Play The Fool Again

SIRI

He… lost. 

I stared at the TV screen in my small hotel room, my eyes wide, hands squeezed together and pressed to my chest.

“He lost,” I whispered it out loud like it would make sense if I did so. 

I told myself I wasn't going to watch the game, that I would stay away from my screen and just wait for my flight back home two days from now, but I couldn't. I couldn't let the chance of seeing him, even though it was from a screen, slip away. 

As soon as his team had skated onto the ice and the camera zoomed in on them, my eyes had found him immediately, and I knew something was wrong. His skin was too pale, his eyes looked too sunken, and he kept flexing his wrists over and over, to the point I was sure everyone in the arena must have noticed. 

And I could have sworn that he was trembling. The game started, and it was even worse. Everything about the way he moved, to the way he could no longer hide his trembling, was wrong. It filled my heart with dread and panic. I couldn't relax all through the game as I watched him lose the puck not once, not twice, not three times. He lost it over and over again until his teammates stopped passing it to him. He was less aggressive and didn't move with his usual speed or arrogance. Everything was so wrong about him as I watched the game with my heart in my throat. 

“What’s happening?” I asked, eyes wide and fixed on the screen. “What the fuck is happening, Jackson?! Get your bloody head in the game!”

Dear God, but I was beginning to sound like him. 

Didn't he have sex last night? Was that why he was messing this up? But I had never taken that superstition of his seriously. I saw it as an excuse; he just needed to fuck, because… well, he was a man, you know? And men were just dumb like that. But maybe it wasn't just bullshit, and so why didn't he have sex then?

“Why, you stupid idiot?!” I screamed at the screen as the game came to an end, tears stinging my eyes. And the tears stung harder when I felt relieved that he didn't have sex. 

Jackson was heavy on victory. He always wanted to win every game, which was impossible, but he had won all four games since this tour started. And he had won two out of three of those games that were played back home. And the fact that he didn't even try his best for this game, for the grand finale, means something was seriously wrong, and the way he was looking right now wasn't good. He looked like he was one second away from passing out. 

I picked up my phone, my leg bouncing as I stared at the screen, at his unread messages and unplayed voicemails. I… I can’t. I can’t do this. I can’t do this!

“He’s someone else’s problem now, Siri,” I whispered, my vision blurring with tears as I kept staring at his name on my screen, at that stupid love emoji right beside it. “Someone else’s problem. Not yours anymore.”

But it was hard. It was so hard to turn off my emotions when I felt so much for him. It was hard to hate him when I loved him so much it hurt. I wanted to go back. I wanted to run back to him and keep playing the fool, and just waited for the hurt and pain to come, for the heartbreak. And maybe it won’t come next week. Or next month. Maybe he might still want me for a whole year before he sees the next interesting hot thing.

I slapped myself on the face, my head whipping to the side, the skin stinging. 

“Are you stupid, Siri? What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

I hate this. 

“I hate him!” I screamed, burying my hands into my hair and gripping them hard. 

I hate him for doing this to me, for reminding me of a feeling I tried so hard to forget and move on from. I hated him for reminding me how pathetic my feelings make me, and that hasn't changed. And it hurts so much. So much that I wanted to smash my head against a wall and forget it all. He made me feel things Michael never did. He made me think of a future with him, and that hurts more than anything.

“Alcohol,” I said suddenly as I stood up, dropping my phone and picking up my card. “Alcohol will fix everything.” 

Since I couldn't wipe my memory, I would have to drink until I forgot him. Until I forget his addictive scent and cocky smile. His soft smiles. His tender ones. I would drink till I forgot all of them, or the way he makes me feel when he touches me. I would drink until I forget Jackson M’Call, and if that doesn't work, then maybe I would just take up that option of smashing my head against the wall. 

It probably wouldn't kill me. 

Probably. 

~.~

“Siri?”

Ah fuck, I’ve been busted, but who even knows me in this town? 

I just brought enough alcohol to drown a horse and was about to make my way back to the hotel with my hands full, but that soft, female voice stopped me. Maybe she was calling out for someone else. I wasn't the only person in the world who bore that name, after all. 

But then she called again, her voice more urgent, and yeah, it was me. Of course it was me.

I turned in the direction of the voice, already scowling and ready to tell the person to go fuck herself, but then I paused when I saw the familiar face. I mean… of course it’s a familiar face. How else would she have known my name?

I wasn't even drunk yet.

“Toria?” I called out, my eyebrows pulled tight. 

“Bloody fuck, but you’re a hard woman to pin down,” she huffed as she walked to me, her hands shoved into her coat pockets, her breath clouding in front of her. “Don’t you pick up your bastard calls?”

“Currently, I don't,” I answered, still shocked. Of all the people I could have come across, I didn't expect her. 

She got close to me, but then paused when she saw my hands filled with alcohol. She looked back at me with an eyebrow raised. 

“Trying to kill yourself, eh?”

I just shrugged. “Something like that.”

“Then mind if I join ya?”