Vulnerable

The ticking slowly became unbearable and more and more he longed for the end of the horror. Shane Westlake put his chin in the palm of his hand, eyeing the clock on the wall, yawning wished that the damn thing could just run faster. When he first started studying psychology, he couldn't have imagined that he would ever be so bored. The subject itself wasn't really the problem either, because Freud's psychoanalysis was even one of his favorites, but if you had Frau Schnarchnase standing down there as a professor, every lecture would be an ordeal between conscience and fatigue. Stay awake, he thought, glancing at the panoramic windows, but the cloudy gray weather didn't really help. So he tried to concentrate again on what was happening in the lower part of the lecture hall, which he managed for exactly two seconds.
"... six phases of development. Everything is led by the oral phase, which takes place in the first year of life. There ..."
Oh god,he thought,how could you give someone who has such a job such a boring, tiresome voice? What the fuck were you thinking ?!Again his gaze slid to the clock. Tick ​​Tack .... Tick Tack ...
He was the first to grab his bag and slurp over to the door when the clock indicated the end of the lecture. He just wanted to get to his little apartment as soon as possible and ...
"Hey Shane!"
Reluctantly and inwardly sighing, he turned to the girl behind him. "What's up?" he said a little too bored. Zoey's pretty face looked confused when she asked if everything was okay with him.
"Yes, everything's okay," he assured her, "I'm just pretty tired."
"Oh, but our date is still today, right?"
One of his eyebrows rose.Date? ,he wondered,damn what date ...?
"Sure, I think ... just give my tired memory a helping hand. Where did we want to go?"
She huffed in annoyance and put her hands on her hips before she replied in her incredibly high voice: "To the 'Green Club'!" When he widened his eyes and wondered what in the world had made him do it, when always agreeing, Zoey noticed his hesitation.
"Moving is not!" She added quickly.
However, writhing inwardly, he said that the date would be over. Mostly to just get home quickly ...

The Green Club was a favorite destination for students from all over London, which was probably Zoey's intention. Because the girl was not a big fan of modesty, but rather unrestrained boasting. And anyone who was allowed to date Shane Westlake had a reason to be. His car alone - an Audi A8 - was quite famous. Not that Shane was very proud of his car, after all, he hadn't bought it himself.He was more of a relic of the disturbed relationship between himself and his father. One of his many attempts to buy Shane and put him on the "right path" - his path. In the end it had become too much for the boy and he moved out. He had taken the presents with him, because a present was a present, wasn't it? In addition, his so-called father had raised him to be a practical and strategic man, and what was strategically better for his future than having a certain reputation?
After picking up Zoey and only shaking his head at her elevator (the motto: the shorter the better!), He ignored her request to park the car directly in front of the club and instead chose a free parking space one street down. Because he knew full well that she had intended to do a big number, but without him! The girl pouted down the street to the bar, but when they arrived everything seemed forgotten. She hacked into Shane and so they entered the club. Zoey grinning, Shane rolling his eyes. For God's sake, he thought, where did I end up here? Worse than in the circus![/i]
"Oh look!" she said a short time later, squeaking and jumping on his arm, "There is Stella! What a coincidence."... especially because she is your best friend.
She pulled him to the table where the brunette was sitting with two other friends. And no sooner had they sat down with them than the chatter began. Who was wearing what clothes? Who had cheated on whom? What did who say about someone? Shane suddenly felt transported back to the old school days.One could have thought that as students they were more adult ... wrongly thought, world!, he thought, exasperated, and put his chin back on the palm of his hand. He had been bored enough in class today. Again he looked around the club. The club lived up to its name. Green was mainly used in the design, and together with the white, brown and the straight, manageable lines, it made a modern impression. But the people were pretty much always the same ... until his gaze wandered to the farthest corner of the club, because he had never seen the girl there before. With the oversized sweatshirt, the hood pulled wide over the face and the light-colored strands that peeked out from underneath, he would surely have recognized her. As if she had felt the gaze, she pushed her hair back under the hood, and despite the sweatshirt he saw how petite she was. Her fingers moved back to her iPod, which she seemed to prefer despite the good music in the club.
