Princely Bastard Read Online Free PDF Page A

pouring into the living room, while realizing everything hurts. Even my hurts hurt. And I’m not sure who’s more responsible for this—Ricky or her.
    Suddenly, I realize something else. I realize she might still be here, and I raise my head—causing pain to sweep through my body, along with a fatigue that aches even more than the hurt.
    I wince at this. Then, I lift my torso off the floor and glance around.
    There she is, looking out the window while rubbing her knees and back—and I can’t help wonder if I’m responsible for that, and if I should be sorry about it.
    I also see she’s wearing one of my shirts—one so big that it falls way below her knees. She’s further had to roll up the sleeves almost halfway just to stick her hands out of them. But it looks good on her. Better than it looks on me. She looks good, too. I mean, she’s not beautiful or anything—at least not what most people would call beautiful. She’s not like the kind of girls you see on TV or in magazines. But she looks good. She looks real good, with shoulder-length light-brown hair and greenish eyes, and a nice petite body—a body that somehow withstood everything I brought down upon it.
    She actually looks too good. Too good for a shit like me.
    This makes me wish she wasn’t there. It makes me wish she didn’t come home with me. But most of all I wish I was someone else, and somewhere else.
    But none of these wishes come true, or could ever. So I say to her: “Hey.”
    She doesn’t respond, and I think back to the night before and wonder if it all happened the way I remember it—or if the booze just made me think it did. Because, because I’m the worst lay there is—lots of girls have said so. Even to my face. So last night just doesn’t make sense. She doesn’t make sense.
    “Hey,” I say again—this time a little louder.
    Slowly, she turns to me and smiles—a nervous one, like she’s afraid what’ll happen next. I’m afraid, too—but I don’t think she knows this. At least I hope she doesn’t.
    “Hey,” she utters. “How you feeling?”
    “Not good,” I answer.
    She shifts her eyes a bit at this, and I think I’ve insulted her.
    “Not because of you,” I add.
    “You never told me what happen to you,” she replies. “Did you get into a fight or something?”
    “That’s what I do.”
    “You’re a boxer?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “How then?
    “Let’s talk about something else.”
    She does, by pointing out the window and saying, “Do you always have lots of reporters outside your building?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Reporters. You know, newspeople.”
    “What?”
    With lots of pain, I struggle to get myself off the floor—and with even more pain I ramble toward her, and I look out the window.
    “Shit,” is all I can blurt out, as there must be fifty people outside—including camera crews, and more seem to be coming.
    “I hope . . .” she begins.
    “Hope what?” I growl.
    She won’t answer, so I grab her arms and growl again.
    Still she won’t tell me.
    “Come on,” I insist, while shaking her arms a little—“what’s going on?”
    “I’m in trouble,” she mutters.
    “Great. Just fucking great. This is all I need.”
    “I didn’t do anything.”
    “That’s what they all say. I should know.”
    “I didn’t kill him!”
    “ Kill?”
    “I swear I didn’t!”
    “All right, all right—I believe you. There’s a fire escape outside the bedroom. It leads to the alley behind the building. You get out of here, and I’ll go downstairs and try to throw them off somehow.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Sure.”
    “You think I could . . .”
    “What?”
    “My shirt,” she says, while pointing to the one she has on, “it’s kind of ruined.”
    “Sure,” I reply. “Keep it.”
    She then walks over to her jeans and slowly puts them on. And I can tell she’s waiting for me to say something—about last night. But I don’t know what to say, and maybe she doesn’t,