She awoke to the strike of lightning, and thunder roaring. It was dark, completely. She yawned, and slowly rose from the uncomfortable chair she had been sprawled over. She dragged herself over to the front door, her feet not once lifting off the ground, in the small converse she was slowly growing out of.
Her keys still pulling down her hoodie heavily she closed the door behind herself and slowly descended one stair after the other, yawning, rubbing her eyes. It was still pouring outside, and she felt a lot like crying again, her dog was down there, with that mean old lady, and he was scared of thunder goddamnit.
When she opened the door to hear the rain clearly, she also heard the pup's howling.
"Every town… has its ups and downs. Sometimes the ups, outnumber the downs…. but not in Nottingham…." One step after the other she walked to the shop, talking, trying to sing to herself. It was the only song she really knew, the only movie she'd ever seen. Robin Hood, a hero, the heroes this town had seemed too surreal, a myth, she never saw one of them, just the destruction they left behind. She was not a hero, as much as them.
Lightning struck again as she cupped her hands around her eyes to press her face against the dirty windows to look inside. Had she really just left James behind?
"Well I'm inclined to believe, if we weren't so down… we'd up and leave. We'd up and fly, if we had wings for flying." There he was in a box, a large one, jumping up and down to leave it, but it was too high for him.
"Can you see these tears we're crying?" she sighed moving away from the glass, dropping her head, and her hands to her sides. She slumped as she made her way back one staircase after the other and as usually without thinking she had an idea. "Is there some happiness for me?" She couldn't leave, but as she unlocked the door, it was only open for a moment, as she reached for the baseball bat and left again. As the door was shut by the wind, she remembered. There was a man, in her home, a man she'd saved, and didn't even know was alive.
"Not in Nottingham." That's what she always called her home, she couldn't leave it, it was her home, and for nothing would she leave it, or James. And so as she whispered to herself, the window shattered under her swing of the bat and she climbed in.
"Jamie, Jamie come here." she whispered to the pup as she picked him up. He howled and whined at the rain outside as she climbed out the window again, the shards cutting her knees this time as the dog struggling in her arms made it more complicated than it already had been.
"Calm down, be quiet, please." she picked up the bat, and ran. She stumbled up the stairs and into the apartment, closing the door behind herself quickly, as if someone were to follow her this late in the night.
She let the dog down but quickly grabbed it by the collar again. She was frightened, and didn't know why. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the flat, she realised the man wasn't on the floor where she'd left him, and so she ran to the bathroom of the small place, to sit in the bathtub with the dog on her lap. She held him close, and kissed his head.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." she mumbled leaning her head against the cool porcelain.
She wasn't worried about moving, and accidentally turning the water on, they had no water anyway, they had just as much water as electricity. She felt a lump in her throat as she drifted back to sleep under lightning and thunder she loved, dreaming of Robin Hood and wings to fly.