× Horan

The Grand Union Brixton is a bar a few minutes away from campus, and it just so happened to be at its fullest party level when I arrived at ten. I looked around the crowded room until I spotted Thomas, Jace, and Matt sitting at the bar. I made my way over to them and took a seat next to Matt.

"It's about time you got here," he shouted over the booming music. He tapped the bar counter with his palm to get the tender's attention. "Ay! Can I get a pint for my mate here?"

The bartender gave him a stiff nod before he pulled out a glass from under the counter and started making a drink. The place was dimly lit, the only source of light was coming from some yellow lamps on the tables and cheap looking chandeliers. There was a bright pink neon sign that read "pleasure room" with an arrow pointing to a back room and I watched as a lad in a pair of slacks with only three buttons done on his shirt opened the door and exited with a satisfied gin on his face.

I had never been in that room and plan on never doing so. Just the sound of it sounded like it was unsanitary.

"Scouting for chicks?" Thomas asked me from around Matt. The bartender placed a beer in front of me and I didn't hesitate to take a large drink of it. "This place is pretty wild, I'm sure there's someone here looking for a good time."

I shook my head at him. "I'm just simply here to drink enough to get drunk."

"The bathrooms in this place are wicked!" someone expressed as they joined our group.

I looked over and saw Chloe lean against the counter next to Thomas. I had to question her appearance because I knew for a fact she didn't hang out with Thomas, or Jace and Matt, and especially not me.

I quickly did another scan of the room to see if Abby was somewhere lurking in the shadows, but I couldn't see her anywhere.

"The mirrors are framed with neon lights and the décor was like a Hawaiian theme. There was a cheap paper flamingo taped on the stall door watching me pee!"

"You've never been here before?" Jace asked her, taking another drink of his beer.

"No," she expressed with a shake of her head, her short blonde hair grazing across her bare shoulders. "Not here. I've been to the bar just down the street. I'm not going back there, not since some old man grabbed my butt."

"Hey, Chloe," I started, not giving a shit about old men grabbing things they shouldn't. She looked over at me with curiosity. "Do you know if Lynn is feeling any better?"

She thought for a moment. "Feeling better? I didn't know she was sick... I saw her in our room with some lad and she seemed fine to me."

"What? What were they doing? Do you know him?"

Chloe shook her head nonchalantly, looking board of the conversation. "Nope, never seen him before. They were just talking, but when I walked in they were pretty close. Lynn made sure to step away from him when I entered, though. He was pretty hot in a ruggedly-"

"Mate."

I turned to see Jace looking down at my hands on the table. I followed his gaze to see that they were balled into fists. I quickly removed them from the table and placed them in my lap, but not before Chloe saw. She looked at me suspiciously, but I turned my back on her.

Matt took a sip of his drink and placed it on the counter before he looked at me. "Can I ask you something?"

Matt Reid reminded me of a little kid. Not because he looked young, but just the way he did things sometimes. He would push the peas on his plate to the very edge so they wouldn't "contaminate" the other food. He avoids the cracks in the pavement. Bubble wrap is his go-to enjoyment. He's always making wishes on dandelions and eyelashes. And when he asks a question, he always makes this face like he's worried he's being annoying.

"Go for it," I assured him.

He brushed his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes and looked away from me. "Uh, hypothetically speaking, if someone on the team were... gay, would you be upset?"

I gave him a look. "What?"

"I mean... upset wasn't the right word to use. What I mean is, that, uh-"

"No, Matt," I interrupted with small laugh, saving him from his stuttering mess of an explanation. "I wouldn't give a shit."

He looked relieved. "Not even if, say, this person shared the same locker room as the team?"

I just smiled at him, knowing exactly what he was trying to get at. "I'm not going to make that person start changing in the woman's locker room, if that's what you're thinking. There's no discrimination on the team, and if someone has a problem with it, they can leave."

Matt opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything, a hand was on my shoulder and I turned to see Chloe standing behind me.

"Are you up for a game of pool?" she asked with a cunning smile. "I challenge you to a game. Sixteen pounds to the winner."

