Authors: Zoya Tessi
Suddenly, I got a really strange and powerful feeling that I was being watched and quickly raised my head to the night air, but the street
looked deserted. There seemed to be only long rows of dark cars as far as the eye could see and, in the middle of the street, a single sheet of newspaper carried by the breeze.
Great.
I’m getting paranoid again.
I put the key in the lock then pushed the door open, helping Mike through it in a last show of strength.
Rather than let him drop on the kitchen floor, as I might have done, I guided him straight through to his bedroom and let him flop down on his bed. I was just covering him with a blanket, when he reached his hand out for mine and pulled me back towards the bed.
“Don’t go,” he whispered and raised himself enough to bri
ng his face close to my hair, “Stay here with me tonight.”
“
You are such a…” I felt his lips touch my neck and stopped speaking.
At first I was too shocked to
say anything, but as soon gathered my thoughts, I jumped up, moving nimbly back towards the door.
“Mike, I...”
“I know... I know how it is. But he’s not here, is he?” he reached a hand out to me again and looked me full in the face through bleary eyes.
“Don’t do that. Please, just... don’t.
” I bit down on my lower lip and looked away towards the kitchen.
“I’d never leave you, you
know?”
“You’re so out of
it, you don’t even know what you’re saying.”
I turned one hundred and eighty degrees and left the room, pulling the door firmly closed behind me.
Thrown off balance, I made my way up to my own room to change into some yoga pants and a sweater before going back down to the kitchen, dragging my costume behind me. A glance in the direction of Mike’s room revealed that his door was still shut tight, so I felt relieved as I pushed the outfit back into the sack. When that was done, I went through to the living room to light a candle and sit up on the ledge of the bay windows, staring down the length of the deserted street outside, my head resting against the glass.
Mike’s drunken performanc
e had unsettled me and I hoped that in the morning it would all be forgotten. The fact remained that he had been acting a little different lately. I was conscious more than ever that he’d been taking every opportunity to hug me or get up close. I hadn’t thought much about it at the time, feeling the brotherly affection that I did, but perhaps I’d been wrong in thinking we felt the same way about it. If that was true, I didn’t like these new developments at all. I didn’t want to face losing my friend now that I’d found him.
I looked down at the yard outside the window, then up at the clock on the wall of the living room. Three o’clock. Stretching out on the window ledge, my feet up against the frame, I lit a cigarette and tried to blow smoke rings, but I was no good at it.
The lights in the house opposite ours went on and off occasionally, and I was surprised that anyone else would be up this late. I stubbed out the cigarette and was about to get down and go to bed when a lonely figure out on the street caught my attention.
Nothing more than a silhouette, he was mostly enveloped by the darkness, leaning against a fence outside a house
across the street, his hands deep in his pockets. I squinted to try to make out more, and when the lights flashed on again he did come into focus.
My heart started to thump in my chest as I heard the sound of my own deep breathing. The ashtray near my hand wobbled and then fell to the floor, shattering into pieces against the hard wooden floor.
Without thinking I jumped down, not caring about the broken glass below, and ran through the kitchen and out onto the street in my bare feet, leaving the door to clatter shut behind me. I stopped in the middle of the driveway and stared at the ghost before me. My hands shaking madly, I was struggling to breathe, feeling like my heart would soon explode in my chest.
Pushing away from the fence, the man started walking towards me and kept on coming until we were only a few feet apart. I raised my hands to my face and covered my cheeks,
unbelieving.
“Princess...” he whispered in a hoarse voice and reached his hand out towards me.
I backed away a little in the darkness and almost fell, feeling my ankles twist underneath me.
“No... I’m losing my mind.” I whispered and
turning, ran back towards the house.
As soon as I got through the door, I slammed it hard behind me and leaned back on it, letting my body collapse on the floor.
Completely confused, I buried my head in my hands, a tempest raging in my mind.
Even though it seemed like I’d been there for just a few minutes, the next time I raised my head it was morning and I was still at the foot of the door. A kitchen door sprang open, and the next thing Mike was running towards me.
“Sasha?”
“Yes?” I said, looking at the cold tips of my toes, noticing a red scratch that curved down to the sole of my right foot.
It was hard for me to recognize my own voice, which sounded almost pr
eternaturally calm and composed.
“What are you doing on the floor, doll?”
