Soiled Dove

Chapter One

I was the one who found her that night. Hell, I was the one who found her every night. She never wanted anyone else to see her like that. After she’d had her fun. With tangled hair, smeared make-up, the stench of sex consuming her. Not to mention she was generally drunk off her ass, a stumbling mess that no one wanted to deal with. Except me.

It was my job to take care of her. At least I thought it was. She didn’t have anyone else to look after her, didn’t have anyone that cared about her for more than an hour. Or however long it took to get her to spread her legs. It was me who always helped her off the pavement, cleaned her up, and tucked her into bed around five in the morning. And it was me that held her hair back after she could no longer hold her liquor. Night after night after night.

I didn’t mind. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do. Besides, I couldn’t just leave her to fend for herself. She wasn’t capable of taking care of herself and I knew that if she was alone in New York City for more than a couple hours, she would get herself into some pretty deep shit. So I helped her as much as I could. Tried to make sure no one saw her at the end of the night. Tried to make sure her reputation was kept up. It was an extremely fucked up reputation, but she seemed to like it. And that was what mattered.

But when I found her that night, I knew that this was more serious than I’d thought and I knew she couldn’t keep living this way. Couldn’t keep being everyone’s toy. The only reason she did it was to feel special for a few minutes. To feel a tiny bit of love from another person. But horny men would say anything just to get fifteen minutes with her. And the sad part was that she knew how wrong, how terrible and sick this was. That’s why she had to get wasted every night. To convince herself that it was okay. And that she was just having a bit of fun.

But that night wasn’t just a bit of fun. Whenever the memory takes over my mind, this undying rage presents itself within me. I’m not always sure who it’s directed at. Usually it’s for the men who left her like that. But every once in a while I want nothing more than to scream at her for getting herself into all this trouble.

It’s given me hell, seeing her like that. And to this day, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, a sheen of icy sweat across my forehead. And all I can see is her crumpled body on the pavement. Her bruised and bloodied face. The way her eyes couldn’t concentrate on me, and the streaks of salted tears that ran through all the dirt and blood on her cheeks. The way she jumped when I touched her skin. And the way she quivered for the rest of the night even after I’d taken her home and tucked her into bed.  

It fucked with my head. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to do that to her. And I couldn’t understand how she didn’t see something like this coming. It made me hate everything. I hated those men for what they did. I hated her for being part of it. I hated myself for not getting there sooner. I hated God for letting this happen. And most of all I hated James for starting all of this. For being my best friend and for loving her and then not loving her anymore. Because if that bastard had just acted like a decent human being for once in his whole goddamned life maybe she wouldn’t have gone so far off the rails. And maybe none of this would have ever happened.