Promiscuity • a.u • Robbie Kay

~Twenty-Five~

I sat and watched the girl play with the ruffles on her borrowed dress, admiring the needle work with her finger tips. She was transfixed on the material; her hoarse, rattling breath the only sound coming from her small body. The dress swallowed her, but she didn't mind it.

A tinge of guilt crept through me as I watched her. How selfishly did I hoard the clothes I only wore once before they were eaten away by moths, living out the rest of their sad lives in my tall dark wardrobe, as girls with hardly any clothing at all wore their dresses until they were held together by a few threads.

I'd grown accustomed to a life that I knew as normal, without so much as a nod to those with an entirely different definition of the word 'normal'. For the girl, normal was selling herself to pay for a halfway decent meal. I didn't know if she had a family or a home, or anyone that treated her with an ounce of kindness.

The car stopped, pulling me out of my thoughts and reminding me where I was exactly.

"Let me do the speaking. I would hate for you to be associated with whatever she's gone through. People talk enough about you." I said quietly to Robbie.

"Have I ever cared about what people say behind my back?" he smirked, gently resting his hand on my knee. "You are not responsible for what others think. About me; about anyone. People think what they think because they want to think it, not because you make them think it. Remember that for me, please?"

"I will when I figure out what it means." I muttered before getting out of the car. Robbie walked around to the other side, opening the door for the girl and offering her a hand. She stepped down and we walked across the crowded street. I shouldn't have wanted to hide, but truthfully, I did. I kept my head down, putting my hat down further to hide my face a bit more. I shouldn't have cared, but I did.

The bold letters cut into the iron plaque, trimmed with gold, read 'Dr. Peter Morrison'

I had seen Dr. Morrison as a young girl with many small colds and scrapes on the knee, which seemed very minor to me now. He saw the wealthy families in the area and often went into the country for house-calls, but never had I been to his practice in the city.

I hoped he wouldn't recognize me as Robbie knocked on the big wooden door and almost immediately, it was answered by a woman in clean white clothing. "The doctor is not seeing anyone today." she said.

"My family is good friends with Dr. Morrison. Please, ma'am, this is urgent." I spoke up as she started to close the door. She hesitated, glancing between the three of us, her eyes falling on the girl with disgust growing evident on her ugly little face. "Who needs to be seen?"

"Well it may be all three of us when we freeze to death on your stairs, Misses..?' Robbie seethed.

"McConnel." she snapped. "And, it's miss, not misses." she added, begrudgingly gesturing us inside.

"Who would've thought?" Robbie muttered. I held back a grin as we were escorted into a plush, nicely decorated sitting room.

"What have you got?" Miss McConnel asked. Peering up and down at the girl.

"Do you have a private room?" I asked her. She stood still, confused by my request, but nodded and took us into another, smaller room, leaving Robbie in the first room. The girl looked terrified, her eyes shooting to me. Her breathing became quicker and more hoarse.

"It's okay, sweet. No one's going to hurt you. Can you take off the dress and show Miss McConnel?" I spoke gently, brushing her arm with my finger tips reassuringly. She shook her head no, keeping her gaze on the large harsh woman in front of us.