Lost Girl: Part 2
Authors: Elodie Short
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission in writing from the author, Elodie Short.
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All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2015 Elodie Short
Version 1.0
LOST GIRL
Part 2
Table of Contents
I wake up with a grunt. I must’ve slept in a very awkward position for my neck to be as stiff as it is. Gritting my teeth I try to roll over to stretch my neck in a different position, but I’m stopped in my tracks by the arm that’s wrapped around me and firmly holds me in place. Confused I slowly open my eyes, and look down at my chest, then along up to the shoulder the arm’s attached to and swallow hard.
“Rick?” I whisper. There’s no reply. “Rick,” I whisper again, this time a little louder and prod my elbow into his chest.
“Nrgh,” he grumbles in disagreement from behind me.
“Rick, wake up,” I hiss while I start pushing his arm off of me.
“Summer?” he mumbles, opening his eyes slowly. “Yes,” I reply, still whispering, “I’m stuck.”
“Stuck?” he asks, confusion resounding in his voice.
“Yes,” I grunt, a shooting pain racing up through my neck when I try to turn to look at him, “your arm is holding me hostage.”
“Sorry,” he mumbles and finally frees me.
“Hi.” We suddenly hear Anna’s voice from the other side of the room, and both sit up in an instant. Nothing happened last night, we’re still fully dressed, apart from Rick’s shirt that’s lying on the floor in front of the sofa. We talked and kissed for hours and must have fallen asleep in each other’s arms, yet we both stare at Anna, a little flustered and embarrassed. I can feel my cheeks getting hot at being caught, and when I see Rick’s do the same I let out a little giggle.
“Good morning Annie,” he says, trying to ignore my giggles but ends up poking me in my side and laughing.
“Did you sleep well?” I ask her.
“Mhm,” she nods, “I need the toilet.”
“Go on then,” I smile at her while I nod towards the bathroom door. As soon as she closes the door behind her, Rick turns to me again, “how did you sleep?”
“Rotten,” I grumble.
“Rotten?” he asks, looking a little hurt.
“Mhm,” I nod, “my neck hurts. I think I’ve slept in a funny position.”
Gently he brushes my hair out of my neck, and starts rubbing it with his hand, “how’s that?” he asks.
“Sooo good,” I breathe, letting my head dangle on my chest while his hand rubs over my sore neck.
“Go sit in between my legs.”
“What?” I ask, looking at him in shock.
He laughs, “go sit on the floor, in between my legs.”
“Oh,” I stutter, “okay.” And I do as instructed, I climb to the floor and sit down between his knees. He strokes my long hair out of my neck again, and starts massaging me with both hands. From time to time he hits a sore spot and I grunt in disagreement while grabbing onto his calves and digging my fingers in.
“I’m glad I’m still wearing my jeans,” he jokes when I dig in deep.
“I’m not,” I mumble without thinking, and instantly regret it. Slowly I bend my head back, to see if he’s heard me. The grin on his face tells me that he has, and I feel my cheeks turning bright red again.
“What are you doing?” Anna asks, coming out of the bathroom at just the right time to save me from more embarrassment.
“Summer had a sore neck. She’s obviously not used to sleeping on a couch,” he chuckles.
“What are we doing today?” she asks, coming over to us.
I shrug lightly underneath Rick’s hands. He’s stopped massaging me, but his hands linger on my neck and I don’t want them to leave me, “I don’t know.”
“I am going home in a bit, I want a shower and some clean clothes.”
“Oh,” she replies, looking sad.
“Do you want to come with me?”
“Are we coming back?”
“That depends on Summer,” he says and I hear the suggestive tone in his voice.
Anna looks a little concerned, “can we come back?”
“Of course you can,” I smile at her and I feel Rick’s hot breath on my cheek as he bends down to me. “Are you sure?” he whispers to me.
“Positive,” I whisper back.
“We’ll see you soon then,” he replies, before giving me a kiss underneath my ear that makes me want to tell him not to go home, to stay here and never leave.
He swiftly slings one leg over my head to free himself and stands up, “come on you,” he smiles at Anna, “get dressed and we’ll go see Mama.”
“Don’t you want some breakfast first?” I ask them, standing up too.
He stops in his tracks and turns back to me, “maybe a quick coffee before we go,” and Anna pulls her nose up at him and I laugh, “what do you want Anna?”
“Can I have some more Cocoa Pops please?” she asks politely.
I walk over to the kitchen and turn the coffee machine on before I start pouring milk into a bowl for Anna.
“Why don’t you get dressed?” Rick suggests to her again, “and when you come back you can have your breakfast.”
“Okay,” she replies and happily skips off to the spare room to put her new clothes back on.
