Hooligans

There were very few buildings of any kind on the outskirts of the town in which Betty resided. I passed by the few buildings, curiously. There was one grocery store, a small and run down movie theater, two fast food joints,a bar, and building after building of abandoned businesses.

I'd requested that Betty drop me off in town after at least an hour of me overhearing a grueling conversation between her and my mom. A conversation that of course concerned me. One can only stare at a spinning ceiling fan for so long listening to people trash their morals and ethics before they begin to slowly go insane. She complied and I assured her I'd find my own route home.

A huge sigh left my lungs. I pulled out the ancient wooden door of the Irish Pub and stepped into the place that smelled of freshly brewed Guinness and cigarette smoke.

A drink or two right about now could calm my nerves, I thought as I took a seat on a cushioned bar stool in the dimly lit bar.



Rikki's Point Of View

A slight breeze tousled my mahogany hair as I stepped out of the door of the one movie theater within twenty miles of us. Felicity, my best friend since first grade, was chattering away the second we stepped out of the dim theater about the movie we'd just seen. Although, in all honesty, I hadn't really paid attention to the film at all. In fact, I didn't really know what movie we'd even seen. Something about zombies, I think.

"Didn't you think that part was absolutely crazy, Riks?!" Felicity questioned, enthusiastically, when I finally tuned back into her rambling.

"Hmm?" My eyes were focused ahead of me where I could see a man stumbling down the cobblestone sidewalk in our direction. Obviously, he was inebriated. "Oh, yeah," I muttered. "Crazy. Hey, is that... is that Tyler?" I finished when the man had gotten closer.

"What? Rikki, what are you..." Felicity's voice faded away as jogged away from her. She didn't even follow me. The best she could do was stand there looking astonished.

I approached Tyler cautiously, his outburst earlier in the day still fresh in my mind. "Tyler?" I brought myself to speak his name, the taste of it weird in my mouth.

"What the hell do you want?" he shouted at me, slurring his words together. He attempted to push past me, but that only resulted in him stumbling forward and nearly falling. Had I not been there to catch and steady him, he would have fallen flat on the ground.

"Can you not be an assbutt for two seconds?" I requested. A small, livid voice in the back corner of my mind kept chanting for me to ignore his attitude and be the bigger person and help him. "I'm trying to help you," I mumbled through gritted teeth. My slender arm slipped around his waist and I lifted my arm over his shoulders... or at least I tried to.

Before I could set my arm in place, he swung his hand at me. The back of his hand connected to my cheek as he shouted, "I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP!" Tears gathered in my eyes, threatening to spill over at the stinging pain. My cool hand lifted to touch the hot place his hand had smashed against. The impact of the hit had sent me flying toward the cobblestone walkway. Most of the fall had been cushioned by my thigh and butt. A bruise was sure to appear there as well as my cheek.

Felicity, who had apparently gotten over her astonishment, rushed to my side to check that I was alright. Once I assured her that I was, she turned to Tyler. The man was leaning up against a streetlamp for support. "Are you fucking stupid?! You think you can just hit like that when she was trying to help you?!" Tyler didn't respond and Felicity seemed to notice I hadn't yet stood. With one hand she reached down and pulled me to my feet. "C'mon, Riks," she said. "You don't need to help this guy."

"No, you don't understand, Lis," I told her, brushing the dirt from my pants. "I have to help him for Betty."

Felicity heaved a huge sigh and said, "fine. Let's get him in the truck, but when I drop you off you're on your own. Okay?"

"Yes, okay, Lis. Just help me get him in the car, please."

Both of us together were able to pull Tyler to her beat up, white truck. Only using her free hand, Felicity was able to open the door to the truck and shove Tyler's upper body onto the upholstered seat. Once I'd managed to shove his lower body into the truck, I slammed the door with more force than was necessary. He jumped and I, with a silent chuckle to myself, climbed into the passenger seat.



"Good luck." Felicity smirked at me as I climbed out of her truck. "And please be careful, Rikki," she continued in a more serious tone. Her blue eyes, just for a second, lingered on my cheek, which I'm sure was already acquiring a bruise.

"I will, Lis. He's almost passed out, anyway," I told her when I'd pulled the back door open. I yanked Tyler out by his arm, relieved that he was more amiable with his consciousness slipping away.

Felicity didn't take off until I was safe in the house.

"Tyler?" Betty called from a direction that was sure was the kitchen. "I made food earlier. It's in the fridge." Her voice was getting closer until it trailed off when she stood in front of us. Tyler's eyes were completely closed and he was just dead weight in my arms. "Oh, dear, Rikki. What happened?"

