Authors: Zoya Tessi
“Well... maybe they’re a little big.” he
murmured through his fingers and left the room in a hurry.
As soon as he was out of sight, the apartment
echoed with his long laughter.
“It’s not nice to laugh at other people's misfortune!” I yelled.
When he came back a
minute later, he was carrying a pair of scissors and looked like he’d managed to compose himself. I snatched them from him and did my best to fix myself up as far as possible. It was easy to crop the t-shirt and shorten the pants, but there was nothing I could do about the huge waist which still came up way too high, so I just folded it down a few times.
“Well it doesn’t get any better than this
.”
I
sighed and headed towards the kitchen, where Alex was standing in front of the fridge, frowning as he examined its contents.
“And?
Is there anything to eat?”
“Not much. I haven’t been here for a long time, so you can choose between canned peas, canned tuna, or canned corn... with pickles on the side.”
“I think I could eat a cruddy bedsheet right now.” I took the jar of pickles from his hand and opened it, pulling one out and biting into it hungrily.
“A
h, crap...” I let out painfully and pressed the back of my hand to my lip.
“What
?”
“
Nothing. I forgot my lip was cut and now it stings from the vinegar.”
“Let me see.
” he leaned in to get a closer look, “Stop squirming. “
“I told you
, it’s nothing. Don’t overreact.” I tried to get him to drop it but he picked me up in one fell swoop and sat me down on the counter.
“Hey!”
“Quiet.” he insisted, looking concentrated on the task.
“Have you lost your mind? You shouldn’t be lifting me up like that! “
“I don’t want to sprain my neck talking to you. You are too short”
“You’ll open up that wound, you o
versized jerk!”
“If it didn’t start bleeding
this morning when I carried you here then I guess it’s OK. Anyway, your lovely personality weighs much more than your body.”
“You did what?” I opened my eyes wide in shock.
“And how’d you think you got here, hey? Levitation?”
“Well... I don’t know... Man, you're crazy. Couldn’t you just slap me, wake me up... whatever?”
“Shut up, please. I can’t see the cut when you’re jabbering.”
I pursed my lips in spite of the pain, but then let him look for as long as he wanted, trying to ignore the shivers I felt at being so close to him. Pulling a clean white towel out of a drawer, he let a corner of it run under warm water fro
m the faucet for a few seconds and then started dabbing it against my lip softly. Though it stung a little, the sensation wasn’t all bad and as he was doing this, I found myself getting lost in his eyes, those two gray pools just inches away.
Drowning there might not b
e such a bad way to go.
“Thank you.
” I whispered and put my hand over his, which was still pressing against my face.
Alex blinked a few times, drew his hand away from mine and moved back a couple of steps.
“Stay out of pickle jars for now.” he said quietly.
Avoiding my eyes,
he started to attack one of the cans with an opener he’d produced from somewhere. As soon as he was finished emptying the contents of two cans into bowls, he handed me one and went through to the room with the high windows.
I wolfed down my frankly delicious tuna with sweetcorn in less than five minutes and went to join Alex on his couch, which looked so much less expensive than my own, but a lot more comf
ortable.
“And?
What do we do now?”
"For now, we stay here. Khalil probably reckons we’ll try to get you out of the city as fast as we can, so his guys should be close to a lot of major freeways, the train station, the airport… It’s a lot safer to let things cool down for now. When he thinks we’ve slipped the net he’ll let his guard down, and then we’ll see.”
“And Beth? They obviously know where I live. What if they try to come to me through her?”
“It's been handled already. Don’t worry.”
he’d flicked on the TV and lit a cigarette.
“How?”
“She was told the pipes burst in the apartment, and that everything has to be fixed up. Officially, you went away with your father, and we put her in another very nice place until all the ‘renovation work’ is over.”
“Oh... I see.”
As we watched the movie in silence, I looked over at Alex from time to time, hoping he might start talking, but instead he stayed quiet, acting like nothing was up.
After the third movie, I just couldn’t take it any more, so I got up and went to the bathroom. When I came back I found him making up a bed on the couch.
“You’re sleeping there?” I pointed to the couch.
“Yeah.”
“Well, why?”
“More comfortable than the floor.”
I shook my head and headed for the bedroom. Stopping in the doorway, I stared at the massive bed that was going to be all mine, and then back over to the couch, where Alex was settling a pillow, getting ready to pull a thin sheet around him. The couch wasn’t small, but it sure wasn’t big enough either.
“I'm gonna sleep on the couch. Here, you can have the bed.”
“No.”
“Oh come on... it’s not just your feet, your legs are sticking out. You can’t sleep like that.”
“My problem.
” he snapped and turned the other way.
“Come here, there’s enough room for both of us in the bed. I promise I
ain’t gonna take advantage of you.” I was sure I looked sincere.
“I'm fine here. Go to sleep.”
I tugged at the hem of my t-shirt for a second or two, then pulled back the covers and got into bed, but kept watching through the open door as he struggled to get into a comfortable position. It was clear that I couldn’t let him suffer like that, after all that had happened, but I knew he wouldn’t take orders from me. In that respect I guess we’re alike. Both stubborn asses.
“Alex...
”
“What!?”
“I’m scared. What if someone tries to get in through the window?”
