Wet, tired, cold, and hungry. My lips, abused by the ruthless chill of December, were cracked and bleeding. No matter. In the hell I was currently drowning in, chapped lips were the very least of my worries.

Most teens were currently plunked down in their cozy little classrooms, worrying about college and sports and whether or not their boyfriends would take them to prom. Perhaps not. Maybe they had family issues or money issues or issues about bullying, issues about health or confidence or alcohol. Drug issues, discrimination issues, issues about this, issues about that - forgive me. When you’re sitting on the curb of San Francisco with an empty donation hat and an equally empty sense of hope for the future, it’s difficult to sympathize for those with full bellies and a place to sleep. I had nothing to do but sit in the dark and await the stars.

How had I gotten this way? Everything seemed so perfect when my family moved here three months ago. The keenness that the city air held on that fateful morning in September had sent shivers of delight down my spine. My mother had held my hand, despite my protesting, and led me into the most flawless piece of paradise that the Golden State could offer: I had miles of unexplored territory to discover at my leisure. Well, not really leisure. If I could have lost myself in a rush through the entire city that very day, then I certainly would have.
The glistening Golden Gate Bridge, so beautiful even after all those years, symbolized the cross from a broken world into a shiny, new life. The glow of fog over the thunderous gray waves seemed mysterious rather than nebulous to me; however, I blame my lack of perception on my needy eyes that wanted nothing more than to see beauty bloom from disaster. I was wrong. The fog was only foreshadowing my hazy future.
Leaving Nebraska to come to California had been a hasty step for my mom and I. My father had only been killed two weeks ago, and already we sought to abandon and forget rather than remember. We wanted California, the state of yearlong sunshine, the home of celebrities, the crown jewel of the west. Instead, we got California, the place where my father’s memory burdened our dreams and heavied our hearts.
In retrospect, we never should have left Nebraska, where we had once lived a beautiful life. “Hindsight is 20/20,” my father used to say. There’s no going back. No stopping my mother from buying an apartment in the roughest part of town - the only one we could afford. From there, it all went downhill.
Life seemed to shine with an unrealistic luminosity. In our bitter attempts to leave memories of my father behind, mom and I tried to live someone else’s life. Our desperation made us vulnerable, and we veered out of control. Just as my dad did in that car crash. We spun out as he did. Crashed and burned.
Money was tight, the apartment was dark and dank and unsettling, and my mother’s job as a clerk at the local drug store just wasn’t getting us what we needed. Our vision clouded, we did the only thing that seemed logical: steal.
Mom had felt guilty even considering crawling back Nebraska after all that she had promised me, her only daughter. For my sake, she robbed the store she worked for. Unsuccessfully. She was caught in the act and sent away to prison, and the childcare workers came to take me away.
Scared out of my wits, I ran. I couldn’t be sent far away from the only person left in the world who loved me. I just couldn’t. Even if I couldn’t see her, I needed to be near my mom. So I ditched the apartment, dropped out of school, and applied for every occupation that could possibly accept me. Unfortunately, in the tight economy, nobody held a position for a skinny, lonely, sad little fifteen-year-old girl.
So I slunk to the streets with an empty hat for donations and a wilting sense of faith. Cold from the pavement seeped through my clothing with every passing minute, numbing my body and mind. Cold, I was so cold! So cold and lonely, so hopeless and unsteady. Cars passed by in an endless blur, me ignoring them, they ignoring me. Their motion made me bitterly jealous. Had I ever been so stagnant in my life? I was just a nameless face in a crowd with nothing left to do but saturate in the worry that ailed my mind and hope for enough money to stay in a hotel for the night. That, or clench my jaw and bear the agony of a night under the inky black sky.
The sun was sinking fast in between the towering edifices, throwing eerie shadows over my meek existence. I was swallowed darkness. I wished for more than a blanket to protect me from the coming night. I wished for the arms of my mother, the embrace of my father, the safety of Nebraska. I wanted the safety that should never have left me.
Hands growing colder, I reached into the pockets of my mom’s old jacket. Something crinkled: a piece of paper. Taking it out with shaky hands, I vaguely wondered what it could be. Not that any of it mattered. Not in this icy madness.

Numbly unfolding it, I discovered it to be the receipt from the gas station in Nebraska, dated back from August. When my father was still alive and taking care of mom and I. And I had moved to California to forget him – hadn’t I?
No. No matter how much I pushed him to the back of my mind, he would always be there to cradle my conscience on unbearably dark nights such as these. The tears that I had been suppressing since longer than I cared to remember fell down my cheeks in hot trails of misery, highlighting my love and loss.

I cried and cried. My silent tears turned into sobs, which escalated into shuddering wails. All of my hidden grief broke through me in waves of desperation. My dad had always said that God would provide. I believed him this time. I would wait for someone to answer my desperate plea.

And my blessing came. Not in the form of angels, not in the form of my father or mother. In the form of a shabby woman of sixty in an oversized raincoat. A wilted umbrella. Glasses. As I sat and sobbed and waited for help, she knelt beside me, the only person left on the dark streets at this time, under the light-dappled sky of California.

In my hat she left a one hundred dollar bill with a note scribbled in the corner:
“It is in the darkness of night that we can open our eyes to see the stars.”