Cause and Effect Rowan Baxter-Green
It ended as it began, with an almighty crack and the smell of liquor. For a moment the bar seemed to grow absolutely silent. Then Jack let the broken bottle slip through his fingers and the world erupted in noise and chaos. There was blood on the floor. Dear Lord, there was blood and it was coming from the other man’ s head, right where he had hit him. Had he hit him?
His mind was a fog of alcohol and adrenaline, thoughts chasing each other in loops and twists. With shaking hands he clutched the sticky wood of the bar. He hadn’ t started it. That much he remembered. The man on the ground had started it, with a thrown shot glass and a slew of angry words. But Jack had been the one to end it. Distantly he could hear someone’ s one-sided phone conversation. He caught the words“ ambulance” and“ blood,” but the voice was so far away. Jack pried his fingertips away from the bar and felt them sting like lemon juice in an open wound. He let the noise of the room push against his eardrums as he watched the dark puddle slowly creep across the floor. He could not reverse what had happened. He could not run. He could not do anything but stand there and watch the scene unfold before him, a thousand consequences happening at once.
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