“What happened to her old clothes?” Rick suddenly asks as I’m pouring our steaming coffee into mugs.
“Shit,” I mutter, “I eh, kind of forgotten about them when you showed up,” I look at him apologetically and he chuckles in response, “I was hoping to have that effect on you.”
“Shh,” I laugh, prodding my elbow into his side again. “I washed them, but forgot to take them out of the machine. I’ll set it to another spin and hang them out while you’re going home.”
“Thank you,” he smiles.
***
After Anna finished her breakfast, she gets up and slowly walks towards the front door, “are you sure we are coming back?” she asks Rick once more.
“Very,” he replies and turns to look at me, “we shouldn’t be too long.”
“Okay,” I nod. “Oh, wait!” I suddenly cry out. “Can you drive?” I ask Rick while I reach for my keys.
“Yes?” he replies, raising his eyebrows, “why do you ask?”
“Do you want to borrow my car? It’ll ehm… make you faster,” I mumble and he smiles at my blushing face, “you want me to be quick?” he chuckles.
“Well, I eh, I thought it might be easier,” I stutter in reply.
Laughing, he nods at me and takes the keys, “if you’re sure it’s okay for me to drive your car.”
“Mhm,” I nod, “I would drive you myself, but I’ve still got some work to do. Just get her back in one piece.”
“Her?” he smirks.
“Yes,” I nod, “her. It’s the red-ish one.”
“Red, ish?” He looks at me with raised eyebrows.
I nod again, open my front door, and lead him out to the gallery to point down at my car in the parking lot.
“With red, do you mean rust?” he chuckles.
“Maybe,” I laugh back at him, “but she does what she needs to.”
I wait in the gallery for them to put their shoes on, and then watch them leave down the stairs. I wait a little longer until they’ve gotten into my car and make my way back inside once he’s pulled my old car onto the road.
Sighing I close the door behind me and walk straight over to the washing machine and set it to run another spin. Next I finally get out of my clothes from yesterday, have a quick wash and pick out some black leggings and a t-shirt for today. When I look in the mirror I smile plays across my face when I realise how similar it looks to what Anna is wearing, then I walk back into the kitchen and settle down at the table with my laptop, but find it hard to concentrate. Something that normally takes me roughly half an hour to read and edit, is still not done after an hour when the washing machine beeps at me to tell me it’s finished. I empty out the machine and hang the clothes out to dry.
I sit back down at the kitchen table and stare at my laptop screen, but before I can do any more work, my mind has already gone back to Rick. I keep going over last night in my head, I keep thinking of Rick’s lips and his kisses. I don’t know what he’s done to me, but this hasn’t happened to me before. I feel giddy when I see him, my hands constantly want to touch him, and last night when he took his top off, I thought I was going to scream in excitement.
When I’m finally finished editing the paragraphs I had set out to do today, I look at my digital clock and see that they’ve been gone for over three hours now. For a moment I worry, but then push it to the side. They’re probably just spending some time at home, talking to their mom and hopefully working things out. I get up from the chair and stretch out, feeling a little stiff from sitting in the same position for so long, I wonder if I should make myself some lunch or if I should wait for them to come back.
I pace up and down my apartment a few times trying to decide what to do, then get my phone and text Rick, /are you back for lunch? x/ I wait for a little while, but when no reply comes back I decide to make myself a cheese sandwich. I’m just about to sit down at the table when the door buzzer sounds.
“Hello?”
“It’s us,” Rick replies in a shaky voice.
“Come up,” I answer and press the door release to let them in.
I open my front door and wait for them to come up the stairs. Before I see their faces, I notice the big red stains around Rick’s collar on his shirt. “Oh my god!” I shout out and rush up to them, “what happened?”
Anna’s bottom lip trembles as she tries to speak, but she starts crying instead.
“Come inside,” I usher them while I place a hand on her shoulder to guide her in.
“What happened?” I ask again once we’re in my apartment and I’ve closed the door behind us. I can now see the clear extend of damage to Rick’s face up close. His nose has been bleeding and looks a little swollen and there’s a black circle forming around his left eye.
Anna is still standing aimlessly next to us, trembling and looking scared.
“Go play with Herbert Annie,” Rick whispers to his sister with a pained face and then slumps down on one of my kitchen chairs. Anna slowly slopes off towards Herbert and I open up my freezer to get some ice out. I wrap a handful of ice cubes into a kitchen towel, and carefully press the bundle against Rick’s eye.
“Long story,” he sighs, “Mom did not agree with me taking Anna away again.”
“So she hit you?” I ask in shock.
“She didn’t hit me, I fell.”
I raise my eyebrows at him in disbelief, “did anything happen to Anna?”
