PLAYED - A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE (38 page)

Chapter 28

Angel

It was mid-afternoon
when I finally woke up.

I don’t recognize this ceiling…

And then I did.

And I almost went
full panic mode.

But I settled down as
I remembered the events of the previous day – of arriving at the bus station,
of Mom picking me up and driving me back here…back where it all began.

A shudder slipped
through my shoulders.

Reluctantly, I tossed
off the threadbare scrap of a blanket, crawling off of the mattress on the
floor. It was stiflingly hot and humid, and I didn’t like it.

Rising up and looking
at myself in the cheap mirror that had been pulled out for me, I realized that
I looked like a total mess.

Huge bags under my
eyes?
Check
.

Ratty t-shirt and a
pair of panties?
Check.

Ragged, unwashed
hair?
Check.

Don’t I just look like a fairy princess.

I could hear
scrounging about in the kitchen.

“You finally awake in
there?” My mom called out from a few rooms away.

“Yeah, going to take
a shower,” I replied back.

“Go on, then!” She
shouted.

I stumbled over to
the bathroom with a change of clothes, flicking on the shower. As I waited for
the water to warm up a little more than
arctic
blast
, I stared myself in the mirror.

This is what life is going to be like,
I
told myself.
At least for a little while.
I can always find another way once I’ve
got my footing. Maybe I can hitchhike out to the city and find myself a job
waiting tables.

I shook my head.

The last time I
pulled that stunt, I got lucky. Things could have ended up so bad… Like with
those bikers back at the bar…

Can I be lucky a second time? A third?

I doubted it. I’d
used up most of my luck living
this
long.

Once the water was
finally just warm enough to climb in, I settled into the shower. She only had a
single bar of soap, so I tried to lather off the top layer before rudimentarily
scrubbing down my body.

I needed it. The thin
layer of oil and grime came off.

I’d only been in the
shower less than ten minutes before the water starting turning bone-chillingly
cold again. Shrieking and fighting the faucet, I hopped back out and dried off,
then dressed myself in my underwear, a graphic tee, and my miniskirt. All I had
were some of my old bartending clothes. At least I felt human again…

I wandered into the
kitchen, where my mom was watching her soap operas on a small countertop set.

Mom glanced over at
me and scowled.

“You look like a
hooker.”

“It’s just hot in
here,” I told her sadly.

“Yeah, well, the A/C
still ain’t fixed. Get used to being hot. Speakin’ of, you used up all my hot
water, didn’t’cha?”

“I wasn’t in the shower
long, Mom,” I reassured her, moving towards the refrigerator.

“Now how am I gonna
shower?”

“I thought you said
you didn’t need it?”

“Are you back-talking
me?”

Fearfully, I glanced
over at her. Mom’s eyes were wide and calculating, and I was afraid that she
was going to lash out at me.

“No, Mom. I’m really
sorry. It won’t happen again, I swear!”

She glared at me
furiously.

Finally, she huffed
with a cruel smile.

“See that it doesn’t,
baby-child.”

I nodded, and she
turned her attention back towards her soap operas. Meanwhile, I scrambled as
quietly but quickly as possible. She hadn’t gone to the grocery store or
anything, so it was looking like breakfast was going to be a peanut butter and
jelly sandwich.

Scratch that… Peanut butter sandwich it is.

I toasted a pair of
bread slices and waited the two minutes in painful, awkward silence. When they
popped out, she jumped slightly, casting me a scowl, and I apologized and
slathered one side with peanut butter.

“You gonna just sleep
all day?” Mom asked as I was disappearing through the door behind her.

“No, Mom.”

“Good. See that you
don’t. I have a friend coming over later. I need your help.”

“Help?”

I turned towards her,
and she tilted her head as if to continue talking to me. Her eyes were still
glued to the countertop television.

“Yeah. This place is
a mess. Maybe you could show your appreciation for the roof over your head by
cleaning up a bit. Been hard to keep the house up with my disability...”

“Who’s coming over?”

Mom turned to me.

“Someone like
none of your concern.
”

I could feel myself
trembling. I didn’t know who was coming, but something told me that I wasn’t
going to like it.

Mom’s face sweetened
with pity.

“Oh Angel…I’m sorry.
It’s just…you’ve been gone so long. All those sleepless nights, afraid that you
were dead…maybe I’ve forgotten how to be good to you. Come here.”

I set my sandwich
down and padded over to her. She threw her arms open, and I bent down to hug
her.

Her embrace was
strong. Warm. Relaxing.

