by Tessi, Zoya
As he spoke he kept his back to me, so he couldn’t have seen the look of disappointment that surely cast a long shadow over my features.
“I'm glad my father has such loyal employees. I'll try not to make it any harder for you.”
With these words I went into the bathroom and closed the door, wishing I could shut my feelings out as easily. Closing my eyes, I fought against the idea that Alex sees me as just another job from Nikolai that had to be seen through to the end.
What does it matter... I’m safe now and that's all that counts.
But it did matter. I was hoping he’d done it all just for me, and not out of some sense of duty to my father. His words had stung me and the idea hurt like a hot iron.
I threw my clothes in a pile on the floor and got into the shower, making sure the water was piping hot. When the raw wounds on my wrists came into contact with the spray they burned like hell, but I let the pain build until finally I didn’t feel anything, my mind off in space, very far away.
After I’d spent a long time watching the water disappear, and with it the dirt from the past twenty four hours, I got out and opened all the cupboard doors, looking through the steam for a clean towel and a new toothbrush. Finding both in no time, my eyes were drawn to a box full of sterile gauze and bandages. A picture of Alex came to my mind, flat on a metal table, blood pumping from a wound in his leg, and I felt the color drain from my cheeks.
Taking deep breaths and forcing myself to concentrate on the pattern of the tiles, I tried not to remember the previous night. I put all my effort into pushing the memories down as far as they’d go, because I didn’t have the strength to go through it all again. One image surfaced, of the moment I’d discovered Alex’d been shot, and when it came, so did panic, like a shock from an electric chair.
Opening my eyes wide in the mirror and seeing the way they shone, I finally admitted the truth. However pathetic or tragic it might seem, it was time to stop kidding myself. I’d been doing that for a long time.
“Where’s all your clever talk now?” I quietly asked my reflection in the mirror.
If I could, I would have put myself across my own knee and given myself a good thrashing. Of all the stupid things that could have happened, to pick the very worst…
You idiot! How could you let yourself fall in love with him?
I stopped at the kitchen door and held on tight to the corners of the towel wrapped around me, watching Alex as he searched for something in one of the cupboards. One look at him was enough to set my whole body on edge, as though a nest of dragons might have stirred in my belly. There was no going back; that much was clear - I was head over heels for him.
“Hey...” I said casually, pretending that nothing had changed.
He turned around, looked me up and down and creased his forehead into a question, and I was reminded straight away of the moment when we first met at the door of my apartment.
“I...well...we have a problem.” I stammered.
“Oh? What might that be?”
“I don’t have anything to wear,” I looked down at the towel I was pinching, and then watched his expression change from amused to slightly perplexed.
“I hadn’t thought about that,” he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, “We’ll have to figure something out.”
He gestured for me to follow him and moved to the bedroom, where he opened the doors of a large wooden wardrobe and studied its contents. Pulling out a t-shirt, he shook his head and put it back before taking another. This went on for some time before he started mumbling, and words that sounded like ‘kiddies clothes’ came to my ears. If I hadn’t known he was shot, I’d probably have kicked him for a comment like that.
‘All too big’ he kept on saying, before finally pulling out a pair of sweatpants and a stack of t-shirts, and tossing them onto the bed. He was about to close the wardrobe when he remembered something, bent to open a drawer near the floor and pulled out a yellow t-shirt with Mickey Mouse on the front.
“ Hah! I knew it was there.” he handed it to me. “This should do it.”
“I didn’t know you went for yellow. Somehow it doesn’t go with your macho persona,” I commented, looking at the t-shirt in my hands.
“My ex left it here. I don’t think she’d mind you borrowing it for a while.”
“What? There’s no way I’d wear anything that belonged to your ex squeeze,” I threw the shirt back in his face.
Turning around to face the bed, I started going through the things he’d thrown there, leaving him to look bemused in front of the wardrobe, the sorry yellow t-shirt still in his hand.
“What does it matter whose it is? Important thing is its clean and its half the size of those others.”
Jeez. For a clever guy, he can be pretty stupid sometimes.
“Turn around,” I picked up a couple of things that looked like they might be on the small side, “and don’t even think about peeking.”
With a sigh that sounded resigned, Alex put the yellow t-shirt back in the closet and turned his back. When I’d made sure he wasn’t looking I let the towel fall to the floor and pulled on the sweatpants, then chose a t-shirt with the name of some band on it, letting it fall over my head to cover my otherwise naked top half.
“ Great. I look like a clown.”
Staring at my reflection in the mirror on the closet door, I reminded myself of a dwarf in a cartoon, with sleeves that fall way down past his hands. The legs on the pants were a good ten inches longer than my legs, and while the waistband could easily reach up to my chest, the lower part of the t-shirt hung way down, almost to my knees.
“Can I look now?”
“Only if you don’t laugh.”
“I promise,” he turned around, looked at me from head to toe, and quickly brought his hand up to cover his mouth.
“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.
“Ah, 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 oversized 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 from 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 be such a bad way to go.
“Thanks,” 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 comfortable.
“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....”
“Jesus... 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,” I mumbled quietly.
“You little hustler...” he whispered and squeezed me tight.
Chapter 10 - Complication
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 in 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 the 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 happened?”
“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.