Courage, Dear Heart

5

~Isabelle Hardy~

As I opened my eyes, I could tell I wasn't at home. The bed sheets were too soft, the room was too big and too nicely decorated and it didn't smell of damp. This was worlds away from my little flat. As my memory of last night flooded my mind I realised I was probably at Max's. He had helped me into the car and I had passed out almost instantly, meaning he wouldn't have known my address. Speaking of dresses I knew I wasn't in mine anymore. I was still in my bra and pants but my dress was now neatly folded on a chair in the corner of the room. He must've undressed me as well. Not that I really minded. He had seen me in my bikini before and that's practically the same. If anything I was grateful that he had wanted me to be comfy and for letting me stay. When I think back to it, If he hadn't been there last night when George turned up I would've been a state. I don't know what would've happened especially when he bought up the topic of my brother, his favourite conversation it seemed. Trying to shake the thoughts of him from my mind I rolled over. I could see a small slither or light coming in from between the floor length curtains.

As I began to think about what Max had said about why he went out, I heard the door open and footsteps pad over to the bed. I rolled back over to see the man occupying my thoughts, stood before me. "Your awake" he said softly. "Yeah, thanks for letting me stay" I said looking up at his standing figure. "That's ok, how are you feeling." He asked before taking a seat on the edge of the bed. "Grateful for you" I said as I stared softly at his face. "I thought you'd hate me" he said looking down at his fingers. "Why" I asked. "I really messed up, the girl, the gala, suffocating your ex" he said listing off a few reasons. "He deserved it. You get very angry don't you" I said shuffling back a little so that he could lie next to me. "Yeah, I'm not proud of it either. I've had a terrible temper my whole life, I'm sorry you had to see that" he said lying flat besides me, lifting his arm so that I could put my head on his chest. "My brother was the same, he was always in trouble because of it" I said with a slight smile. "Is that why he's not around anymore" max asked carefully. "Sort of. It's a long story so make sure your comfortable" I said, feeling like I needed to tell someone about all this before I exploded. "Take your time" he said gently as he placed a kiss on my head.

"When I was 15, me and James left home. If you could call it that. Dad was drunk for probably 18 out of the 24 hours in the day and he was asleep for the other 6. Mum slept with just about anything that moved to make money and the plan was that when I was 16 I would do the same. James wouldn't let that happen though so we left. We had next to no money but we managed to get down here to London. James had this friend who he knew from school who had moved here for uni and had got a shared house but his flat mates had moved out so we moved in and lived there. James went out to find work and I stayed at home studying. I wasn't ever going to get the opportunity to sit any exams but I felt like I should still know the stuff. When I turned 16 I started working with James. He worked at the boxing ring, he had always been a decent boxer and it was good money. I was just a cleaner but it was a few extra pennies in the pot. Everything was fine until the management changed. The boxing got more brutal and James wasn't winning as much. At that point i didn't feel safe working there anymore. People would stare at me like I was meat and some would even pinch my bum or try and drunkenly kiss me. So I quit, to James relief. Problem was I had no qualifications behind me so nowhere wanted me. I'd just had an interview across the road from the royal which I'd fucked up and so I was sat throwing stones at the curb. Marco came down and asked me to remove myself because they had important guests on their way. We got talking and I explained my predicament and he offered me a job as a cleaner. To this day I don't know why he did it, whether it was to just get me to move from the front of the hotel or something. But I started work the next day and you know the rest of that story. My brother was less fortunate. The new management started delving into some pretty dark places. Drugs, prostitutes, alcohol. It wasn't pleasant but James was reluctantly dragged into it. He wasn't well at all, he'd come home reeking of alcohol, a new girl each night god knows what else he'd been doing. But he was still winning fights and that was important. If he won fights we could pay rent between us. It started to get worse when I got a boyfriend, the guy from last night. The two of them clashed so much and it was horrible to be around. They would fight and scream at each other and I'd always be stood watching hoping that they wouldn't kill each other. Then one day I came home from work and James wasn't anywhere to be seen. It wasn't that unusual for him not to be home at 9pm so I sort of shrugged it off. Until two police officers appeared at my door." I explained, having to pause momentarily as I got to the point which I had never told anyone but Marco about before.