Acting Royal #Wattys2017

Chapter 38

JENNY

Jenny climbed up the stairs to her apartment. She felt broken. Physically and emotionally. She heard a door open behind her, and turned. It was her landlord. She looked up at him and smiled faintly.

Mike smiled back. The poor guy, she thought. The poor nice, patient man. She shook her head at him.

"I can't pay you. I will probably never be able to pay you."

He nodded as if this wasn't news to him at all. "I know." He said.

"I'm leaving, so you can keep all my furniture and whatever else I have in the apartment and sell it and I hope you get some money from it, because you have been so kind to me..." And she burst into tears. Mike ran up to her and awkwardly put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," He said, "I like you and I wish I could let you stay for free, but with the recession business has been-"

She held her hand up, "There is no need to explain. Please. Sell it all and rent it to someone else."

"Where will you go?"

Jenny shrugged. "Home. Back to the farm."

"How will you get there?"

Jenny shrugged again, "Good question."

Mike scratched in his pocket and started pulling money out of his wallet. "Take this, it should be enough for a bus fare or car hire or-"

"No. I could never." Jenny said shaking her head. "You've given me so much."

Mike grabbed her hand, opened it and shoved it in. "I won't take no for an answer." He closed her hand around the scrunched up notes and walked away. "Just leave it unlocked and the keys inside."

"Thank you." Jenny called after him. She was so overcome with emotion at this man's act of kindness. At least there were still a few good men left in the world. She opened the door to her apartment and walked inside. She was aware that this was the last time she would ever walk into this place again. In a way she was relieved, this had all been so hard, the last few years she had spent trying to make it as an actress, how lame she suddenly thought. How could she have ever fooled herself into believing she would make it? She was so naive. Stupid even. And now she was crawling back home with her tail between her legs and feeling like an absolute failure.

But feeling like a failure was probably the least of her worries right now. She went to her cupboard and took out a warm jacket and a pair of sneakers and shoved them into her handbag. She opened her suitcase and packed the rest of her clothes back into her cupboard, Mike probably wouldn't get much for them, but maybe he could get a hundred Bucks or so, that was something.

She put the keys onto her kitchen counter before turning and looking at her small, tiny, dusty apartment one more time. She closed the door on it and walked away.

**

There was no bus until tomorrow. She bought her ticket and sat down on a bench in the middle of the station. She had called her mother and asked her to fetch her. She had almost broken down on the phone and she'd wanted to tell her mother everything thing. She wanted her mom to console her, but she couldn't. Maybe that was the worst part, she could never tell anyone about this. No one would ever be able to console her and make her feel better. She would carry this around with her forever. A painful secret that would eat away at her. The tears started again. She tried to wipe them. She hated the fact she was crying over him. She hated him. She didn't' want to waste another tear on him, but she couldn't help it.

She loved him. She hated him. She wanted to hate him so badly, but she loved him. Fuck! How could she love and hate someone so much at the same time?

But she also hated herself right now too, for being such a stupid, blind fool. She'd believe him, but as it turned out, he was clearly a better actor than she would ever be. She should have trusted her first gut instinct and reaction to him. A leopard doesn't change its spots, after all.

She reached into her bag and dug around for a tissue. She pulled a handful out and that's when she saw a small piece of paper. She opened it and read it.

"If you ever need anything. Anything. Don't hesitate to call me. Rafiq."

His number was below. She scrunched up the note and threw it into the dustbin. She wiped her tears and blew her nose and was just about to throw that away too when...

Fuck! Maybe she should keep Rafiq's number, just in case...

She jumped up and looked inside the bin, but there was so much in there. She started rummaging, looking for the tiny piece of scrunched paper. She heard a noise and looked up, a women looked down at her with pity. She tried to smile up at the woman who quickly looked away.

She realized what she must look like right now. Her clothes, her hair, her tear-stained face scratching through a dustbin at a bus station. She finally found the note and slipped it into her wallet and sat back down on the bench.

She looked up at the clock on the wall. The bus would be here tomorrow morning. Seventeen hours and twenty minutes away. She looked around. There was hardly anyone here now and it was getting dark and cold. And that's when she burst out laughing.

She'd joked about this to herself. About being homeless and sleeping on a bench or donning a pair of heels and standing on a street corner like a hooker... she stopped.

No, she had already done that. Acted like a hooker, a woman for hire this weekend. And she had been treated like one too...

So she guessed all that was left was to sleep on a bus bench for the night like a homeless person...