I turned my face to Mike, who was looking at me with confusion written all over his features. He seemed to hesitate for a fraction of a second before sitting down next to me to place a gentle hand on my knee, tentatively, as though he might be afraid to touch me.
”Sasha?”
“He’s outside. I saw him.”
“Who is?”
I shrugged and lowered my head, not daring to answer him. I was afraid that the day had come - the one when I would finally lose my sanity. Through the corner of my eye I caught sight of Mike reaching for the door handle and recoiled hard, so that my backbone struck the wood painfully.
“NO!”
I screamed in panic and started to shake my head.
“ I
just want to...”
“ No
! Don’t open it!
“OK, jus
t calm down,” he said softly, “It’s gonna be alright. Just come with me.”
I hesitated, but then nodded once, letting him drag me up to my feet and through the kitchen, towards the sofa in the living room. When he’d sat me down, he went to the other side of the room to fetch a thick blanket, and then he sat down next to me, wrapping me in it.
Refusing to look at him, I closed my eyes tight and buried my face under the blanket, feeling the wool itch against my cheeks. All of a sudden, my body started to shake and I had to bite down on the side of my hand to stop my teeth from chattering.
“Sasha!” Mike
grabbed me by the shoulders, “You’re scaring me now. Look at me. Try to get a grip and tell me you’re OK! Sasha!”
I lifted my head a little but no words came. Nervously touching my forehead with the back of his hand, Mike was looking at me with a wild expression in his eyes. After a strangely pregnant pause,
a certain hardness came across his features.
“ Shit
! He actually dared to do it...” he mumbled, then stood up and left the room very quickly.
He returned in no time with a glass
of water and some small white pill, and I didn’t protest when he made me drink it. A strange numbness quickly spread out over my body, along with a tingling sensation on my skin. As the feeling engulfed me, it seemed to take more and more of my effort to keep my eyes open.
“
I’m imagining things... It’s not possible...”I drawled.
Sitting down next to me, Mike drew me into his arms and started stroking my hair. I felt my body move naturally towards his so that I was finally curled up in the fetal position, my face buried between his shoulder and neck. When I breathed in, his familiar scent met my senses and that seemed to be the only connection to the real world I was left with.
“Shh... it’s OK. I gave you something to help you relax, it’s about to start working.”
Increasingly aware that the fabric of the sofa was leaving a pattern on my face, I raised two heavy eyelids and lifted myself into a sitting position to look around, more than half awake but thoroughly disconnected from the world.
With my consciousness swimming somewhere out of reach, I felt a sharp throbbing at my temples, so I pressed the palms of both hands to the sides of my head. That’s when I found myself wondering what exactly had brought me to this state, but try as I might I couldn’t fit the pieces of the puzzle together, if indeed they were all there. With a dry mouth and my stomach turning somersaults, it was too hard to distinguish real memories from what I might have dreamed.
Picking myself up along with the brown blanket I was wrapped in, I reached the kitchen in several ungainly steps. It was there, standing next to the table with a glass of water from the faucet, that real voices reached me from the hall.
A
look through to the corridor revealed that Mike was standing by the front entrance, preventing the doors from fully opening with one bare foot. It quickly became apparent that he was quarreling with someone on the steps outside.
“When I woke up she was close to freezing on the floor. That’s not the sort of thing I can allow!”
“Who is it Mike?” my voice came out more like a croak as I moved slowly towards him.
“Everything’s all right, doll. Go back into the kitchen and I’ll be there in a minute,” he spoke over his shoulder and there was clearly a desperate edge to his voice, like he was struggling to keep his cool.
“It’s time for you to go now,” he barked, turning back to the person behind the doors.
“I don’t think I can do that. Not this time
.” the voice that responded was resolute and the doors suddenly burst open so that Mike was forced back against the wall.
Clutching the blanket around my shoulders, I stood without moving in the middle of the hall, staring sil
ently at the man who’d entered. Mike moved to block his path, but was shoved back against the wall for a second time as the intruder moved deeper into the house and closer to my bewildered face.
Hypnotized, I watched him approach as though in slow motion, drinking in every detail and searching for evidence that this was really happening
. That I wasn’t dreaming. My feet were cold and I felt my scratch rub sorely against the wood underneath; that was evidence enough.
