Chapter 11 Chapter 10: Apostrophe Due
My heart was a frantic drum against my ribs, a wild percussion of adrenaline and fear. I stood before the familiar, blood-red glow of The Apostrophe’s sign, the Starlight Lily feeling absurdly fragile in my sweating hand. I took one last, deep breath of the crisp city air, a final taste of freedom before plunging into the smoky, judgmental atmosphere within.
I pushed the door open, and the wall of sound hit me like a physical force. It was 21:00 on a Monday night, but the punters in the bar seemed not to care one bit for the sanctity of the working week. Thick, sweet-smelling smoke hung in a permanent haze, trapping the light from the low-hanging fixtures. Drunken, overloud conversations battled for dominance against the distorted wail of an old grunge number blasting from the soundbox. The crowd seemed identical to yesterday's, the same faces, the same slumped postures, as if they were permanent fixtures, as much a part of the bar’s architecture as the scarred wooden tables and sticky glass rings.
Thankfully, in the dim light and the general haze of inebriation, no one seemed to recognise the Changeling who’d been violently ejected from a back alley just the day prior. I kept my head down, slinking through the press of bodies to crawl onto an empty bar stool at the far end, its vinyl seat cracked under my weight.
My eyes found her instantly. Silver was at the other end of the bar, deep in conversation with the other barmaid, an older Polli, yet still strikingly attractive with a world-weary glint in her eye and a loud, large, red-faced Nate. The Nate was leaning too far over the counter, his body language a transparent demand for something far more potent than another drink.
On seeing me, the older barmaid broke away from the tense conversation with a practiced, dismissive smile to the Nate and moved down to my end. “What will it be, honey?” she asked, her voice a raspy kindness.
“Just a large mack, please,” I managed, my own voice tight.
As she placed the cold, frothy drink down in front of me, the foam slopping over the side of the glass, the movement must have caught Silver’s eye. Her head snapped around. Her gaze locked onto mine, and the friendly mask she’d been wearing for the customer evaporated instantly, replaced by a look of pure, undiluted spite. The anger seemed to radiate from her, a heat I could feel from across the room. She marched directly over, each step a deliberate, angry stomp that promised a confrontation.
“You,” she hissed, the single word slicing through the bar’s cacophony. “What are you doing here?”
It felt like the music vanished. The conversations died. The bar, and time itself, seemed to grind to a shuddering halt. Every one of my newfound hopes curdled into the cold, hard certainty that this was a catastrophic mistake.
“I wanted to say sorry…” I nearly squeaked, the words pathetic and small. “I brought you this.” I brandished the lily, its delicate purple and yellow petals looking obscenely out of place in this brown, smoke-filled, beer-soaked universe.
A hush had fallen over our immediate vicinity. Then, someone, probably the drunk Nate, let out a raucous cheer. The spell broke, and the crowd began to laugh, a wave of mocking, drunken amusement at the spectacle.
“Just talk to him, Silver,” the older barmaid said with a sigh, wiping down a glass with a weary efficiency that suggested she’d seen it all before.
Silver’s jaw tightened. She glared at me, then at the laughing patrons. “You’ve got five minutes,” she snarled, snatching her glass from the counter. She turned on her heel and stalked toward a small, empty table in the darkest corner of the bar. This amused the punters even more, who began wolf-whistling and cheering as if we were performers in a play.
I slid off the stool, my face burning, and followed her. I sat down gingerly across from her, placing the flower on the sticky table between us as if it were a tiny, fragile shield against the storm that was about to break.
She sat there, a fortress of wounded pride, her arms locked tightly across her chest as if physically holding herself together. Her expression was a sour, unyielding mask, her eyes narrowed, daring me to speak the first foolish word that would give her an excuse to unleash her fury.
“Silver…” I began, the name a plea on my lips. “I really like you… I think we had a real connection. I never, ever meant to hurt you.”
“You cheated me,” she shot back, her voice a low, venomous whisper that was somehow louder than the bar’s din. “I thought you were a Polli. I would never have- “
I tried to cut through the misunderstanding. “I never cheated yo- “
The rest of my sentence was drowned out as she launched her drink at me. A wave of cheap, sugary liquor and melting ice hit me square in the face, soaking my T-shirt and dripping onto my lap. The cold shock was breathtaking. “Liar!” she spat.
The bar, which had been watching with bated breath, erupted into a fresh wave of cheers and hollering. I sat there for a moment, dripping, humiliation burning hotter than the alcohol on my skin. Without a word, without even wiping my face, I reached for my own full glass of mack. I picked it up with a calm I didn’t feel and slowly, deliberately, filled her now-empty glass to the brim, the golden liquid foaming over the sides.
I looked her dead in the eye, my voice low and steady despite the tremor in my hands. “I never lied to you. I think there might be something wrong with me. I’m two years past when my Trembling should have come. But I have never, ever changed like that before. Damn it, Silver, I’ve never even heard of anyone changing so quickly.”
She stared at me, her chest still heaving with anger, but the pure, unadulterated spite in her eyes had flickered, replaced by a sliver of confusion, of dawning curiosity.
“Silver, I promise you,” I said, the words earnest and raw. “I never meant to mislead you. Damn it, it was you who took me home.”
“That was when I thought you were a Polli!” she insisted, though her voice had lost some of its edge. “I was just being nice, trying to help a crying wreck in the rain. I liked you… I really did.”
“I know,” I said softly, leaning forward. “But I am still that Polli. I am still that person you felt a connection with. And I really, really like you, too.”
“I’ve finished with Nates,” she stated, a final, defensive wall going up.
“I am not a Nate,” I countered, my voice firm. “I don’t know what I am, but I am not like the other Nates. And I really like you. Please. Give me a chance to make it up to you. Let me buy you dinner. Anything. I know you felt that connection with me too. Don’t say you didn’t.”
She held my gaze for a long, agonizing moment, the noise of the bar fading into a dull roar around us. Finally, she broke the silence. “I won’t. I can’t… I can’t talk about this here. I’m working.” She abruptly stood up from her chair, the legs scraping loudly against the floor, and retreated to the safety behind the bar, leaving me sitting there, drenched and exposed.
I finished my drink under the amused, pitying stares of the entire tavern. The liquid tasted like defeat. Standing up to go, my face burning a brilliant crimson, I felt every eye upon me. This was a walk of shame worse than any stumble home.
But just as my hand touched the cold metal of the door handle, she was there. She came back quickly, slipping a folded piece of paper into my hand. Her fingers brushed against my palm for a fleeting second.
“Go home,” she whispered, her voice tight. “Don’t come back.”
Then she was gone, swallowed back into the crowd. The punters, seeing the exchange, began laughing and jeering anew. I stumbled out into the night, the door swinging shut behind me, cutting off the sound of their mockery. I stood on the pavement, soaked and reeking of alcohol, my heart a confused mess of hope and humiliation. I looked down at the folded paper in my hand, a tiny, fragile secret in the midst of a very public disaster. Like a scolded baby warndar with its tail between its legs, I began the long walk to the nearest hooper stop home, clutching her note as if it were a lifeline.