step inside the building, I started to think that maybe she was an actress doing a documentary about the homeless. Anyway, I paid the attendant inside and headed back outside to pump the gas. As I stepped outside the station there she was again. But this time she was sitting on the steps, head between her legs with her hands on top of her head. She was crying, so I asked her to stop crying. Then she looked up at me, face to face with those beautiful brown eyes neatly placed on her smooth looking face. Again I thought I was looking at an Angel. She asked again for a few dollars for food. Then, I started to cry like a baby. It just happened. It was uncontrollable. I couldn't stop. She didn't say a thing. She just looked at me as if she could see my soul. I told her I was going to fill the gas tank and then move my car off to the side and come back to her but I'm sure she didn't believe me. But I returned to where I left her. She hadn't moved but I saw a bit of a surprise on her face. I grabbed her by the hand and said that I was going to buy her anything she wanted from a nearby diner across the street. We walked hand and hand to the restaurant across the street that. She told me a little about her awful life. She said she was born to poor parents and grew up that way, never living in anything more than two-bedroom run-down apartments on the poverty-stricken side of towns. Her toys were fantasized within her own creative mind and her travels were between school and apartment, and then when she was old enough to work, part-time jobs filled in her day, her life. Without keeping up with the changing times her skill-set quickly became outdated, whatever those skills were. Not even she knows. Now she finds herself just trying to survive, one day at a time. I began to feel somehow connected to her in some strange way although, like then, I still can't think of anything about her that relates to me. After we finished our meals we walked back to my parked car. I gave her a few bucks and then began to drive off to leave her alone where we found each other. But before I was too far away she yelled out to me in a sweet and pleasurable sound a marriage proposal! I stopped the car to look at her. Her face hadn't changed one ounce. We just looked into each other's eyes for a short time. Then I said to her she deserved someone better than me. Then I drove away. As I drove off, I thought I was going to feel like a sucker with this woman, but I didn't. I guess it's too easy to not notice the lonely and desperate people in the world because they seem to stay hidden. Yet, doesn't everybody need somebody? But I think the truth is I don't think I really know why I felt the way I did. I just drove away. Yet I'll always remember her and even think about what our lives would be like if I took her up on the marriage proposal, but it was the choice that I made. We didn't even exchange first and last names with each other.