Waking Charley Vaughan (6 page)

“Brennan?” she interrupted my thought, which was probably for the better. This girl was clearly damaged goods. There was no reason to stand here marveling at her features.

“Uh-yeah? Sorry, I was thinking about something. What’s up?”

“Drink?” she asked, one eyebrow raised. I guessed one more watered down Gin and Tonic wouldn’t hurt. It would kill time while I closed down. This girl was not getting home on her own.

As I prepared her drink, I watched her out of the corner of my eye, hoping she wouldn’t be able to tell what I was doing. Sitting there, all alone in the corner of bar, she looked so sad, and more vulnerable than anything I’d ever seen. I didn’t know her well, sure, but, she seemed sweet. What kind of idiot would cheat on a girl like that?

I walked over to her end of the bar—watery drink in hand. She looked up when I approached, and I noticed she was crying again.
What an asshole
was all I could think.

“Here,” I said, sitting the drink down in front of her. “After this one, I’m taking you home though.” Her eyes shot straight in my direction this time.

“
No
,” her big brown eyes grew even larger. “I can’t go home right now.” She was serious. It made me suspicious, and a little concerned.

“Why are you so scared to go to your own house? Has this guy hit you or something?” I worked to keep my tone even.

“No, no.” her voice was calmer now. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just…he has this way about him. He’s too persuasive.” I gave her a look, my brow furrowed.

“Oh come on!” She demanded. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. Some people are just good at getting their way. Matt is one of those people. If I go home tonight, he’ll be there, and he’ll see me, and we’ll talk, and eventually, I’ll start seeing things his way. And you know
what
Brennan? I don’t
want
to see things his way. So…avoidance is key.”

I was still just looking at her. Apparently, this made her defensive. “Don’t give me that look! I know I’m a chicken shit, but I am trying to deal with this the best way I can. Some girls could just say, ‘screw you, dick!’ and be done, but I’m not like that. At least I can recognize I’m not strong like that. Give me
some
credit. I’m trying to work around my weakness”

“Why not just strengthen your weakness?” I gave her a teasing smile. “Sometimes, some people deserve to be told ‘screw you’.

“Screw you,” she slurred, only seeming half serious, and looked back down at her drink.

“I’m only trying to help. If you don’t want to go home, where do you want to go? ‘Cause, I hate to break it to you, but you can’t stay here, and I’m not leaving you on the curb.” I looked at the clock. It was close enough to closing time. I went to the door of the small, dusty pub, and flipped the “open” light off.

“You have five minutes to decide,” I said, taking her glass away to wash it.

“Hey!” She began to protest, her face scrunched up in an angry pout. “Forget it. I was done anyway,” she said, and her expression changed to something cutely defiant. This girl was
drunk.
She then started to rummage through a giant bag, I assumed, looking for a wallet.

“Heartbreak special,” I called. “It’s on the house.” No way was I charging a drunk girl for watered down drinks on the night she found out her fiancé cheated on her.

It looked for a second like she was going to protest, but she instead gave in. I assumed it was because she had no idea where her wallet was, and I assumed that because I’d picked it up an hour earlier where it had fallen behind the bar.

“I guess I should go to my friend’s house,” she said after a long silence. “I’ll call her to pick me up.” She pulled out her phone and began pressing buttons in no particular order. I seriously doubted she would get anyone on the phone. She held it to her ear, looked confused, then pressed the end button. She did this more than a few times before she finally seemed to reach what must have been her friend’s voicemail.

“Sara, it’s Charley. Can you come get me? I’m at the end of the bar. I’ll wait here until you show up. Thanks.”

I just rolled my eyes, sure that this Sara girl would be here any minute. Hell, maybe she was psychic. I had learned something interesting though. Her name was Charley. At least, I thought it was. She could be Sara who was calling Charley, and who was extremely drunk and confused. With this girl, there was really no way of knowing.

A few minutes later, I put the last glass away, gave the bar one more good wipe down, and grabbed my keys. I had decided to just drive her to Sara’s house…or Charley’s house…who-the-hell-ever’s house, instead of waiting for some ill-informed person to show up and take her home.

“Okay. You ready? I think you should just let me drive you where you need to go.” There was no answer. I looked over to her spot at the end of the bar to find her slumped in the stool, head on the bar, brown curls cascading around her. It had taken her all of two seconds to fall asleep-- or pass out. I wasn’t sure which at that point. I walked over to her and tapped her shoulder.

“Umm...Charley?” I tested out the name. No response.  “Hey! Get up,” I said, poking her a little harder this time.

She groaned a dry “huh?” sound, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Come on. I’ll help you out,” I said.

“Where are we going?” She asked sleepily. “Is Sara here?” her voice perked up.

“No, Sara is not here. I’m going to take you to her. Do you think you can remember her address?”

“Yup!” She said with certainty. “Its 1….umm...1…It’s on Lakeland Circle. But I can take my bike. It’s ok.”

With that, she hopped off her barstool, wobbling a little with her landing, and started to stumble toward the door. I followed her, catching her just before she fell after tripping over her own feet. I scooped my arm under hers and wrapped it around her waist in an attempt to keep her upright.

The problem was that she was so much shorter. I either had to stoop down to keep my hand at her waist, or stand up straight and risk having a drunk girl think I was trying to grope her. I went with a third option, and hunched over to pick her up and place her over my shoulder—fireman style. I probably looked more like a caveman, but it would get us out of the bar, and allow me to lock the door without worrying about her.

“Haha!” she gave a drunk laugh. “This is like that Spetor song!”

“Who?” I asked her, having no idea what she was talking about.

“C’mon, bartender, just a little more tender,” she slurred in what sounded like a singing tone. “I ate all your peanuts. Now return me to sender!” She sang loudly, then began giggling at a joke I didn’t understand.