"Well," I grunted, dragging Tyler along with me. "Lis and I came out of the movie theater and I found him stumbling out of the bar. He's pretty hammered and I couldn't just leave him that way."

A pitiful look crossed her features and she shifted her gaze to my face or, more specifically, my cheek. "Good Lord, Rikki Mae Coen, what on Earth happened to your face?"

"Well." Again I was dragging Tyler toward the staircase. "Let's just say Tyler was less than thrilled to be helped by me."

She gasped and covered her gaping mouth with her plump fingers. "Did he hit you?"

"Yeah. No big deal, though. It only hurts when I talk." It was when we reached the base of the stairs that Betty decided to help me drag an unconscious Tyler to his room.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Rikki. I can't believe this boy. He's been nothin', but rude trouble ever since he got here." She sighed.

"If I recall correctly wasn't that the exact reason they sent him here to Georgia in the first place?"

She pressed her lips into a tight line. "Yes. I'm afraid he'd gotten so bad even his best friends couldn't stand him. I'm just not sure what to do anymore, Rikki," she finally admitted to me as we topped the stairs, still dragging the dead weight along with us.

"You shouldn't feel obligated to let him stay here if he treats you like shit," I said, heaving the man on the bed in his temporary room.

"Language, Rikki Mae!" she said sternly before she moved on. " You know, I haven't seen Tyler since he was tiny. I'm not even sure he remembers me. If only there were some way to make him happy here..." he trailed off.

"I'm not sure he wants to be happy here," I pointed out.

"Well..." she paused. "Listen, Rikki, I know this is a lot to ask, but do you think that you could maybe, possibly be a tad nicer to him? Include him in your plans sometimes? It may not help much, but it's a start."

"Alright... I'll... I'll try."

"Thank you, Rikki. If ya like I could go get ya a blanket and pillow and you could stay the night here."

I agreed and Betty left in search of a blanket and pillow. As soon as she left, I sprawled out on the plush, white carpet of Tyler's room. Before Betty even returned with the blanket I was out cold.



Upon waking I discovered someone had haphazardly tossed a fleece blanket over my body and shoved a pillow beneath my head. My muscles ached from the night spent on the floor.

"What the fuck are you doing in here?" a groggy voice questioned.

I squinted my eyes at the stream of sunlight filtering into the room through the gauzy, white curtains covering the huge windows. Unsurprisingly, my eyes landed on Tyler's face, which was contorted into a glare.

I sat up, stretching my limbs out. "Well, after I dragged your drunken ass home last night Betty offered to let me stay the night," I barked.

His glare softened into an expression of confusion. "What?" And then he noticed the bruise coloring my left cheek. I still hadn't seen it, but it must not be too bad considering it takes a few seconds to notice it. "What happened to your face?"

"Someone wasn't too thrilled that I helped him get home last night."

An emotion I didn't recognize crossed his face as he shot up from bed. "Did I... did I hit you?" For once he sounded sincerely concerned as he knelt to be eye level with me.

I winced back from him slightly when his fingertips grazed over the tender flesh of my bruised cheek. "Yeah. Well." I gulped, nervous of our close proximity. "It wasn't less than to be expected from you."

His brow furrowed. "What do you mean?" Repeatedly, the pad of his thumb brushed back and forth over my cheek, soothingly.

"I mean you're kind of an asshole," I murmured, unintentionally leaning into the touch of his fingers.

For a moment his countenance was thoughtful. "I'm not that big of an asshole, am I?"

"You're a pretty big asshole, Tyler," I muttered, distracted by the warmth of his fingers caressing my face. I cleared my throat, nervously. "You've been nothing but a dick to me since I met you..." I looked up into his eyes, for the first time noticing how sparkling blue they were.

He coughed to the side. It wasn't a real cough, though. It was one that made it seem like he too was nervous. "Yeah, well, sorry about your face," he replied, the usually coldness returning to his countenance as he released my face, almost like he was tossing it to the side.

Even as Tyler got up and lounged on his bed, ignoring me, I just sat there on the floor with my brow furrowed. He'd taken to quietly playing on his phone and, perhaps most importantly, doing anything but looking at me. When I could finally gather my thoughts together, I stood, the blanket in a pile at my feet.

"You know," I started, pausing in the doorway. I scrutinized the agitating man head to toe. He glanced up just in time to hear and see me utter my next words. "You're really fucking bipolar sometimes." Without even waiting for a response, I turned on my heel and strutted out of the room.