“There, there…I’m
sorry that I’ve been a bit grumpy today. I can’t find my medication. I know it
does things to me when I don’t take it…”

“It’s okay, Mom,” I
told her.

“That’s right. It’s
okay. It’s all okay.”

I nodded, and we
separated.

“Now, I’ve got
something for you to do. Something to help you pass the time, at least. I won’t
be having any more back talk.”

Mom pointed towards
the kitchen at the huge stack of filthy dishes overflowing in the sink.

“Clean that up like a
good girl, then you can start on the rest of the house. Now, let me catch up on
my soaps, and I’ll take you into town later to get you some groceries. That
sound good to you?”

I nodded reluctantly.

It was hard to keep
from feeling a little uneasy. Something about this place seemed wrong. Wisps of
memories flashed in and out of existence, but my time in this house was a dark
blur. Fear. Sadness. Hopelessness…

Amidst them all, the
one dark memory of this place I could still hang onto… The one I wished I could
forget…

The night I ran away.

Chapter 29

Trent

“You’re Angel’s
grandfather?” I asked, thoroughly surprised. “She never said anything like that
to me.”

Old Greg muttered
under his breath as he popped off the cap and handed me a beer. With a deft
maneuver, he effortlessly burst off the top to his own against the bar table.

“Ever since the
accident, that’s one of those scraps of information she can’t seem to hold
onto,” he grumbled. “Probably for the better.”

“She told me that she
trusted you,” I commented.

For a moment, it
looked like he might smile.

We sat in silence as
Old Greg took a long drink. Over his shoulder, I saw something pinned up on the
wall – a sheet of paper, heavily crumpled, and filled with the scratchings of a
marker. It looked like a hasty note that had been squashed into a ball, then
unfolded on second thoughts.

He followed my gaze.

“She left me a
piss-poor excuse of a letter. I didn’t believe it at first, but when she wasn’t
back the next morning, I knew it was true.”

“Why the next
morning?”

His old chest sighed.
“She’s walked out of here half a dozen times, but she
always
comes back.”

Old Greg glared at me
for a moment.

“It’s hard to have
your granddaughter almost taken from you. To watch her lay there, lifelessly in
some hospital bed, barely clinging to life. You think there’s nothing worse in
the world. Nothing besides
death
, at
any rate… But then I got her back. She’s healthy as ever, getting better every
day. Problem is, somehow, I’ve still lost her. She’ll never remember the times
we’ve had together.”

He swigged from his
beer, still glowering at me.

“And I’m a coward. I
couldn’t tell her.”

“You didn’t tell
Angel you’re her grandfather? What the hell is wrong with you?” I said.

“Some things are
better left forgotten. That girl, she’s been through hell. Don’t want to go
dredging up bad memories. That accident was a blessing in disguise. She was
safe here, and now you’ve gone and lost her.”

“I’ll find her.”

“If I had keeled over
these last few days you’d be fucked, and you know it,” he growled, pointing
towards me with his beer hand. “Only reason you’re here is because you have
no idea
where else to turn.”

“That’s true,” I
agreed, “and I know I’ve fucked up. I don’t know
how
, but I’ll figure it out, and I’ll keep it from happening again.
But I’ll fight through hell and never stop searching until I find her.”

“And why the fuck is
that?”

“Because I
love
her.”

Old Greg laughed
heartily. It was a sarcastic, holier-than-thou laugh, and it gradually
contorted into a horrendous coughing fit.

I jumped up to help,
but he waved me away and drowned it out with the beer.

“You think you love
her. What a fucking joke. You’re even more hopeless than I thought, dick-bag.”

“You don’t know me,”
I reminded him tersely.

“Oh, I know you,” Old
Greg chuckled, his breath rattling in his chest. “I know your type. You think
you’re the hero in some bullshit romance, right? Just gonna swoop in and save
the distressed damsel?
Please
.”

The old geezer was
starting to seriously test my patience.

“If you’re not going
to help, then just say so,” I demanded, crossing my arms. “But if you
are
, then we need to cut the shit
now.
”

He stood up, walking
over to me.

“You saved her
before, I recall. Bunch of drunken, horny bikers wanted to rape her. Tell me,
fuckface, why haven’t you brought that up yet? Why not twist my arm with that?
You
know
it would work, and you’re
just wasting time…”

I stared this angry,
sly bastard straight in his fiery, ancient eyes.

“Because if you
are
her grandfather, then you’ll never
forget that. And I’m not going to resort to some cheap trick to convince you.”