I looked over at the pool table, the people playing before just now leaving. I was always good at pool, thanks to those lonely hours alone at home when my friends never bothered to contact me anymore. I guess having an extra sixteen pounds in my wallet wouldn't hurt...

"You're on."

The night seemed to pass by quickly. I was on my fourth beer when I looked at the clock to see that it was a half hour before midnight. We had played two games of pool already, both of us calling a re-match and currently playing the third one, triple or nothing.

"That was a cheap shot!" Chloe conveyed, tilting her head to look at me judgingly. "I should just give up now."

"Hey, I haven't won yet," I informed her.

"Yeah, but I have three more of my balls left and all you have is the eight ball," she stated, looking at the pool table and contemplating her next move.

"All you need is a little help," I laughed as I walked over to her. I gently grabbed the pool stick from her delicate fingers and walked to the other side of the table. "Come over here and position the stick so you're going to hit the three ball." Once she did that, I stood behind her and leaned over, placing her hands on the stick differently than she had them before. "Now gently hit the cue ball."

Chloe swiftly moved the stick back a little, and with the guidance of my hands, pushed forward as the end of the stick hit the white ball. We watched as the cue ball rolled ever so slowly to the three and bumping it just enough for it to fall into one of the side holes.

"Wow," Chloe said, moving her head to the side to look at me. Our faces were suddenly close and I could feel her minty breath down my neck.

"Uh, Chloe?" someone said from behind us. I quickly removed myself from behind Chloe and looked to see who spoke. Jace was standing there with a confused expression and his phone in his hands. "Do you know by chance if Lynn is in her hall right now?"

Chloe leaned against the pool table looking rather annoyed by his question. "I have no idea."

"Why?" I found myself asking Jace. "Why do you need to know if she's in her room?"

"My phone's been fucking up and I'm now just receiving the missed calls and text from Jamie," he told me, starting to look rather concerned about the situation. "She's worried about Lynn. Apparently they were talking on the phone when Lynn suddenly hung up on her and she hasn't picked up her phone since. That was this afternoon."

I spun to look at Chloe. "You said she was with some lad, right?"

Chloe nodded. "Yeah, I honestly wouldn't worry about it. They probably just went out to have some fun."

"But she's not feeling well," I reminded her.

"She probably faked it."

"Lynn wouldn't miss a practice just to have some fun," Jace said what I was thinking.

I hastily put the pool stick down on the table, bumping one of Chloe's balls in the process, and grabbed my jacket that I had left on the chair I was sitting on a while ago.

"Where are you going?" Jace asked as I started to make my way to the front door of the bar.

"To find Lynn."

× × ×

I've been knocking for the last three minutes, calling out for her to answer the damn door. I wasn't even sure she was even inside. There wasn't a light shining through the bottom crack of the wood and I hadn't heard anything that proved that she was in there.

Stepping away from the door, I ran my hands through my hair and started pacing back and forth, trying to figure out what to do. People passed by and gave me strange looks. I even asked one girl who walked by if she had seen Lynn enter her room, but she just shook her head. It was passed midnight and I was sure I was waking everyone up on the third floor by my shouts, but I didn't give any fucks about their slumbers.

That was when I got an idea.

I quickly dug out my phone and unlocked it, ignoring the texts from Jace asking if I had found her yet. I scrolled down my contacts until I found Lynn's name and didn't hesitate to call her.

I pressed myself against her door so I could hear the ringing from my phone against my ear. Not even a moment later, I heard a muffled ringtone from the other side of the thick wood. Just as soon as I heard it, though, it was cut off the same time the ringing on my end did. I looked down at the phone to see that the call was ignored, meaning she was inside and the phone was near her.

"Lynn!" I shouted. "Lynn, I know you're in there, open the fucking door!"

Nothing. No sound, no shout back in protest...

I slammed my fist against the wood. "I swear to God, Lynn! I've been at this school for three years! I know how to get through these doors! Let me in!"

When there was no sound of movement from the other side, I dug out my wallet. This girl was actually going to make me break into her goddamn room. I looked through all my cards and took out my library card knowing that if it were to get scratched up enough, I could just easily get a new one.

