BEFORE I CAN EVEN blink twice, my mind is already spinning off in a thousand directions. What the hell?
Mary | Saturday, December 12 | 1:20 > Your lights on. U up for a drink?
Mary | Saturday, December 12 | 1:21 > Pls. Have nowhre else to go
Granted, I'd rather sit and chat with a seven-foot neo-Nazi skinhead crack dealer than with this woman, but this is all very strange, to say the least. This is not like her. Something isn't adding up here and that's why I decide to grab a jacket and go downstairs, just to check what the hell is going on.
I find her sitting in the driver's seat of a grey Volvo parked right across the street. Her head and arms are draped over the steering wheel, her hand holding a mobile, which she's tapping against her forehead in a repetitive movement.
I gaze at her for a moment, trying to make some sense of this, still pondering if I shouldn't just walk away.
After a while, Mary raises her head to check the mobile display and our eyes meet through the dim light and the heavy rain that's pouring down.
She stumbles out of the car clumsily, slamming the door shut with a loud clang, and then stops right there, on the pavement, staring at me.
What-the-hell-is-happening, I ask her without actual words, just with a movement of my hands from under the building portico.
She shrugs, looking helpless, and only then crosses the street, with staggering steps, sort of zigzagging towards the entrance door.
Her clothes are completely soaked, her long blond hair flat, with a few wet strands straggling around her face, which is blurred by the rivulets of water sliding down her skin and smudged with black makeup.
When she comes closer, I get to see her eyes. They're bloodshot and swollen from crying.
"What's wrong?" I ask, completely dumbfounded at the miserable state she's in.
"J-just came to say hi." Her breath hitches with a strangled sob.
With her hand trembling, she shuffles through her handbag before she manages to take a pack of cigarettes out. She fumbles a cigarette from the pack, puts it in her mouth, nervously, and begins a furious search for a lighter.
"You smoke now?"
"I-I can smoke if I waant to," she grits out in a cocky fashion, her speech slurred.
A few seconds later a thin cloud of cigarette smoke rises above her and she takes another couple of uncoordinated steps towards me. There's a strong stench of alcohol emanating from her.
"You're drunk."
"And?"
"And?! You fucking crazy? How can you be driving like this? I'm putting you in a taxi and sending you home."
As I'm taking the mobile out of the jacket, she puts her hand on my shoulder to balance herself. "Don't bother. That f-fucking prick kicked me out."
"And that's my problem because?" I let out an exasperated sigh. "Where do you want to go then?"
Her gaze is so vacant I don't think she heard me at all.
"Hey? Listen to me! Where do you want to go?"
"Here?"
Fuck no. I'm not your plan B, your safety net, or your fucking 'welcome' rug at the front door! Forget about it.
"I'm calling Rogers and sending you to his place. You're his problem, not mine."
"He doesn't waant me there, I told you."
YOU ARE READING
Where the Stars Fall
RomanceHow far would you go to protect the ones you love? A successful architect with a promising career in London, Brian's world spins out of control when the man he always saw as a second father betrays him in the most unexpected way. Left without closur...
