You Mustn't Give Your Heart To A Wild Thing

Curtis Ward never usually paid attention to my temper. Curtis Ward never usually let me down.

Every word spoken sounded a million miles away and I couldn’t focus on anything but my trembling hands in my lap. My feet were tapping out an unknown beat on the worn carpeted floor and my head was bobbing along to something similar. I swore I could still feel the cuffs hanging heavy around my wrists, I could feel the tension in the small, box room weighing down on my shoulders.

“Oliver” My head snapped up the instant I heard my name and my eyes narrowed the second they met an unfamiliar pair peering at me through small, thin framed glasses. Her accent still played havoc with my name but was softer and less prominent than that of the Sergeant I had spoken to previously. “Do you have anything to add?”

My shoulders were shrugging before I could even fathom a reply and I grimaced at the loud, purposeful sigh coming from Nicholls beside me. A small, strained cough cleared my throat and I let my eyes drop back downward, catching the dark stains spread about my sleeves.

“’e’s dropped the charges aint ‘e?” I mumbled quietly, “Wha’s the point in me tellin’ ye why I…”

“He was reluctant to proceed in the first place Oliver. There was never really any talk of pressing charges” I nodded slowly and glanced back up into the womans face, her once sternly furrowed brow had evened out and a sympathetic smile was curling across her lips. “We just need to make sure we’ve got all the details so that we can…”

“I punched ‘im” I interrupted, my nails scratching the dried blood from my plaid shirt. “It were irrational an’ irresponsible I know but ‘e deserved it an’…“

“Ye broke ‘is nose Ol” Matt sighed.

“Ye can fix a nose” I retorted abruptly, “Ye can’t fix what they…”

“They?”

I let my hands fall heavily to my lap and squeezed my eyes shut as I took a deep breath in. “It doesn’ matter. ‘s nothin’ I can do about it now, no matter ‘ow much I’d like t’…”

“Are we good t’ leave now?”I stole a sideways glance at Matt and smiled appreciatively. Over the past day and a half, I’d made a habit of spilling my guts on demand.

It was a habit I knew he appreciated even less than I did and a habit that had caused the ill advised and uncomfortable ‘meltdown of Oliver Sykes’ at Rock en Seine. I could still hear the chants of the disgruntled crowd as I’d turned my back on them and dropped the microphone to the floor. I could still taste the blood lingering in my mouth from chomping down on my bottom lip a little too ravenously.

The show had been a complete disaster, second only in messiness to that of myself. Verity was the only person who could make me so, Curtis was the one friend I would’ve trusted to never do so.

“We’ve booked the both of you onto the six fifteen flight. You’ll need to check in…again” I caught the small smile spreading across her lips and a glint of slight amusement dance between her light blue eyes. “Try, please, to get through successfully Mr Sykes. Keep your fists to yourself and…”

“I thought our flight were at four”

“You thought right Oliver” She sighed, collecting her files and folders that had been fanned across the desk and tucking the papers I’d just signed into a manila envelope. “But it’s almost four now and we thought it best to try and avoid another incident by booking the two of you onto separate flights”

“’as everyone gone ‘part from me and Nicholls?”

“You and…”

“Nicholls” I raised a pointed finger toward my friend, “Matt”

She nodded in reply and rose to her feet, fetching her empty coffee mug from the table and pushing her chair from the desk with the backs of her legs. “There was a girl waiting for you outside, I would imagine she is still there, non?”

&&

Her shoulders were still and her head was raised high in the air. She wore a pair of moccasins on her feet and her hair was a little on the puffy side, just grazing her shoulders. I knew instantly that it wasn’t Verity. I also knew instantly, from the look on her face that I wasn’t going to enjoy this.

“Where do you get off being such a douche?” She fumed as she turned from the poster she’d been staring at; I could only imagine the sound of my battered vans against the shined and buffed floor had given me away. Her blue eyes were stony and an intense blue that I’d previously believed to have been reserved for my brother exclusively. “She’s fucking distraught bro and you…”

“an’ you are?”

Her nostrils flared at Nicholls’ question and I was pretty sure I saw her fists ball at her sides.

“Oliver” She continued, her eyes fixed unflinchingly on mine. I could feel the heat creeping up either side of my neck and spreading slowly across my cheeks as I fidgeted uncomfortably under her glare. “What are you doing?"

I opened my mouth to answer but she’d cut me short in an instant.

“I’ve seen her like this twice. That’s twice more than she deserves Oliver, and both times it’s been because of you” A shudder ran the length of my spine as she narrowed her eyes to mere splits and looked me up and down; almost ghosting the shudder. “I cant see what all the fuss is about personally, you seem like a bit of a…”

“D’ye know what she did?!” I exploded, surprising myself at the power and volume of my own voice, let alone the people traipsing through the airport around us. “Did she tell ye what she…”

“Why? Are you going to hit me like you hit Curtis?” She retorted quickly, “You think this can be fixed with your fists?”

“ don’ think any o’ this can be fixed” I hissed, dropping my voice to just above a whisper. “all this is far beyond fixin’ love. An’ ye can tell ‘er that” The way I spat out the last few words made her wince and her eyes that had been trained on me fell to her feet. “ ‘s just beyond fixin’, I can’t…”

“I was hoping you knew where she was” She whispered softly, “I came here to see if she was…”

“She were with you last I ‘eard”

“And she was with Alex last I heard”

“Alex?”

“It doesn’t matter. He hasn’t seen her”

I could tell from her expression that it did matter; perhaps more than the fact that Verity wasn’t with me, but I bit my tongue. Something I’d seemed incapable of doing over the last twenty four hours but something that now made a welcome return.

“’av ye called ‘er?” I rolled my eyes as she fished Veritys beat up phone from her back pocket and waved it in my face.

“I don’t think It’d do a whole load of good do you bro?” The smile that flashed briefly across her lips was awkward at best and as quickly as it had appeared it was gone, leaving her expression sullen once again. “The only other time she’s ever been even close to this was…”

“When she moved t’…”

“Last year” She interrupted, shaking her head in disagreement. “I didn’t know her when she first moved. But I guess, from what she told me, it’d rack it up to three times you’ve…”

“Ye said two? What were the other, if ye didn’ know ‘er when she…”

“Ask your brother”

“ ‘m askin’ you”

“And you’re asking the wrong person”

An uncomfortable silence washed over us as the conversation came to an abrupt halt. My mind was reeling over what Thomas could possibly have to do with anything and neither Samantha, nor I had time to waste.
If we were being honest; this had been a common theme and the bane of my life the past few days, neither of us had time for the other.

“ ‘m sure she’ll turn up somewhere”

“She’s not a missing sweater Oliver, she hasn’t been misplaced. She’s gone. Again”

“She’ll turn up, she a’ways does”

“And you’re happy to just leave it at that? Leave her, in Paris, without so much as a…”

“She left me” I recoiled instantly at how childish I sounded and caught the roll of Sams eyes from the corner of my own. “ ‘s a big girl, she’ll be fine. She’ll…”

“Are you sure you know Verity?”

I knew the way in which it had been meant, but the sentence still managed to stop my heart. It was a question I’d asked myself more than ten dozen times in the last hour alone, it was a question I still couldn’t even begin to answer.

“Today, after all this…’m not sure I know ‘er at all”