Life, Interrupted

I was taking out the garbage. Glamorous, I know. It was only nine-ish in the evening, but it was late September, so it was pretty dark. Great. Just fuckin’ peachy. Whatever. It was one of the shittier parts of Jersey, but at the time I really just didn’t care. I traipsed over to the curb, dropping the disgusting black bag of shit as soon as I could. I couldn’t help grimacing at the cloud of putrid air that puffed out of the bag when it hit the ground.

“Ew,” I muttered.

Now, in my defense, the horrific odor produced by the trash was quite distracting, and the annoying lack of light created lots of shadowed areas and dark corners. So, it really wasn’t my fault that I didn’t notice the homeless guy staggering drunkenly up to me. Even though he wasn’t exactly quiet about it.

“Well, hello, there,” he leered at me. Okay, ew.

Time for me to skeedadle, I suppose.

I tried to just sort of go around him back to the complex, but apparently cancer’s kind of shitty for your body, so I wasn’t too swift.

He managed to grab my arm with short, grubby fingers that dug into my flesh.

“Hey!” I cried. I shoved at him, but he held on. I attempted to yank myself out of his grip, but to no avail. Fuckshit.

He was dragging me closer to him with his eyes all creepy and shiny-looking when I decided this had gone more than far enough.

“Help!” I yelled, realizing too late that it was nine o’clock on a Thursday night; the area wasn’t exactly densely populated at the moment. Damn, damn, damn.

“Aw, come on, I just wanna have some fun,” he insisted, lips pulling back to reveal rotting, yellow lumps of what used to be teeth.

He reached around with his other hand towards my face, grabbing my chin while simaltaneously moving his other hand and squeezing my ass.

“No! Someone help me! Please!” I didn’t realize until now that I was crying. Well, fuck. This was a shitty-ass way to die. It made cancer seem like a trip to Kiddyland.

Apparently, he didn’t like my newfound desperation, because he slapped me in the face. Hard enough that, if I actually survived this, I would have had a bruise for weeks.

“No,” I mumbled under my breath, unable to hold back a whimper.

The homeless man was still grinning when he fell over sideways, his head making a distinct cracking sound as it hit the pavement.

I almost collapsed, my eyes darting around. He couldn’t have been that drunk. And he wasn’t.

“. . . goddamn Motherfucker. Hey, are you okay?” Someone asked me.

I caught a glimpse of something pale fringed with black before my world went dark.

Gerard’s POV

The girl’s eyelids slid shut as her legs seemed to give out. I managed to catch her before she hit the concrete, thanks to my apparent adrenaline rush.

I lowered her to the ground, looking at her closely. Who knows what that fucker did to her before I got here.

There was a big red mark on her left cheek, roughly the size and shape of and open hand. “Shit,” I muttered. It extended from the angle of her jaw up to her prominent cheekbones, partially obscured by a lock of straight, raven hair. Her lips were somehow a deep plumb color, despite her pale skintone. Grayish silver eyes were covered by almost lavender eyelids, and fringed with pure black, glossy lashes. Wait, how did I remember what color her eyes were?

Whatever. Okay, so what are my options here? What does one do when faced with an exceptionally stunning, kinda-sorta unconsious teenage girl? I’m unashamed to admit I haven’t the slightest idea. Um, I could. . . take her to my apartment? No, don’t want to seem like a creeper. . . I can’t exactly just leave her here though.

I sighed. I don’t know where she lives, so my apartment it is, I guess.

I snaked my arms behind her knees and under her shoulder blades, alarmed to feel how prominent they were. What was she, anorexic or something?

Shaking my head, I slowly stood up. Jeez, were all girls this light? Ugh, whatever. Don’t want her to wake up and think I’m that creepy old guy.

I set off at a surprisingly brisk pace, considering the extra body I was carrying, reaching my peeling, scratched-up door in only a couple of minutes. Hell, the chick was so light, I was able to hold her in one arm while I dug out my keys. They must hate me, because it took my literally a minute to find them. God.

I unlocked and opened the door, letting it swing wide open. Mikey was at some friend’s house, thank God; one less thing to worry about.

Chucking my keys at the countertop, I scanned the room for anything that I would regret a normal person seeing.

Eh, good enough. Now where to put my unconcious visitor, though? Bedrooms were definitely out; her encounter with that. . . thing. . . probably would probable make her just a little paranoid about strange men. Yeah. . . couch it is, then.

So I shoved all the junk currently living on the piece of furniture off of it and onto the ground, then carefully lowered the girl down onto it, removing my arms when the cushions were fully supporting her weight.

I stepped back, not wanting to invade her personal space. My teeth dug into my lower lip; what the fuck am I supposed to do with some random unconcious chick in my apartment?

I sighed angrily. Yeah, this was one of those decisions I made that I regretted about five minutes after making it. What if she doesn’t wake up? Or maybe even worse, what if she does wake up, and freaks out because she’s in some random guy’s apartment?

Well, this was definitely one of my more stupid decisions, to say the least.

I heard a soft sigh from the girl in front of me, and I practically leapt back over to her.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

She gasped, and lavender eyelids fluttered slightly, revealing—wait, are those dark circles under her eyes? Shut the fuck up and concentrate, Gerard!—luminous pools of silver. They darted around, pupils contracting to pinpricks, then dilating till they practically obscured the metallic rings around them, until they finally settled on my face.

“Oh, hey Gerard,” she murmured—sighed, practically—while her eyelids slowly fell shut again.