He had a bright blue jeans that hung low on his hips and a simple black shirt, its sleeves rolled up to the elbows
. Black and gray patterns came into focus on his arms and when my gaze reached his face it was obvious he had a one or two-day beard. His hair was cut short at the sides as always, but on the top of his head it was much longer and gathered in a sort of knot.
I let go of the blanket I’d been squeezing and leaned a hand
against the wall nearest to me. Without saying a word I gazed into the gray eyes I loved and would never forget, the same ones I’d thought were lost forever.
Coming to a halt, he crouched in front of me and started to study my face with hesitation. My throat constricted as tears formed and quickly streamed down my cheeks. The fog and the pain banished, I raised my fingers timidly to touch his rough cheek, still fearing that at any moment he might vanish. I held my breath, feeling a torrent of emotions wash through me, filling the deepest recesses of my soul.
After a minute or two, a new sensation started to take hold and I suddenly felt like a fish caught on a hook. I took a step back and swung my arm to slap his face as hard as I could.
“How could you?”
my voice was barely audible.
I
wiped my tears with the back of my hand, his face swimming into focus to show a red mark near his cheekbone where the palm of my hand had made contact.
“Please...” he stood
up and reached his hand out.
“They told me you were dead!”
I shouted so loud it made my throat hurt. “How? How could you do that to me? You bastard!”
Squeezing both hands into fists
, I lunged at him and started pounding his chest with all my might. Alex didn't make any moves to stop me, but stayed where he was, letting me use up what little energy I had left before welcoming me into his arms, my head coming to rest against his shoulder. Gripping his shirt between my fingers, I closed my eyes and thanked the heavens for saving him.
His hand was on my hair and the next moment he was lifting me up
, my legs moving naturally around his waist to squeeze him tightly. A tide of fulfillment rose up inside me, flooding my every sensation with unutterable bliss.
“I’m sorry ...” Alex whispered in my ear, “there’s an explanation for everything.”
And with that the spell was finally broken
.
“There’s an explanation for why you had to let me think you were dead?” ice had found my voice and
the words dropped like crystals from my mouth.
“Sasha...”
“There’s a good reason why I had to fall to pieces and go through hell for almost a year, thinking you’re dead because of me? You know what? I don’t think I even want to hear your excuses.” a low, icy whisper in his ear.
I let my grip loosen around his neck and tried to find the floor with my feet.
“Please...” he leaned his forehead against mine and squeezed me tighter.
I looked at his face and tried to hate his guts, but that was impossible. He looked different, but that had nothing to do with the new hair. The look in his eyes just wasn’t the same.
In the short time I’d known Alex I’d seen him in all sorts of different moods, and most of them revealed themselves to me through his eyes. I could remember his look when he was angry or when he was just pretending to be, when he was apprehensive or when he wanted me to say what was on my mind. What I saw now was unfamiliar. It was the look of utter defeat.
“Put me down.”
Holding his breath, he hesitated for a few seconds and then gently let me go. As soon as I felt my feet touch the floor, I took a few steps back and gathered my strength for what I had to say.
“I don’t want to see you ever again, Alex,” I put my hand over my mouth so as to stifle a sob, “or maybe I should say Oleg? I don’t even know what to call you any more...”
Doing my very best to keep a level head, I turned my back and started walking towards the bathroom, unsure whether I’d make it that far. When I did get inside, I slammed the door behind me and sat down on the toilet seat, burying my head in my hands, overcome by the weight of too many emotions to list.
“ You
should leave” I heard Mike’s muffled voice.
“Fuck off, Mike.”
Alex’s appearance had so knocked me off my feet that I’d entirely forgotten about Mike. Judging by the fact that he hadn’t fallen to his knees and praised God for a miracle, he’d known the truth all along. In fact, he wasn’t the least surprised by Alex’s resurrection.
“It seems like it’s my fate to live with liars,” I spoke the words out loud, without quite intending to.
This part left a bad taste in my mouth. Mike had known all along and not said a thing. He’d let me suffer when he could have set me free at any time. Now here I was, listening to their conversation unfold out in the hall, as ever the stooge. I guess they both thought I was deaf as well as stupid.
“You said you were going to let her carry on with her life. What happened to change that?”
“She saw me when I stopped at some lights last night. I pulled up right next to your truck.”
“Did she know it was you?”
“No. I cut through the traffic before she could get a second look.”
That fucking bastard!
I knew it was him!