“No.”
“Then why did she cry?”
“I guess she’s just upset at seeing me hurt.”
I sigh, dropping the bundle of ice cubes into my lap I sit down, “are you going to tell me what really happened?”
“I will,” he whispers, “but I don’t want Anna to hear.” He takes the ice cubes and from my hands and presses them back to his face, “how bad does it look?”
“As long as you keep the towel there, you can’t see a thing,” I joke. He laughs in reply and then instantly whinges in pain.
“We could go outside to talk,” he suggests, looking over at Anna in concern, “do you think she’ll be okay?”
“She didn’t break anything last time I left her alone, if that’s what you mean. You know her better than me. Do you think she’ll be okay?”
“You left her alone before?” he asks in astonishment.
“Yeah, but only to take a shower.” I shrug lightly. “She showed up yesterday morning when I was still in my pyjamas.”
“Oh, okay,” he sighs in relief, “I think she’ll be okay for a bit.”
I open the door and pick up my keys from the kitchen counter so we can close it behind us. We sit down in the gallery with our backs against the wall, just about able to look down to the ground through the railings. I look at Rick for a long moment while I wait for him to start talking and I watch his face change from pain to anger to sorrow as he collects his thoughts.
“Did you talk to your mom?” I ask, hoping to get him started.
“Yes.” He breathes out deeply, a wrinkle forming above his brow, “and she wasn’t too happy with what I had to say.”
“I was afraid of that,” I mumble.
“She was still fast asleep, or more like unconscious, when we got home,” he sighs, staring out in front of him. “I told Anna to pack some stuff while I tried to wake her up. I shook her for a while until she finally opened her eyes. At first she looked at me like she didn’t recognise me, she must’ve been on quite the binge again last night.” His expression turns to anger, “I told her so many times to cut it out, to sort her life out, but it’s like she doesn’t care.”
“I’m sure she does care,” I try to comfort him, “but you know what addiction is like.”
“Yeah, I do, I know it all too well. But she can’t do this anymore. She can’t carry on like this with Anna in the house. And that’s what I told her.”
He stops talking and just stares ahead so I place my hand on his arm to try and encourage him, and he carries on. “I told her that I’d be taking Anna away for a while, to get her away from everything and that’s when she snapped out of it, when she finally looked like she gave a crap. She got up from her bed and started shouting at me. She said that she needed Anna, that she was her security. At first I didn’t understand what she meant, I thought maybe she meant that Anna was keeping her sane, that she wasn’t overdoing it because of Anna. And then I remembered what you two told me the day you came to the bar, that these men my mother hangs out with will be taking Anna when Mom doesn’t pay up. That’s when it hit me and I knew what she meant. She needs Anna there to supplement her money if the time ever comes when she doesn’t have any. And at the rate she’s going lately, that won’t be a long way off, she’s already paying with her own money, it’ll only be a matter of time before she pays with Anna’s.”
He lets out a deep angry sigh, “I knew right there and then that I was taking Anna away from it all, not just for a few days like I had planned, but forever. When Anna had finished packing her bag I told her to say goodbye to her mother, but mom held onto her so tightly, she wasn’t going to let Anna go. I tried to get in between, we had a bit of a scuffle, moved from her bedroom to the kitchen area and there she pushed me. I ended up with my face on the corner of the table. Mom let go of Anna in a moment of shock, that’s when I grabbed her and we ran.”
“Where’s your stuff?” I ask, suddenly realising they didn’t bring anything inside.
“When we got to the car Anna said she dropped her bag when I grabbed her, for a second I thought of going back to get it, but then I thought better of it and just left.”
“What about your stuff?”
“I never got to pack a bag.” He sighs deeply again, and rests his head in his hand, “what am I going to do Summer?”
“Could we go back at night?” I try to suggest.
“No,” his head snaps back up and he looks at me, “I never want to go back there.”
I sigh too and rest my head on his shoulder, “it’ll be alright, we’ll figure something out. I suppose we could start by going to the market and get you two some new stuff. You know most people there right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think they’ll give you a discount?”
“Possibly,” he replies, “we all help each other out, we always have done. It’s worth a try.”
“It is,” I say, closing my eyes while he wraps his arm around my shoulders.
“What have I done to deserve you, Summer?” he whispers into my ear.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” I smile up at him and he looks back at me in confusion. “What have I done for you?”
I shrug lightly, “you make me feel happy.” Gently he pushes me off of his shoulder and as he looks at me I see his eyes watering up and he gives me a small smile, “you make me feel happy too.” Placing his hand on my cheek he gives me a tender kiss before getting up from the floor, “we better go check on Anna.”
“Yes, we better.”