'FOOTPATH NRXT T COOMBE RD. HLEP.. M'
Karen is disturbed from her revision by a text from her best friend that stops her heart. She drops everything, leaving her dorm with only her keys and phone, pulling on a raincoat as she sprints down the hallways and heads to where she hopes Madison is. At first the girl doesn't seem as bad as Karen had expected, worst case scenarios of blood pooling around her friend's corpse having filled her mind for the duration of the journey.
That is, until she sees Mads up close. She sees her drenched from head to toe. She sees her favourite yellow raincoat from the cute little vintage shop down the road., ripped in places and half pulled off her body. She sees jeans pulled down to the girl's knees and a shirt left wide open to show a bra pulled down to the waist and breasts littered with bruises.
Madison seems to have done her best to preserve her modesty, but most of her torso is still exposed. Karen hear whimpering as she closes in on her friend.
"Mads. It's me, look up hun. Everything's going to be okay. I'm going to button up your shirt is that okay?"
The girl nods, and allows Karen to gently conceal her naked chest. She nods again when her friend asks if she can pull up her pants and jeans, lacking the energy to help the wet material be pulled up her bruised thighs.
Finally, Karen lifts Madison up to her feet, arranging her favourite yellow coat back over her shoulders, and a hood over her sodden mess of a ponytail.
"I'm taking you home Mads. To my dorm, I mean. Shit this is all my fault I never should have left you alone. I'm sorry.
I'm so, so sorry."
BINABASA MO ANG
Corey Mulligan, The Heart Thief - A Short Story
RomanceMadison Hayford grows up learning to love a world which left her living in poverty until she was well into her teens. And for the most part, she succeeds in spreading love and joy in every place she can reach. But Corey Mulligan, from the moment she...