“That doesn’t explain what you were doing
in front of my door last night.”
“I wasn’t in front of your goddamn door. I was across the street.”
“Well, whatever,” Mike let out an unpleasant laugh, “I told you running around in the shadows was a bad idea!”
“It’s not my fault the lights went on in some house. She saw me and came outside. It was too late.”
“And instead of running off, you just had to hang around? You couldn’t stop yourself, right?”
“That’s not your fucking problem!”
“I had to pump her full of tranquilizers afterwards, so it is my problem!”
Their conversation gradually descended into a shouting match, so I didn’t have to strain to hear their words. The whole street was probably listening.
“I didn't know she’d react like that.”
“
And how did you think she’d react? Smile and offer you a coffee? She thought you were dead, you moron!”
“
You’d better watch how you talk to me now.”
“Watch nothing! You showed up, literally out of the blue and what? You expect her to throw you a party?”
“I think you’d have liked it if I’d stayed away. Am I right?”
Silence followed and I was starting to think they might have moved through to another room when Alex spoke
again. I knew that cold, quiet tone of his voice; it was the one that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up from fear.
“ Mike
, best friend or not, if you tried anything with her, I swear...”
“And what if I did?”
I heard a thump as something solid came into contact with a wall, followed by the sound of what had to be the dresser wobbling on its legs, and then few more bangs in rapid succession. I quickly opened the door and peered out to find Alex holding Mike up against the wall, a menacing look on his face. Mike looked unharmed, but just a few inches from his head, there was a big red stain on the wall. Lowering my gaze, I saw the bloodied knuckles on Alex’s hand, fat red drops falling to the floor by his feet.
“Fuck you!
Both of you!” I shouted.
Looking Mike over one last time to assure myself there hadn’t yet been a murder, I slammed the bathroom door closed again and sat down on the floor.
“She’s too good for you.”
I heard Mike say and a few
moments later, the front door slammed shut, after which there was silence. I leaned my head on my knees and rubbed my eyes, sighing deeply.
“He’s right, you know...” Alex’s
voice came from the other side and I blinked a few times in surprise.
I could almost feel him, sitting on a floor on the other side of the door
“I know you don’t wanna talk to me and that’s fine. But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t try, would I? So I just have to take this opportunity to say what I came to say, and you’ll have to listen to me, whether you like it or not.”
Oh, that’s so like him!
“You know, this is my first confession of any kind, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t do it quite right.”
Deciding to ignore him, I took a deep breath and did my best to keep my mouth shut.
“Don’t you have anything to say? I’m surprised. Earlier on it would have taken a pillow in your mouth to shut you up, but OK…”
I bit back the insults h
overing on the tip of my tongue and forced myself to stay silent.
“Firstly, I want to say that I’m sorry
and...” he sighed wearily, “This bathroom door confession’s harder than I expected. I feel kinda stupid, you know.”
I am the stupid one here, I wanted to say, but didn’t.
“Well, I guess I did follow you. I know it sounds weird, but I had to know you were OK. So I tailed you. Not all the time, but sometimes.”
“How did you know where I was?” I asked without thinking.
A muffled huff of amusement came from the other side of the door. He was evidently pleased that he’d urged me to break my silence. Mad with myself, I scraped my knuckles against the paint flaking on the wall.
“It was your necklace. We made a replica with a chip inside, so we could track it. It was safer than any cellphone, I mean
. We knew you never took it off. I switched it with the real one not long after I moved in.”
Well, that explained a lot. It was no longer a mystery
how he’d found me at the concert or that he’d come to my rescue when Khalil’s guy snatched me. It seemed so obvious now.
I reached both hands round to the back of my neck and flicked the clasp on the chain, releasing the
pendant I held so dear. Flipping it over in my palm to look more closely, the inscription and everything else looked the same as it always had. Finding nothing to suggest any kind of tracking technology, I opened the bathroom door a crack and tossed it out.
“Hey, do you have any idea how much one of those costs?”
“I don’t give a fuck about your spy shit. Where’s my necklace?”
“I have it, but if you want it back you’re going to have to come out of that bunker. I’m not going to toss it through the door like you just did.”
“I’m not opening this door.”
“You’re staying inside forever? Well nothing doing then. Guess I’ll
keep it. My bulldog needs a new chain, anyway. Little Dixie sure would like it…”