She was unbelievably drunk. I should have cut her off sooner. 

After a few more seconds, she began kicking and demanding that I put her down “Now, dammit!” It was kind of funny, but I put her down once I got outside the door.

“Stay right there, okay?” I said loudly, while staring directly into her eyes. I did this in the way that obnoxious people speak to others who don’t speak their language. Loud and slow, as if volume and speed are all it takes to break a language barrier. I hoped in this case, it would work.

“Regina!” I heard her say behind me. “Regina Spektor. That’s who sings that,” she went on. “Matt hates her. I asked him to go to a concert of hers with me once, but he said he’d rather stick a rusty nail in his eardrum. Said my taste in music sucked…’you like crap’ that’s what he said,” she trailed off. I was trying to find the right key to lock the shop up.

“Uh uh,” I humored her, “Sounds like a jerk. You’re better off,” that part was true as far as I could tell. “Just stay still, okay?” I said without turning around to see her.

She was mumbling something about shadow twins. I had no idea what that meant. I kept fumbling with the keys in my hand, quietly cursing the old locks that my boss insisted on using.

The next few seconds went by too fast, and I still have trouble remembering the exact order of things. As I was turned to lock the door, I heard the light scraping sounds of shoes on sidewalk.  In the few seconds it took me to make the connection that those shoes belonged to Charley, it was too late. I turned around to find her stepping into the street. At some point, I screamed to get her attention, but it was useless. One moment she was bathed in the headlights of the large dark car, with its horn filling the cols night air, and the next moment, I heard the unforgettable sound of the car’s front colliding with the fragile girl’s body. It had hit her before either of us could react, leaving her sprawled on the pavement, her limbs bent at unnatural angles, and blood trickling down her face.

I ran over to her, not even thinking about the car that had hit her, or its driver. Both would be long gone by the time that thought occurred to me.

CHAPTER 3 – BRENNAN

A couple of hours later, I was standing in a hospital room with almost no idea how I'd gotten there. I say 'almost no idea' because I know what I did to be allowed in, but to this day, I still have no idea how it worked. After I'd called 911, it only took a few ridiculously long minutes for the ambulance to show up. Once the paramedics arrived, I moved back from where I had been kneeling next to Charley, and let them take over.

After they established she was still breathing and her heart was still beating, they stabilized her, and lifted her limp, small body onto the stretcher. The right thing to do would have been to say my goodbye and stay and talk to the police. For some reason, I just couldn't leave her like that. There was a small ping of panic in my chest at the thought of her being in the ambulance alone--or--without me. That was when the lie was born.

"She's my fiancé," I blurted out as they loaded her into the ambulance, not even really sure what I was doing at that point. "I need to go with her," I told the police officer who was questioning me.

The man was lanky with light brown hair and a 70's movie star-style mustache. He looked like a creep, but turned out to be pretty understanding. He asked me a few more questions as I let him into the pub to retrieve the video tape from the surveillance system that was installed to monitor the front of the building.  After that, he let me go  to the hospital. He gave me his card, and I agreed to meet him at the police station the following morning to go over any other questions he had.

As I raced over in my truck, I had worried about how I was going to find her. I was supposedly her fiancé, and yet I didn't know her last name. Just then, her phone buzzed in my jeans pocket. I fished it out of my pocket, while reducing the trucks speed. The last thing I needed was another accident tonight. While stopped at a red light, I looked at the phone's screen. It was black, so I pressed the "unlock" button at the top. The phone woke up, and the words "This phone belongs to Charley Vaughan. One new Text message" appeared on the phone's screen. I ran my finger across the screen to unlock it, and read the message.

"Where are you??

~Sara"

I didn't know what to say to this girl. I put the phone back in my pocket.

Once I arrived at the emergency room, Charley was still being treated, so I was told to wait. No one really seemed to believe my story that I was her fiancé because I wasn't able to answer very many of their questions about her. I was able to give them an additional contact, thanks to Charley's phone.

After giving Sara's number to the nurse at the desk, I reopened Sara's message and pressed 'reply'. All I said was "Come to First General hospital. Urgent," then put the phone back in my pocket. After about an hour, someone came out and said I could go in and see Charley now, and that the Doctor would be in shortly to talk to me.

I went in and stood next to her bed, staring down at her. She was messed up. Bruises everywhere. I had only been in the room a couple of minutes when I heard someone walk in. I didn't look up, thinking it was the Doctor.

Instead, I heard, “Um…who are you?” asked a tall pale woman in the doorway. 

“Are you Sara?"  I was just hoping this girl didn’t freak out on me.

“Uh, yeah. Who are you? The nurse said Matt was in here.” She looked around, her face full of confusion.

“Yeah, I kind of said I was Matt. They wouldn’t let me in to see her…so I lied. You don’t need to call anyone. I just wanted to make sure she was going to be okay,” I said; and my tone was a mix of exasperation and exhaustion.

“Okay, you’ve got about two seconds to tell me who the hell you really are before I call a nurse in here,” she said. I wasn’t sure if calling her bluff was a smart move. I wasn’t so sure it was a bluff.

“My name is Brennan. I work at the bar she was at before her accident. I was trying to take her home. She’d left messages with you…or, she thought it was you. When she couldn’t reach you, I told her I’d take her home.” My voice was starting to crack.

“When I turned to lock the doors, she stumbled out into the street. This car came out of nowhere…I just…she was bleeding…she wasn’t conscious...I just wanted to know she was ok,” I said. I was close to tears. I didn’t know if it was the craziness of the situation, or the fear I felt when I saw her lying there. It surprised me, and seemed to surprise Sara, too.