The Fountain Girl

Chapter 21

My throat was still a little sore after what Katie did to me. I was sitting on the very same park bench with Anna next to me on a late afternoon, sharing yet another pretzel with her.

She took small bites while I took larger ones, and she poked me in the side whenever she thought that my bite was too big. "We can get another, don't worry," I told her, sweeping her beautiful silky brown hair behind her ear.

Her face shone like an angel's, without blemish and flawless, holding the innocence of a child. The charm and sheer prettiness of her face was too much to behold - Every single curve in her cheeks, every twinkle in her blue eyes, every time she smiled.

Why was Bryan and his gang in the park this lovely afternoon to spoil the mood? I hadn't the slightest idea.

"So this is her?" Bryan asked me, his bunch of hooligans behind him. He must have recognized Anna's face from my sketch in my notebook.

"She's adorable, isn't she? Just makes me wanna snatch her up and bring her home with me. Right, boys?" The rest of them guffawed and nodded their heads unintelligently. Anna whimpered softly beside me.

"Hey, get lost. You're scaring her."

"What do you mean? She likes me! Look!" He sat down on the bench on the other side of Anna and asked her,"Do you like me? What's your name?"

"Anna."

"That's a nice name. Will you move closer to me?" Bryan asked again. He looked like it was painful to be polite to her.

Anna shook her head and inched her bottom closer to me, wrapping her arms around my arm tightly and burying her face in my shoulder.

"Pity, she was a pretty young girl," Bryan sighed, getting up from the bench to join his bunch of hooligans once more. "Come on, Joe. You go," he ordered.

One by one his hooligans sat on the bench and tried to persuade Anna to like them. None of then succeeded, and each time they did it, Anna moved closer and closer to me, until she was fully hugging me from the front, trusting me to protect her.

"I see the diplomatic way failed," Bryan remarked. Diplomatic way? What other ways were there?

He ran forward and tried to unclamp Anna from her grip on my body. I kicked at his gut, forcing him to stumble backwards. Hooligan number one rushed forward as well, trying to get Anna from the side. My kick missed him and he succeeded in wrenching Anna away from me. She screamed. The few other people in the park who were close enough to hear her scream tried to help.

Together with me, they kicked and wrestled with the hooligan thugs and Bryan. Sadly the thugs overpowered the other people one by one, bulky muscles of the thugs contributing to a huge part of their victory. Hooligan number one ran away with Anna in his arms, and the rest followed him. "ANNA!" I yelled, confused in the moment of devastating loss.

There was no point trying to chase them. They were too fast and too far away, and their numbers would obviously be the winning factor if I chose to have another fight with them. I hopelessly watched them run away, farther and farther...

I did the most sensible thing to do afterwards. I lay on my bed and cried. The overwhelming sense of loss consumed me from the inside, digging at me mercilessly. You're not good enough, my conscience told me, you have an obvious ineptitude of caring for living things. Look at what you've done now, another human being's life out of your control. Irresponsible, despicable, you.

My brother entered my room without knocking. "What's the matter?" He asked.

"You don't really care, do you? You never care," I reminded him.

"That's true. But not this time. It's about that small girl again, isn't it." He guessed.

"Ye...ye...yeah."

"I'll help you," he told me. I pulled my face out of my pillow, "What?"

"Yeah, that's right. I care."