His eyes narrowed
suspiciously.

“Look me in the
eyes,” I told him, “and tell me to my face that I wouldn’t tear the world apart
for her. Go on.”

Old Greg searched
deep into my gaze.

The silence of the
room was deafening.

Finally, his
shoulders sagged.

“Who the fuck
are
you?”

“I’m Trent Masters.
Of
Trent Masters and–
”

“I’ll tell you who
you are,” he cut me off indignantly. “You’re a cocky scrap of shit. You’re a
fucking arrogant piece of work who thinks you can walk into a broken girl’s
life and just save her. As if it’s that fucking simple.
This is my granddaughter.
I’m not talking about some street urchin
– this is my flesh and blood, and
you
…you’re
used to getting your way. You don’t accept ‘no’
.
You
can’t
accept ‘no.’
You’re just some misguided force of nature who sweeps people up and leaves them
broken in the dark, only this girl… She’s already broken.”

“That’s not who I am
at all,” I told him confidently.

“Oh yeah? How many?”

“How many
what.
”

Old Gregg smiled
evilly. “Don’t play stupid with me. I can smell the filth on you, boy. Before
you met my granddaughter, how many girls did you chew up and spit out? How many
girls did you leave when you were finished with them, cast aside in your wake?”

For the first time
since coming to terms with my world and my place in it, my unshakeable core was
suddenly rattled. It was only a second, but it happened.

And the motherfucker
saw
it.

“Yes…yes, I thought
so,” he answered. “You thought you could just come to this place, drag her back
down into the muck with you, and set her up for even more pain? You think I
didn’t pin you for a sorry sack of shit from the start?”

“It’s not like that,
old man,” I tried to argue.

“Sure it is.”

“It’s
not!
” I threw my beer with all my force,
shattering it against the wall.

Old Greg didn’t
flinch.

“Name one,” he
finally spoke.

“Excuse me?”

“Didn’t stutter, boy.
If you ever gave a shit about any of the girls who came before her, why don’t
you name one. Name
one
of your
conquests. And don’t make up a name – I’ll know if you’re lying to me.”

I sat there, seething
with anger.

Holy fuck.

He’s right.

Old Greg’s face
slowly, surely contorted into a wide grin. “You can’t. You can’t name
one fucking girl
that you’ve coerced
into that viper pit of a bed, can you?”

No. He can’t be right.

“You fuck and forget.
My granddaughter wasn’t the first. There have been
so many
. And you think
she’s
the one with a goddamn memory problem?”

A parade of faces
flew through my head.

Featureless husks.

I couldn’t remember
their details.

Dozens of them.

No… It was more than that.

Old Greg stood up
from his chair, confident in his complete victory over me. He coughed for a
second, and then slid his beer – nothing but dregs now – over to me.

“This is what you
are, punk. You’re the filth at the bottom of the bottle. You take what you
believe
belongs to you, and you distort
it. You make it
lesser.
I can see it
plain as day across your face.
That
is your legacy. You think I want my granddaughter to remember a sack of shit
like you? You don’t even know
her
name.”

“Her name is Angel.”

“Oh yeah?” Old Greg
toothily snarled. “Angel
Who?
”

I stared deep into
the next table over. I knew her name… It was Angel… Angel……….
Fuck
.

He’s right,
I repeated to myself.

This is who I am.

I’m going to hurt her no matter what I do.

Old Greg brushed up
the shattered beer, dropping it into the garbage. He poured himself a glass of
water, gulping it down thirstily before finally turning back to me.

“215 Wilde Grove
Drive. Beaten up old house, green, tucked away behind the trees. Dirt driveway.
If you pass the tree with the old tire swing, you’ve gone too far.”

I looked at him
incoherently.

“She ain’t here,
which means she’s there. It’s the only other place she knows.”

“Why are you…why are
you helping me?”

Old Greg leered close
to me, his rotting breath invading my nostrils.

“Because I’m a dying
old man, you sack of shit. Because sometimes – just
sometimes
– people change. You’ve already gone down swinging for
her sake, so I think you have the capacity for that. If you do…then you’re my
best chance at keeping that girl happy and safe.”

I stood up from the
table, coming to terms with the insights that this arrogant geezer had given
me.

I hated them.

I hated
him.

But as much as I
hated to admit it, the old decrepit fucker in this ramshackle little bar was
right
.

“But that ain’t the
whole reason.”

I turned to him,
catching his cold and calculating eyes.

“
If
she’s there…Angel is in danger.”