Geez. What happened to him?
Crap! I'm going to get raped or murdered or raped and murdered!
None of these bums will help me either, in fact, they probably won't even nudge and if they do they'll join in. Everyone will say I brought this on myself and my dad will be successful in convincing all of his friends (colleagues who pretended to be his friends) that I was a whore who couldn't take instruction.
" 'ello boo- e- full wha'sa preddy l'il thin like you doin' in 'ere" Great I'm going to be murdered by an Irish guy with awful breath.
As scared as I obviously am I stupidly reply with a:
"It's a free country, can I have my arm back, please". Honestly I'm not mad, I've always been ballsy, but recently I reckon I don't have very much to lose and if I'm going to die I'm going to put up a bloody good fight. As strong as I am, I have my eyes tightly shut ,waiting for impact.
Waiting...
...Waiting...
Nothing came.
I finally opened my eyes and what I did receive was a hearty chuckle and my arm dropped back to my side. To be honest his breath was like death so...
"Oi dis this one your bird, one heck of a lass" The big hairy Irish man turned towards the guy in the corner.
Looking more carefully, even though it was hard to with the poor lighting, I noticed he was wearing quite a nice suit and although his hair was dishevelled it was really thick and really, really dark.
His head suddenly snapped up and before I could take a really good look it was back down on the table. All that was different is that his middle finger was raised directed at the large man now standing behind me.
"Aw, Dare don' be like that I was jus try'na help , woulda bin great if ya chick came to take you back"
Well now I knew this is where newly dumped men came to reside I thought it was about time I left.
"She's blonde I told you Bernie, she's blonde" I looked again to find the guy in the corner upright. He was unshaven and his eyes were bloodshot but I could recognise that face anywhere.
"Darien? Darien...Shields?" I looked carefully fully analysing him. It had been a long time and maybe I was wrong. For one, this wasn't the place the Darien I knew would reside. Plus he looked like a tramp.
"Dare, you sure this ain't you're girl, he is pissed ya know" He said turning to me," an' he ain't seen her in a while" God I hoped it wasn't him.
"Bernie, she's fucking blonde!" For once everyone in the tavern stopped what ever they were doing as he jumped off his stool and stood shaking on his feet.
Well he seemed the same height as the Darien I knew and the same frame but people do tend to look similar these days. Kind of.
"Her hair's the colour of Gold and its all the way down-" He gestured with his hand how long her hair was but didn't manage to finish as the lower his hand went the more his body tipped, as if he were doing a weird sideways bow, until he eventually lost balance and hit the floor.
Well, that was strange.
What was even stranger was that even though the rest of them had all witnessed it they didn't try to see if he was alright or help him out a bit. Instead, they carried on whatever it was they were doing.
The big guy behind me seemed to feel my uneasiness.
"Don't worry 'e does that all the time, that Selina girl's killed 'im ".
Okay that was definitely my Darien.
I ran to him never-the-less. He seemed fine other than he smelt like alcohol and just looked plain unkempt. Oh, and he was unconscious.
"Is he going to be alright, here?" I was genuinely worried. This place was just ruff and just not the place for an obviously emotionally unstable man. Yep, I watched that episode of Dr Phil.
"Yeah, Yeah 'e's bin 'ere for a week now, I'm lettin' 'im stay upstairs" I looked the way the Irish guy pointed as he said there were stairs that probably led to the groggiest bedrooms this side of town.
I'm one of those people, i'm told, whose face tends to give away what their feeling, because I hadn't said anything and the Irish guy said:
"Look girly, who are ya anyway? Ya obviously din come 'ere for a drink or a chat wiv the lads 'n' ya all over im, he's chubby finger pointed at Darien"
" he's not into prostitutes". I turned to look at the soft voice that now joined in. It seemed I had caught the attention of the other guys. Well, at least one of them.
I was not one to take being called a prostitute lightly.
"How dare you! You don't even know me; I don't even look like a prostitute!"
To my anger and embarrassment the rest of the guys looked at me as if to say:
"Well, you kind of do"
I stood from unconscious Darien's side and walked towards the counter where the big Irish man "Bernie" stood.
"Look I know how strange this is gonna sound but I was a good friend of Darien's and Serena's, my name's Rei Hino" I quickly took out one of my company cards and a pen. Behind it I wrote my name and my number.
"When Darien comes to, can you please give him this"?
The large man took the card and put it in the breast pocket of his shirt.
"'right" he replied. As scary as he was there was something about him that struck me as trustworthy and that's saying something coming from me because I trust very, very few.
I left the horrible place I found to be called The Empire ( Yeah right), to find I had just ten minutes to wait for my bus.
I knew for once when I got home I wouldn't be thinking about how awful my life was but instead how Darien's life seemed to have gotten so bad.
Geez .What happened to him?