I shoved the card against the door and the doorframe and angled it downward and situated it behind the bolt of the lock. It was an old building so that meant the door was also old; I was positive this was going to work.

Once I heard the click of the lock, I knew I was right and managed to unlock the door successfully.

"You are so fucking-" I stopped once I got a good look of the room.

The first thing I noticed was the darkness of the place. I probably would have walked right into the dresser if it wasn't for the hall light shining through the open doorway, illuminating the floor and walls.

At first, I didn't even see Lynn. It wasn't until I stepped into the room further did I finally notice her leaning against the wall at the foot of Chloe's bed, tucked into a small space.

The sight of her made me freeze.

Her legs were pulled up to her chest, head resting on her knees. Her usual silky caramel hair was frizzy and dry as it cascaded down her shoulders. Normally clothing was the first thing my eyes would go to, but just from the sight of Lynn all matted up like that took the focus off the lack of clothing on her body. Her legs were bare, but from where I was standing tall above her, I could see that she was wearing shorts. The dark shirt she was wearing was hanging off her shoulder and was bunched up at the side, exposing the skin by her hip.

"Lynn..." I whispered.

I wasn't really sure what I was going to expect when I got the door unlocked, but it wasn't this. I wasn't even sure what this was except that Lynn looked unbelievably...

Broken. That was the word I was looking for. There wasn't anything else that could describe the state she was in.

People always think there was beauty to be broken, like a tortured soul made them more interesting, more mysterious, more deep. But there wasn't anything beautiful about being broken. It will eat you up, tear you down, and rip you apart.

Without stopping to think through my actions, I walked the small space between us and kneeled down in front of her. She wasn't making any noise - I couldn't even hear her breathing. I reached out and took her hands that were in her lap and held them in mine, trying to make her look up at me. I intently discovered that she was shaking uncontrollably.

"Say something," I nearly bagged. I didn't like what was going on and I was getting really worried. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Lynn stayed sitting against the wall, not even bothering to remove her hands from mine. I knew just from that that something was really wrong. I gripped onto her hands tighter to calm her down a little, but it didn't seem to work. I wasn't good with people when it came to things like this - to sympathizing with someone. It was foreign and peculiar to me, but I knew I had to do something so she could open up to me, or at the very least, stop shaking.

I owed her that much from when she helped with my panic attack.

"Lynn, I don't know what to do," I said softly to her. The tenderness in my voice was unaccustomed to me and felt weird coming out of my mouth. "Tell me what to do."

That was when she squeezed my hands.

It wasn't a coincidence, she willingly squeezed my hands and I was just happy that she was actually in there somewhere listening to me. She was still shaking, though, and I found myself rubbing my thumb up and down the backs of her hands in a lame attempt to calm her down. It seemed to work, at least a little bit.

"I know I'm probably the last person you want to talk to," I told her. "And I know you're still mad at me for reading your essay, and I'm still a little pissed about you prying through my things... but I do care."

There was a small squeeze of her hands again and it gave me enough confidence to know that she knew I was trying my best, and that was enough to make me keep talking.

"You have to tell me what happened, Lynn. I want to help you. Chloe said you were in here with someone. Did he... did he do something to you?"

Lynn stiffened ever so slightly from my words, but I saw it.

I looked around the room to see if it were to give me any idea as to what happened. It was obvious that it had something to do with that lad she was with, but the possibilities were endless. I saw clothes scattered around the room and her bed was unmade, but that wasn't necessarily out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary, though, was the broken lamp lying on the floor by her nightstand.

"You know back at your second football practice with us when I didn't pass you the ball no matter how much you shouted that you were open?" I asked her, even though I knew she wouldn't answer. "I finally put whatever grudge against you aside and passed you the ball for the sake of the game. Lynn, think of this like that. I need you to talk to me about this. Whatever happened tonight is the ball, and you're hogging it."

I paused to see if she was following what I was trying to tell her - the lame metaphor I didn't even completely understand myself. She was still holding my hands and the shaking had lessened as the time passed, but her head was still down on her knees. All I wanted was to see her face, to see her beautiful blue eyes.

"Lynn, I'm open."