The Games People Play

Cassidy

Sharp lights stab at my eyes like tiny little daggers, piercing through my closed eyelids. “Ow,” I groan softly and hold my aching head.

My mouth is dryer than the summers in the Sahara, and a marching band is playing out a samba to the beat of my heart against my skull - boom-cha, boom-cha, boom-cha.

I try to swallow and peel my tongue off the roof of my mouth, smacking my dry lips together.

What in the blue hell happened last night?

The last thing I remember was the handsome man at the bar offering to buy me a drink. I watched the bartender pour the rum and coke and hand it to me. No funny business. I made sure. I always make sure.

These days, a girl can’t be too careful.

With my thumb and forefinger, I force my left eyelid open, groaning when the sharp light stabs through my pupil and into my brain. I close my eye and rub my head.

“It takes a while for the drugs to wear off,” someone says.

“Whu?” I mutter.

“Let me guess. Dude named Sebastian Blake offered you a drink and you can’t remember anything after that?”

“Yes,” I croak and smack my lips again. “Tall, blonde, great body.”

“No,” the unknown girl says. “Mine had long hair. He’s a little on the shorter size, but my God was he hot?”

Same name. Different guy. The man who offered me the drink was hot. He had light brown eyes. Broad shoulders. I remember thinking that he stood out. We were in a dive bar, surrounded by dock workers and labourers in torn jeans and overalls. And there was this Adonis, dressed in a tailored suit and Italian shoes.

All the women looked at him. Some even tried to stop him as he approached me, but he merely pushed them out of the way, not even looking at them. He kept his eyes on me, as if I was the only woman in the room.

Me! Boring, plain, unimpressive Cassie. No one ever pays me the slightest bit of attention, not even the old drunks with the yellow teeth and sunken eyes. I go through life unnoticed and unseen.

Something cold and cylindrical touches my lips. “Water,” the unfamiliar female voice says. “It will help.”

I close my cracked lips around the straw, and greedily gulp down the icy water. It does clear my head, and after a few minutes I finally manage to open my eyes.

I look around. There are four other women in the room with me, each of them on a similar cot as mine. It’s clean, at least, and comfortable, but there are no windows and only two doors. One, a heavy steel door that looks like the entrance to a bank vault, clearly leads to the outside world.

The other door is open and I can see the toilet from here.

We are obviously in some kind of cell.

What the hell did I do last night? Pee on a police car? I did that once when Billie, my sister and partner in crime, made me so drunk I didn’t know what side was up or down.

She thought it was hilarious. The policeman who sat in the car and witnessed my shame didn’t agree.

High up on the colourless concrete wall are a series of vents. “There’s no way out,” the girl who gave me the water says.

I finally look at her. She is breathtaking. She reminds me of snow white, with her pitch black hair and clear, blue eyes.

In fact, all the girls in here are gorgeous, and all of them are dressed for a night out on the town. Even the blonde with the green eyes and fake eyelashes is a beauty that will stop men dead in their tracks.

I turn back to the kind young woman who gave me the water. “So what did you guys do?” I ask.

She smiles and shrugs. “What did we do?” the blonde asks sarcastically, drawing my attention from the brunette. “Nothing. We were kidnapped.”

“Oh please,” I say, and swing my legs off the bed. “I don’t know about you, but I got hammered and I’m sure disorderly. I’ve done it before. I’ve never been arrested, but it was only a matter of time, really. They’ll let us go as soon as we sober up.”

The dark-haired beauty gives me a sweet smile, and gently squeezes my hand. “We are not at the police station, sweetie,” she says. “I’ve… spent some time in jail myself. You haven’t, have you?”

No, I haven’t. I have been on a path of self-destruction ever since Billie died, but I can’t quite seem to reach that point where I completely blow up and destroy myself. “My sister has,” I answer. “I’ve bailed her out a few times. What’s your name?” I ask.

“I’m Brooke,” she says. “The blonde over there looking like she drowned in a vat of vodka is Stephanie.” She points to a brunette, “That’s Abby, and over there, with the red hair-” my eyes go to the quiet girl who is sobbing her eyes out -“is Weepy. We can’t get a single word out of her.” Brooke looks back to me. “And you are?”

“Oh. Cassidy. You can call me Cassie.”

Brooke nods and points to the open bathroom door. “There are new, well, everything in there. You can wash up and brush your teeth.”

I blush. I don’t know how long I’ve been out, but I am no stranger to the morning after breath. I rush across the spacious cell, past the occupied bunks, and into the bathroom. There is a small shower, a toilet, and a basin.

I pee, then wash the streaky make-up from my face, get a new toothbrush from the cabinet, and brush my teeth. I regard my pale visage in the mirror. I have washed out, grey eyes, lips that are a little too thin, colourless, mousy hair, and a spattering of freckles across my nose that would look cute on any other girl, but on me it just looks blah.

Billie was the beautiful one in the family. Everyone said so. On the day of her funeral, my mother turned to me, slapped me so hard my ears rang, and told me I should have been the one in the casket.

It didn’t matter that Billie was drunk and drove into oncoming traffic, taking herself and a family of five out in the process. All that mattered was that my mother’s favourite child lay dead and cold in the ground, and the ugly duckling was still breathing.

Feeling a little better, I return to the cell and the weeping girl in the corner. I kneel in front of her and put my hand on hers. “Come on now,” I say. “It’s not that bad. So we’ll get a little slap on the wrist, and then they’ll let us go. We’ll live.”

The girl snaps her head up. Like the others, she is almost too beautiful for words. Even with her red and swollen eyes, she’s still worthy of gracing the covers of fashion magazines. Her skin is flawless, and her pixie face is reminiscent of a movie star. “We are not in jail,” she says in a thick voice and drops her head on her arms again.

I roll my eyes and go back to my bunk. “How long have we been here, anyway?” I ask.

“I was here first,” Brooke says. “I think- I think that was three or four days ago. It’s hard to tell without any windows.”

“Then how do you know?”

“The lights come on every twelve hours,” she says and holds up her hand to show her dainty, golden wristwatch. It’s a cute watch, but it looks cheap. “And goes out for twelve hours at a time. They feed us twice a day. Once in the morning, I think, and once at night.”

For the first time, I feel a flicker of fear. Before she died, Billie had been arrested six or seven times. Drunk driving, drunken disorderly, indecent exposure… every time, the police took all her personal belongings - even her shoes.

We, all of us, still look like we just staggered home after a night of clubbing.

Maybe the other women are right. Maybe this isn’t a jail cell after all.

I never dress up to go out anymore. I’m dressed in ratty old jeans, a stretched-out t-shirt, and dirty sneakers that are on their last legs.. Billie was always the one who made me put on nice dresses and high heels. I don’t see the point anymore. I only ever did it to make her happy.

I reach into my pocket for my cellphone. They didn’t take it, but there is no service of any kind. “It’s Monday?” I ask, surprised when I see the date and time on my phone. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Two days,” Weepy says without lifting her head. “You were the last they threw in here.”

A slot at the bottom of the door opens with a loud clang. I gasp and jump back, pushing myself hard against the concrete wall. Then, the sound of metal sliding on cement grates through the room. One stainless steel tray after the other comes floating across the floor. “Breakfast!” Brooke exclaims. “Finally. I’m starving.”

Five bottles of iced coffee follow the trays, rolling across the room like bowling pins. “But,” I say in sheer disbelief. “We have to get out of here.”

“How?” Weepy asks in a muffled voice. “There’s no way out.”