Nanny in Seattle, part 19

The once beautiful woman stares at me in disdain.

It is true what she just spitted at me. I don't know him. At all. I feel torn apart. When I look at this Amy, his girlfriend, gaunt but gorgeous - and see the room with the naked vicious looking man asleep on the dirty mattress and when I hear the echo in my head of her words; "he brings me...things", I can only think of bad things. Eddie the Dealer, Eddie who pushes his girlfriend to use dope. But then I see him in my minds eye; his lovely, shy smile and I almost feel his embrace, his breathing in my ears - and I know, my gut tells me so, that Eddie is an angel and that I love him, rightly so.

"I'm sorry, Amy." I say after a while. "You're right. I don't know him. But I want to, because I love him."

I can see the look in Amy's face changing.

"Yes." She almost whispers. "You should."

She puts on a dress. Sleazy, with a leopards print. She notices my look.

"Yeah, I know. Such a cliché, right? I wasn't always like that."

"When did you start using?" I ask hesitant.

"Off and on." She laughs bitterly. "Maybe 10 years now."

"So before Eddie and you...?"

"Experimented? Yo, bitch. You think he pushed me? He thinks he did." She snarls.

"But why does he thinks so?"

"Because I use him. That's why!"

"But how can you? He loves you." I exclaim.

"No, he doesn't. He feels guilty. That's all. And I feed him to feel guilty." She suddenly has this cruel look on her face. "But now I'm loosing him. Some holy, needy nanny is pushing me away."
She points her finger at me. Her watery eyes like daggers suddenly.

"Needy?" I ask.

"Yo, girl! Drowning, virgin, hot, unavailable nanny from heaven. You're playing him well."

"I don't play with him."

"No? Well, I think you do. Now give me what's in your pocket, bitch. Enough with the talk."

Before I see her gaze shifting to a point behind me I hear a rustle and feel something sharp pressing against my throat. Someone grabs me around my waist, a chocking sour smell engirdles me and I feel the stubbles on the chin of Amy's companion scraping against my cheek.

"So...pretty Mary, give me that methadone, your money and your car keys. Yea. Saw that beauty outside. Reckon it's yours."

I suddenly think of Oliver alone in the Porsche. Waiting. Vulnerable.

"No! I only have the methadone. Please leave me my car."

"The keys. Or I'll cut you up a bit." The point of his knife teasingly traces my jawline while Amy plucks the little plastic bag out of my pocket.

He licks my neck, right under my ear and whispers:
"Pretty, clean, innocent chick...Eddie's new girl...we can't lose him to her, can we Amy? Our sugar daddy. Let's roughen her up a bit. So he don't want her no more."

While he still holds me in a tight grip he sticks the knife between the waistband of my jeans and rips it open.

I cry out and at the same time I hear a vicious roar.

"Get your filthy hands off her."

From the corner of my eyes I see a flash of a longhaired, lean bodied person storming towards us. His beautiful face twisted with anger and fear.

"Eddie." I scream.

The man, Amy and me crash to the ground followed by screaming and fighting. I see the reflex of metal, hear a surprized outcry of pain.
Then someone elbows me in the head and before I lose consciousness I hear a voice calling.

"Police, drop the knife."

I sit on my knees and have a severe pain in my head.  I can't see well. When I touch my forehead my fingers turn bloody. I can feel I have cut my brow.

Two policemen are holding the man to the ground - cuffing him - Amy sits in a corner, rocking her body back and forth while another officer, together with a ambulance nurse, is bended over the motionless body of Eddie.

Eddie!

I crawl towards him.

He just lies there, in a puddle of blood. His eyes are open. He sees me. And he smiles. He smiles that dimply smile and his mouth forms my name...

Then his eyes close.
"Noooo. Eddie stay with me...Eddie don't die!"
The policeman pushes me away, someone supports me - Oliver - comforts me, while medics haul Eddie up a stretcher and carry him away.
All seems to happen in slow motion and the speed of light at the same time.

Then. Total silence. Only the sound of someone crying.

Me.