“We are on the fifth
fucking floor, for God’s sake! “
“I know, but ... I’m still scared.
Can you come here? Pretty please....”
“J
esus... You’re so complicated.”
I watched him get up from the couch
and grab a pillow, obviously frustrated. As he entered the room, frowning, he switched off the bedside lamp and lay down on the bed, some distance away from me and facing the wall. I was glad my bluff had come off and curled up satisfied under the blanket at the other side of the bed.
For a while I lay still, but didn’t feel my mind drift away towards sleep. I wondered how long Alex and I would manage with being holed up in such a small space without getting at each other’s throats. I thought of all the things about him that got on my nerves, but then I found I was half smiling in the darkness, somehow enamored with all his faults and ready to forgive anything of this arrogant, uncivilized, tattooed grouch.
An image of Khalil’s man with a knife stuck into his throat came to my mind in a flash, sending a chill down my spine, but then I realized I didn’t really feel anything about that any more. A smart person might have run away from Alex, but even though I knew what he could do, I was there in bed with the guy, fighting all my instincts to snuggle up close.
I turned to watch him closely, trying to decide whether he’d had more success in falling asleep. It was impossible to see his face, since he had his back turned, but from his breathing it appeared that he had. Making sure my movements were as subtle as they could be, I edged over
to his side of the bed. When I was just an inch away from his body, I let my head fall on the base of his neck, breathed in his warmth and closed my eyes.
I’d just started to fully relax when I felt him move next to me. Quickly turning around, I shut my eyes firmly, but instead of pushing me away
as I expected, he put an arm around my waist and drew me closer.
“Just so that you know... I have no intention of singing you a lullaby.”
“I thought you were asleep.”
“You little hustler...” he whispered and squeezed me tight.
Squinting against the bright sunlight, I instinctively groped around for a pillow to hide my face. After half an hour of twisting in the sheets and trying miserably to get back to sleep, it was finally time to throw in the towel and let a new day begin.
I moved my legs over the edge of the bed and yawned before going the whole nine yards and moving one foot in front of the other i
n the direction of the bathroom.
When I noticed that Alex wasn’t in the living room, I thought he must be leafing through a newspaper on the balcony since the morning was warm and sunny.
“I very much hope that you have coffee here someplace...” I called over my shoulder as I approached the bathroom door, ”otherwise I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”
After I’d taken a hot shower and brushed my teeth, I felt the world was coming more into focus
. The washing machine had finished its cycle, so I pulled out my now dry shirt and jeans and I shrieked with delight. Even though everything was creased, it was a true pleasure to finally put something on that didn’t hang down to the floor. Not to mention the bliss of putting on my underwear again.
People take t
he little things for granted.
With the help of a
comb that I’d found in one of the cabinets, I somehow managed to tame my Robert Smith hair and coax it into a fairly decent plait. Going through drawer after drawer in search of a band to hold it in together turned up nothing, so I left in the direction of the kitchen, keeping the braid in place with a hand.
“Hey, any chance you’d have a hair clip somewhere?
Or an elastic band? Anything? And why don’t I smell coffee…” I stopped in the middle of the kitchen area and looked around.
“Alex?” I called louder, but no response came.
Mechanically, I checked the balcony and went back through the main room slowly, then to the corridor, the bedroom and then back to the bathroom, but Alex wasn’t anywhere, a fact that sent me hurtling to the front door to shake the handle a few times, only to find it firmly locked. I took a few steps back, all the while staring at the heavy, locked prison gate as a tide of anxiety rose to subsume me, feeling more and more like I’d been punched in the gut.
Leaning back heavily against the wall, I set my eyes on a clock ticking on the opposite wall. Tears welled up at the corners of my eyes, and even though I knew I was probably being irrational, nothing could stop them from rolling down my cheeks.
Maybe he decided that he'd had enough of me.
Standing in the hallway, I stared at the clock on the wall, without moving my eyes
from the minute hand.
Exactly thirty seven minutes passed before a key turned in the lock, breaking the silence.
“What do we have here? Sleeping beauty decided to wake up by
herself, huh?” Alex walked in with a bunch of bags hanging from his arms, kicking the door closed behind him.
“I thought I'd be back before you woke up, but... What h
appened?”
“I...” blinking several times, I could only shake my head, “Nothing. Why?”
“No kidding. Why were you crying?” he let the bags fall to the floor and moved forward to stand in front of me.
“Don’t be stupid. I've just woken up and I’m still half asleep. That's all.”
Feeling very foolish for having lost the plot, it seemed important not to let him know how very scared I’d been in his absence. I didn’t want him to know the source of my anxiety, which was that I thought he’d gone for good.
Avoiding his eyes, I went around him and picked up two bags, moving to take them through to the kitchen. Alex seemed to hesitate, but then thought better of trying to stop me and picked up the rest of the things to follow me.
“I assumed you wouldn’t want to spend many days living off canned stuff, so I went down to the store. I thought I’d do it now in case you got real hungry and turned violent on me.” he set bags down on the table and started removing the things he’d bought and putting them away.
“From the amount of food you picked up, it looks like we’re staying here for a while.”
“I'm still not sure about that, but having enough food can’t hurt.”
When he’d emptied most of the bags and put the food away in cupboards
, he took the three bags that were left and put them on the table in front of me.
“It’s not haute couture.”