"... what do you think of that, Shane?", Zoey asked beside him in an exaggeratedly friendly manner. But he just ignored her and continued to watch the hooded girl. Zoey, however, persisted and asked the question three more times before the thread of patience broke."To be honest," he began and saw the tense flash in the eyes of the four girls, "I think you are all incredible bitches. I can't stand you."
They eyed him puzzled. Zoey started to speak, but didn't seem to know exactly what to say, which is why she kept opening and closing her mouth until she reminded Shane of an oversized fish.
The light went out with a loud bang before he could enjoy his work. The screams of the panicked guests grew louder because you couldn't see your hand in front of your eyes. And as more and more cell phones lit up, the panic grew, because the whole mass of people tried to get through the exit. Again and again he was jostled until he had little choice but to follow the crowd, while he hoped that no one would stumble, because he had little hope that the crowd would stop in such a state in front of a fallen person.
Even when he came out of the club, out of breath and feeling like a punching bag, there was hardly any light. Only through the cloudy moon behind a layer of milky clouds could one see a little, until a few cars passed, which had to stop to allow the panicked people to change streets. And when he turned around he saw the hooded girl fall in the beam of light from a car. Knowing that if he didn't help her, she would drown in the crowd, he ran back against the current. A difficult undertaking, which he ultimately succeeded in doing. When he arrived the girl seemed to be fine. It held its arms in front of its face, the palms of the hands wide open and with a small distance the air around it shimmered. Shane didn't understand exactly what that meant, but in his opinion there was still enough time to ask.
"I want to help you!" He called to her over the excited screams of the others and held out a hand to her. When she lowered her arms to put her hand in his, he saw how the blood ran down her cheek in thin welts, pearls on her chin and added to the other drop of blood on her sweatshirt. So she was hurt after all. He pulled her to her feet, propped her up to his car and opened the door for her. But she only looked back and forth between him and his car. She hesitated.
"I know that your mother must have told you often not to go with strangers, but I really just want to help you!" Her forehead wrinkled as she looked at him skeptically. Apparently she didn't find anything dangerous about him and slowly got into the car. The trip turned out to be a real adventure, as there were no traffic lights and apparently hardly anyone else wanted to take the traffic regulations into account. Besides, his company wasn't exactly the talkative kind. Shane turned on the radio.
"... power outages in many parts of the city.Experts estimate the damage caused by the lightning strikes in the millions ... "
"Should I drive you to the hospital?" He asked after a while. The girl silently shook her head.
“Home?” Another shake of the head. “Where to then?” Patience really wasn't his forte today.
"I don't know," she replied. As soon as he looked at her, he knew that she was speaking the truth. Her heavy Spanish accent was still lingering in his ears as her gaze slid into the distance and her eyes looked so tired as if she had lived centuries. Shane wasn't very enthusiastic about it, but decided to take it home with him. The sofa should be enough to start with.
The part of town where Shane lived had been spared from the blackouts, so he could make tea for them both and liked the bandages. When he disinfected her wound on the forehead, he said by the way that it was not very deep. She should be happy. But the hooded girl made no sound. No reaction.She's probably uncomfortable with me being around,thought he[i]that's why she's sitting next to me so cramped. So he hurried to put some distance between them, stuck a plaster on her forehead and sat down in the armchair across from her so that the coffee table was between them.
"You are not from here." he stated.
"No, from Spain.", She replied and he saw something flash in her eyes. Homesickness?
"Why are you here?"
She started playing around the hem of her sleeve. "In transit."
He nodded. "Where are you going?"
The question struck her as very uncomfortable as she stared at the iPod on the table. No doubt she was just wondering if she should just ignore him, but when he was about to tell her that she didn't have to answer, she said, "I don't know." and her voice almost cracked.
“Then why are you away from Spain?” He really didn't understand anymore.
"Because ..." she started and looked him straight in the eye, which upset him