Spike Pratt wasn’t just having a bad day, he was way beyond that. It had been more than three months now, since the day when his life started to literally fall apart. And after that, things had just gotten worse. Now he’d gotten to a point where he had to struggle to just get through the day. And he was so tired of struggling. When his fiancee, Drusilla, had died, he’d been convinced that his life couldn’t possibly get any worse. He’d been wrong.
He hadn’t just loved Dru, he’d practically worshiped her. She had been the love of his life, his entire world, and he had never been happier than the day she finally accepted his proposal. Then she went out of the door one day, and didn’t come back. A ‘tragic accident’, that’s what the paper had said. She had just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
After spending the first month after the accident in a fog, partly caused by the amount of alcohol he’d been consuming, his boss had had enough, and fired him. Not that the job had been the best, or the most well-paid, but it was the only thing he’d had left. And now he didn’t even have that. Losing his job had been what caused him to hit bottom. Or so he’d thought. But there was more.
Even though he’d been drunk that night, hell, he’d been drunk most nights since the accident, he still remembered it very clearly. And at the same time, it was as if that night had just been a dream, it couldn’t be real. But it was.
Spike had been sitting in the bar at the local pub, glass in one hand and bottle in the other, when she had walked up to him. At first when she spoke to him, he had simply ignored her. When she wouldn’t give up, he’d told her to sod off. Of course, she had just laughed, and sat down next to him.
Darla had been Drusilla’s best friend, but he had never been able to stand her. He knew that the feeling was quite mutual, Darla had never kept quiet about the fact that she considered Spike to be way beneath Dru. More than once, she’d tried to convince her friend to dump him. He would’ve hoped that Dru would tell Darla to go to hell, or at least to mind her own damn business. She didn’t. But at least she stayed with him, much to Darla’s annoyance.
What Darla had told him that night had changed everything. He didn’t believe her at first, of course. But she had been telling him the truth, Drusilla’s doctor had confirmed it, a couple of days later. Dru had been pregnant when she died. And she had known about it for weeks, without telling him. In fact, she’d never had any plans of letting him know, at all. Because she was going to get rid of it, and pretend it never happened.
Finding out that he would’ve been a father, to a child that never got the chance to exist, without even being told about it, opened his eyes about who Drusilla really had been. He refused to see it at first, tried convincing himself that it was a mistake. But it wasn’t.
The humiliation when his friends, or most of them being Dru’s friends, he couldn’t deny that, started coming up to him, telling him that they’d known about Drusilla’s affairs, and making pathetic excuses and apologies to why they’d never told him, almost made him feel worse than he’d done when he first lost Dru. Because now he knew that she’d never even been close to feeling the same way about him.
So it was safe to say that he’d lost everything, even the good memories of his dead girlfriend. He’d loved her more than his own life, and to her, their entire relationship had been nothing more than a joke. So that’s why he, when he walked up and down the streets, hadn’t just lost his life. He had lost hope.
Spike had never been the type of person who took the easy way out, but this morning, for the first time, the idea of ending it all didn’t seem so scary. Because at this point, he had nothing more to lose, and he was just so tired of it all. But then, he saw her. The little girl. Hannah. Sometimes, when he thought back on that day, he wondered if she would ever understand that it wasn’t just he who had saved her. She had saved him too.
The little girl, she couldn’t be more than six years old, was walking slowly by the side of the road, oblivious of the cars passing by. Spike looked around in both directions to see where her parents were, surely such a small girl shouldn’t be out walking alone, especially not on a highly busy road.
But, by the look of it, the girl was all alone, so he sighed and hurried over to her. She stopped when he came up to her, looking at him with a suspicious look in her brown eyes. Spike realized that he probably didn’t look his best these days, especially not after being out drinking all night. But at least he was sober now, and he smiled at the girl.
“What are you doing out here all alone, niblet?”
She gave him a funny look. “What’s a ‘niblet’?” Then she seemed to remember something, and looked down. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers, my mommy said.”
He nodded. “Your mum is absolutely right.” Then he hesitated, unsure of what to do. He couldn’t just leave the girl here, anything could happen to her. “Um, where are your parents, sweet bit?”
The girl suddenly got a cold look in her eyes. “I don’t have parents, it’s just mommy and I.”
Spike was taken by surprise by the girl’s bluntness, but quickly covered up. “I see. So where’s your mum now?” Shrugging, the girl suddenly seemed very interested in something next to her feet. “Did you get lost?”
She giggled then, looking up again. “No, silly, I go here every day!”
He frowned, wondering what kind of mother would let her daughter walk there alone every day. She must had seen his confusion, because she hurried to explain. “With the school bus.”
Aha. That made more sense. Spike smiled at the girl again. “Right. Listen, bit, my name’s Spike. I know your mum told you not to talk to strangers, but it’s not safe here on the road. How ‘bout I walk you home, your mum must be worried about you.”
The girl seemed to be thinking hard for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. Wait, you’re not a bad man, are you? Mommy said never to follow bad men.”
Spike had to suppress a laugh. He was bad, alright. But this little girl had nothing to fear from him. “No, little bit, I’m not a bad man.”
She looked relieved, obviously taking his word for it. “Great! My name’s Hannah O’Connor and I live at 1630 Revello Drive. Let’s go!”
TBC
squawks
05/18/17 04:16 am
pj! I remember wishing one of your stories would be finished seriously about a decade ago. Amazing. I just tried an old password I used to use and amazingly got in too. Memories!
pj
03/20/17 01:20 am
10 yrs later, i finally rem my username and password. Pari, you rock. Hope you are well.
Rabbit_moon1
12/23/16 01:12 pm
I donate every month. Please donate to keep this site up!
AudryDaluz1
10/06/16 08:34 am
Great post.
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:45 pm
And anyone else who loves this site, it's worth mentioning there's a nifty little "Donate" option just below the shout box here! ;)
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:43 pm
Just wanted to take a moment to thank Pari and all the mods for maintaining such a great site!
05/18/17 04:16 am
pj! I remember wishing one of your stories would be finished seriously about a decade ago. Amazing. I just tried an old password I used to use and amazingly got in too. Memories!
pj
03/20/17 01:20 am
10 yrs later, i finally rem my username and password. Pari, you rock. Hope you are well.
Rabbit_moon1
12/23/16 01:12 pm
I donate every month. Please donate to keep this site up!
AudryDaluz1
10/06/16 08:34 am
Great post.
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:45 pm
And anyone else who loves this site, it's worth mentioning there's a nifty little "Donate" option just below the shout box here! ;)
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:43 pm
Just wanted to take a moment to thank Pari and all the mods for maintaining such a great site!