Ever So Slightly

I swear my heart stops beating. All at once I feel like crying, and hitting something, getting pissed off my head - anything to stop myself from feeling so dead.

No - not dead, so far from dead that it hurts.

Hurts that he’d be so careless as to get a girl pregnant, hurt that he’d never told me about about her - hurt that he’d ever loved her in the in the first place. I know it’s not something you can control, but it hits me over the head like a lead boot that I don’t even know him - I don’t know him at all.

And he never tried to know me - not really. There are standard things that every couple, even just friends, know about each other. High schools, favourite music, first pets - but what did I know about him? He sings in a band and he’s amazingly beautiful. What else?

Nothing.

And it’s probably a damn sight more than he knows about me. I’d been so ready, so ready to just hand over my heart, and I didn’t know him at all.

I have to get home.

I don’t even think as I stumble towards the window. It doesn’t come across to me as a choice - it seems mandatory, as though I’d be betraying my morals not to. Well ha to that. My morals went out of the window the night I came home with Will - William - just as I was about to now.

I push back the pane of glass in front of me and throw one leg over the sill, climbing out to the front of the hotel. It strikes me that the only time I’d ever ventured out of the hotels was when I was upset, lost to William as far as I was concerned. It was as though so long as he was smiling at me, I was his, unknowingly; unwittingly his, and I stopped with my life and lived his. Went to his parties, wore his clothes, talked to his friends. Where were my friends?

I can’t hold back my tears any longer - that’s what becomes of the over-emotional. I run and run, out into this huge city I don’t know, until my legs ache and my body’s sore. And still I run.

You may be thinking that it’s a stupid thing to do. So he got a girl pregnant? Hundreds have done it before him, and hundreds will do it after - it’s probably not even his fault. But it’s so much more than that.

I don’t know him. He’s kept himself so closed off. I’ve given him all of me and got a pittance in return - I’ve only ever scratched the surface of him. It feels as though he didn’t trust me. Never trusted me. And what am I even doing, hanging around him? We can only be together for another week at the most - and then what? I go home and pine, and he goes back to America, back to his life. It’s impossible. The longer I stay, the more attached I’ll get, and the harder it will be to leave. So I’m leaving now - like he’ll even notice. And why did he bring me back in the first place? If Mark was on the prowl then Ellie would have been there for me - you don’t just kidnap people.

He’s just so devoid of responsibility. And add that to getting the girl pregnant. This is going to hurt more in the morning, but it’s the right thing to do, it‘s what I need to do. All this time staying, I’ve only been kidding myself that something could come of this.

I come to a stop at the door of a dusty looking bar. Peering around me, I realise that I’d come farther than I’d thought, and don’t know how to get back. I shake myself.

I’m not going back.

I stare up at the sign above the door, blinking and flashing, squinting through my teary eyes to focus. ‘What the hell,’ I think, and push the door, stumbling inside and slumping into a bar stool.

‘Hello?’ inquires a voice to my left. I turn and see a man is sitting next to me - at least 23 and clutching a shot glass.

‘Hello,’ I reply miserably.

He’s not bad looking, not at all, but he’s not my type - not at all like William. I slap myself mentally and push him to the back of my mind.

‘You look pretty down.’

‘No shit,’ I say, raising my head and looking at his bloodshot eyes. This guy was probably already half drunk.

‘Let me get you a drink.’

I don’t refuse because I want anything to numb what I’m feeling. He waves to the bartender and he slams a shot glass full of clear liquid onto the bar. I pick it up hungrily and throw it down my neck, not even feeling it burn down my throat.

‘So what’s up?’ asks the man blandly. He doesn’t really care - it’s small talk. He waves to the bartender again, who drops another shot glass in front of me, taking the old one and cleaning it with a grubby looking cloth.

‘My dog died,’ I say, the slightest hint of sarcasm to my voice.

‘Hmmm, you must have loved that dog a lot then, to be looking like that.’

My face hardens. ‘No. I didn’t love it. And it didn’t love me. I was just pretending all this time - and now it’s caught up with me.’

The man doesn’t miss a beat. I think he knows what I’m talking about, but I don’t care. I drain the shot glass in front of me, my insides turning to liquid.

‘Do you want to get out of here?’ the man says. ‘I know a little party that’s going down not too far away.’

Why not.

‘Sure,’ I say passively, standing up, not altogether that steady.

‘Cool,’ replies the man, placing a couple of £5 notes on the bar. ‘My names Jack by the way.’

‘Hannah.’

‘Okay then Hannah, this way.’

Jack walks away from the bar and out through the door. I follow him, not far behind, staggering a little and almost tripping. I don’t know what was in those shot glasses, but it certainly wasn’t anything I’ve had before. We exit out onto the street.

‘Whoa there,’ Jack exclaims as I nearly walk into a lamppost, sliding his arm round my waist. It seems alien - I don’t want it there, but I’m to wasted to argue.

We walk for quite a while, through the main city and on to a little highstreet lined with bars much classier than the one I’d just left. As we near the bottom, I feel a hand on my shoulder, pulling me slightly, and I snap my head round. It’s only Gabe…but Gabe’s partially the reason I’m even here in the first place.

‘Hannah?’ he asks incredulously. ‘And who the fuck’s this asshole?’