Playing with Fire

e p i s o d e | t w e n t y - s i x (pt. 1)

A week goes by, and I don't see Kane again. I'd been wary about leaving my house lately, because of his sudden appearance, but I might have finally knocked some sense into him. I had contemplated calling the police for a long time, but then decided against it. I didn't have any other leads, especially now that he stopped showing up. And I don't want to be connected to him any longer.

Life doesn't wait for us to catch up. As much as I wish that time would just stop and let me catch my breath, it doesn't. School continues. Another week passes. Anna and I don't speak to one another.

I catch myself staring in her direction often. I have to remind myself that I'm no longer allowed to do that. I have to go back to pretending like everything is normal again. It's not that hard at school, actually. No one else knew that we were dating, so no one cared about the fact that Anna and I had lost connection.

I head into the bar at night as usual, and Winston rolls his eyes again when he sees me. "Again?" he demands in annoyance, placing his palm out. I place my fake ID on his hand and he pretends to look at it. "Hawthorne, you're absolutely out of control."

"Just let me get wasted in peace, okay?" I snap.

"You are seriously having some internal troubles." Winston just shakes his head as he slides me another shot glass and several half-filled bottles of alcohol. "Also, kid, the chick on the other side of the bar has been eyeing you since yesterday."

I wave my hand at him. "Sure."

Winston raises an eyebrow. "You know, a couple of years ago, you would have been all for that."

"I'm a little over that now."

"Is Hawthorne growing up?" He knocks the side of my head fondly with his knuckles. "Still, give her a chance."

I roll my eyes to myself. Sure enough, a girl who looks to be a college student, strolls up to me, smiling amiably.

"You look a little young to be here," she notes.

"Then I'm probably not old enough for you to hit on, right?" I take another shot of vodka and glance over at her. She's hot, all right, but I surprisingly have no intention of doing anything but talking to her.

"Oh, you're silly." She flips her hair over her shoulder. "You must have had a bad breakup or something. You look a little depressed."

"Yeah? And what do you want to do with it?" I retort irritably. I notice Winston raising his eyebrows to himself as he listens in on the conversation. Right. I'm not usually this much of an asshole to women who start up conversation with me.

"I'm sure I can make you feel a little better," she suggests, flashing a perfectly-white smile at me.

I lift the entire bottle of beer to my lips, but when the girl touches my shoulder, I let the bottle slip through my fingers and spill its contents all over her skin-tight red dress. She lets out a scream, her arms flying upwards into the air.

"Oops," I say, shrugging. "My bad. I'm a little tipsy."

She throws me a savage glare, before storming away from me and out of the bar. Mission accomplished. Winston walks slowly over to me, his eyes following her and his mouth nearly hitting the ground.

"You're insane!" he gasps. "Did you just reject that vixen?"

"She was annoying me."

He shakes a finger at me. "No, no, no. This is not Rowan Hawthorne. You're having trouble with a girl, aren't you?"

"I'm not having trouble with anything."

He snatches my phone up from next to me as I yelp in protest. When he turns it on, I can see his brows furrowing in confusion. His hands swivel the phone around so that the lock screen is flashing in front of my eyes. It's Anna's picture.

"Who's she?" Winston demands. "Is she your girlfriend, your little sister, or your daughter?"

"None of those!" I grab the phone out of his grip. "She's someone I no longer have the right to even look at."

"So you keep a picture of her on your phone like a creep?"

I slam my fist against the bar. "You wouldn't understand."

He shakes his head. "You're right. I don't understand. She looks like the exact opposite of you. You know, good girl with the straight-A's and the overprotective older siblings?"

I laugh at how accurate his description it. "That pretty much sums Anna up right there."

Winston sighs. "Anna, huh? You got rejected by a good girl, Hawthorne? I never even knew you were into those types." He hands me another bottle of beer. "Here, this one's on me. Hearing that, it makes me think that you're in even bigger shit than I'd thought."

I down the bottle in a matter of minutes, and immediately start feeling myself starting to get dizzy. It's getting harder and harder to see straight in front of me.

"Hawthorne," Winston says worriedly, when he notices my eyelids drooping. "Are you all right? You have to walk back home, kid."

I blink at him, attempting to answer, but the next thing I know, my head smacks down onto my arm, and everything goes black.