SEVENTY-FOUR

Her heart was pounding heavily against her chest as she turned around to face him quickly.

“I told you I missed my last appointment.” She spoke.

She watched his eyes widen ever so slightly before they narrowed sharply.

“Four years, I’ve fucked you for four fucking years without having to worry about this.” He told her. “Forgive me if I’m not used to worrying about you getting pregnant every time I fuck you.”

Her chest heaved heavily as she stared up at him unable to say a word while he regarded her with a cold glare. Finally, he blew out a breath before shaking his head. He took her hand and pulled her against his chest for a hug, a gesture she didn’t quite expect.

“It’s alright.” He said against her head. “I’ll be mindful next time.”

Now she wasn’t sure how to feel or what to say, thus, she simply let her head lean against his chest resignedly.

“Are you alright? How do you feel?” He asked her.

Perhaps she would have preferred it if he didn’t ask about how she felt at the moment. He had after all, just proven that she was just as twisted as he was; that’s she was just as broken, and just as peculiar.

On realizing that she wasn’t going to respond, he let the matter be.

“I’ll turn on the water now, is that alright?” he asked her.

She nodded, that was pretty much all she could at the moment. And it wasn’t long before she felt the warm water against her skin.

“Let’s shower quickly and head downstairs, dinner should be ready by now.” He said.

She nodded once more. She wanted this to be quick anyway, she needed to leave here because she was beginning to feel choked, not by the steam from the shower, but by the vulnerability that was so thickly palpable between them. Standing there, she felt like a part deep inside of her had been peeled raw; it ached so much that she found it hard to breathe.

She was glad the water was running because as she blinked tears went streaking down her cheeks. Her throat clenched painfully as she forced herself not to sniffle or a make a sound; she didn’t want him to know that she was crying. She didn’t want him asking why she was crying because even she didn’t know what exactly it was that was bothering her so much, she didn’t know what it was that was making cry.

…….

Dinner was mostly quiet, Yalda still felt like she had in the shower, and though she tried to distract herself with the food, she found herself unable to ignore the dull and heavy ache in her chest. She found herself drinking a lot of wine, glass after glass she realized she felt lighter. Alexander probably didn’t notice that her mood was even more wretched than usual because he seemed to be lost in his own thoughts.

As always, he barely ate before he set his fork down and pushed his plate back. Yalda watched him, she watched his captivating grey eyes stare blankly at the rich red wine in his glass, she watched him absentmindedly drum his fingers against the table quietly, she watched him as though staring at him would help her understand him or the sort of power he had over her.

She could never understand him, she could never understand how a person that looked as perfect and almost angelic as him could have been through so much. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he had no form of darkness within him, she’d swear he hadn’t seen darkness, lived in it, and even learn to become it.

Right now, she’d give up everything to know what he was thinking about. She so desperately wanted to know what had his forehead creasing slightly, she wanted to get into his head and know all his thoughts, all his memories, everything about him.

Perhaps she had also spaced out, because she had absolutely no idea when his gaze shifted from the glass of wine to her face, and it was only when he spoke that she realized she had foolishly been staring. She cleared her throat quietly and lowered her gaze to her food as he spoke;

“What’s on your mind?” He asked her.

She shook her head but said nothing. A faint smirk curved his lips and he leaned back into his seat before regally crossing one leg over the other.

“Tell me.” He said.

OF course, she knew better than to assume he was still asking. Her gaze returned to his and she forced down a lump that had formed in her throat before forcing herself to speak.

“I was wondering what you were thinking about.” She told him honestly.

His smirk remained in place but she noticed his eyes lost some of the light in them.

“And why is that?” He asked her.

She shook her head once more.

“Why not?” She heard herself say. “You’re a mystery; I can never tell what’s on your mind.”

He reached out, picked up his wine glass, and took a small sip.

“My mind isn’t particularly a good place to be.” He told her.

She suspected he’d say that, and what ached her was that she knew he wasn’t lying to her, neither was he trying to scare her away; he was simply telling her the truth. She had watched him for four years after all, she had seen how tortured his eyes looked from time to time, she had watched him empty glass after glass of glass till his eyes became red and his nose bled.

“I know.” She replied.

He took another sip from his glass before setting it down.

“You know, yet you wish to know more?” He asked her.

She nodded immediately.

He stared at her for a while, he stared deeply into her eyes, so deeply that her breath faltered as she wondered if he could truly see into her soul.

“You know, as a child I had been very curious too.” He told her. ”I had been so curious about everything that I’d wonder off alone to explore this very island.”

It took a moment for her to realize that she was holding her breath, that she was hanging onto every word he was saying.

“And most times, I’d return to find my mom seated at this very table. She’d drink several glasses of wine while her eyes would stare ahead, completely oblivious of my presence.” He told her. “So I asked her one day; I asked her why she was always like that.”

Unable to hold her breath any longer, she let out a shuddering breath slowly, so very slowly.

“ “Because, Alexander, it’s all I can be” she had told me.” He said.

Her gaze flickered to the wine glass in front of her, and she found herself pushing it away from her slowly. She didn’t want to be like Lana Monroe, she didn’t want to only find solace in glasses of wine. He didn’t notice what she had done, he wasn’t even looking at her anymore, he was merely staring blankly.

“My curiosity got the better of me, and so when she left the table, I took the glass and drank what was left of the wine; it tasted good, so very good, and I thought I understood why she drank it all the time.”

She lowered her gaze to her fingers which were fiddling uneasily with the table cloth. She got so uneasy every single time he spoke about his past, she didn’t want to think about how he felt all the time then, after all, he had lived that very past.

“That was what I had been thinking about.” He concluded.

He blinked once, and it seemed he could see her again.

“Why…why did you tell me?” She asked quietly. She hadn’t actually expected him to tell her.

He shrugged.

“Because you asked.” He replied simply.