Tomorrow Never Knows

Chapter Nine

 

        Sitting in the somewhat dreary parlor room while I waited for George, I suddenly remembered the minor detail of paying the fine for having my car towed. I certainly hadn’t brought my wallet with me last night, and I wasn’t even entirely sure that I could pay the fee with all my savings. As for asking my father for money, well, I’d sooner see a pig fly. He didn’t have any to speak of, and he hadn’t for a long time.

        I was still reeling from the experiences of the past night, though it did feel somewhat as if it’d happened to someone other than myself. Earlier I had abstractly mused that the realizations must crash down on me at some point or another. This, as it turned out, occurred at the same moment I recalled the reality of funds.

        I felt as if I’d just had the wind knocked out of me, and I couldn’t do much else except bury my face in my hand and hold back sobs. This strategy didn’t work too well, as it turned out, and I couldn’t quite conceal my sniffling and gasps for air.

        ‘Well,’ I thought with a pathetic smirk, ‘at least I won’t need to worry about my mascara running this time.’

        “Hey,” I heard someone say over my stifled sniveling, in a relatively small voice, “You alright, Cora?”

        I felt my face grow hot, red with embarrassment, and bit my lip to at least attempt to regain my composure. I was certainly giving everyone here the wrong impression of the type of girl I was. I had never been one for drama, instead I was used to usually serving as the one stronghold in my father’s life. I was almost entirely sure that they assumed I was regularly promiscuous, though that as well couldn’t be further from the truth.

        I let out a long sigh as I wiped my eyes, trying to salvage even the smallest fragment of dignity, uttering the most feeble of excuses:

        “Sure, sure, of course. Oh, I’m just tired is all. It’s been a long night, and day for that matter, y’know?” George didn’t look as if he was quite buying it, eyeing me in a sideways fashion. Still, he had the good grace to let it go for the moment and not press me.

        “Alright, then,” he said, mustering a somewhat cheerier attitude, “you said you’d be needing to pick up your car?”

        I nodded gratefully, hurrying myself out the door as he held it open for me.

        We walked mostly in silence for awhile, George keeping his attention alternating between his feet and the road ahead of him. He looked a bit uneasy, and I couldn’t blame him. He looked to be quite a bit younger than me, not to mention the fact that he most likely thought I belonged in an asylum. Had I been in his place, I’d probably be a bit off my game as well.

        With the choice of staring at my own bare feet, the unchanging, windy road ahead, or George himself, I picked the most interesting subject, naturally.

        Younger, indeed. I guessed that he was around fourteen or fifteen, and a naïve fourteen or fifteen year old at that. He had, as most Liverpudlian boys did, an exceptionally pale complexion in stark contrast to his dark hair, which he kept greased up in an Elvis-esque style. His expression was contradictory, however- George had a look of wide eyed innocence rarely seen, complete with a smile wide as anything. His eyes were a different story; they made him seem to be wise beyond his years, overhung with thick eyebrows as dark as his hair, nearly forming a unibrow. Yes, he was young, he was a bit awkward, but he was the type you could tell would someday become a fine man.

        He soon interrupted my lazy ponderance with great concern.

        “What’s happened to your shoes?!” he exclaimed.