SHE LIKES TO FLY
32
Nuri : I just landed.
Prudence : How was your flight?
Nuri : Weirdly good.
Nuri : No children crying, no one fighting over seats.
Nuri : Good coffee.
Prudence : Wow, really? Good coffee? THAT is surprising.
Nuri : It is, right?
Nuri : So did you talk to Tham?
Prudence : Yeah. I’ll call you sometime this week.
Prudence : I’m not sure how I feel about it.
PRUDENCE
I think I’m going to die of guilt.
I said I wouldn’t, but I should tell him, right? I mean, what if Tham doesn’t call him? What if Jack believes until the day he dies that our siblings did turn their back on him like our parents said? What if he misses the opportunity to reconnect with all of them?
But it’s not my place to tell him.
Okay, if Tham doesn’t call him by the end of the week, I’ll tell him. It seems fair, right? Tham said he was going to call Jack. I shouldn’t be the one to tell him. But won’t he be mad at me for not saying anything? No. He’ll understand. We have that unspoken agreement that when they manage to reach me, he doesn’t care what they say, whether it’s about him or not.
“You’ve been awfully silent,” Jack muses, not lifting his head from his computer screen.
“Just wondering if you washed your sheet after doing the nasty with Ikram in there.”
His shoulders shake from silent laughter. I smile, shaking my head as I focus back on my tablet.
“I told you we didn’t.”
“Friday night, yes. But what about Saturday? You guys stayed in there for a while before you both left.”
He turns then, rolling his eyes. “We didn’t either. We’re taking things slow, remember?”
“How slow?” I wiggle my eyebrow and he throws a ball of paper in my face. I don’t bother avoiding it and it hits my forehead with a soft thud. “Okay, okay…” I laugh.
“The character I’m thinking about likes to fly,” he says, turning back to his computer.
I frown. “You said it wasn’t a fantasy.”
“Do with the information what you want, Sunshine, that’s the whole point of the game.”
I groan, staring at what I have so far. A forty years old hippie woman with short blond hair and large butterfly-shaped glasses, camping in the forest.
She likes to fly . Alright then.
I add fake paper wings to her arms, and change her posture so it looks like she’s running, shaking her arms, an exhilarated laugh on her face.
“So, how were your first few weeks at the precinct?” he asks, straightening up to stretch his back.
“Good. I successfully avoided Raphael, and his girlfriend is hanging around a lot. He does… glare at me most of the time we cross paths.”
“I still can’t believe he tried to make you leave. What an ass. I hope you burned the drawings you made of him.”
“Of course not. But I did draw a new one of him stepping onto a doughnut and falling, spilling a whole cup of boiling coffee on himself.”
“Nice.”
We fall back into a comfortable silence, the only sound is his fingers tapping on the keyboard and my pen sliding on the tablet.
“The character I’m drawing is completely high,” I say, holding a small laugh.
“Oh, man… I hoped you went for the character dreaming she could fly,” he mumbles, pressing on the backspace key for what feels like five minutes.
“That story is going to be weird,” I chuckle. “You sure you’ll be able to publish it without people thinking you’re high yourself?”
“Of course, I will. I told you I’m making a short stories collection of all our storytelling sessions.”
Oh… That’s why he never seems to work long on those ideas… I thought he just gave up the stories after a couple of days.
“How many of them do you already have?” I ask, curious.
“About fifty, give or take? They’re all less than 10 pages long. I want to send it soon, with the illustrations you made.”
I perk up from my tablet. “Really? You think your agent will like it?”
“She definitely will. I’ve sent her about ten of them already. She loved the idea.” I straighten up from his bed in excitement. “The character I’m thinking about is obsessed with sunflowers.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I grumble, excitement forgotten.
“What?”
“Sunflower, really?”
He shrugs. “ I really like them. If I was a flower, that’s what I would be.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you one day.”
I frown at my tablet like this woman personally wronged me before I shrug in defeat, and change the pattern of her loose dress to match the description. I also add a large yellow bed sheet attached to her shoulders, flying behind like a parachute, covered in sunflowers.
Her glasses are no longer butterfly-shaped either. If she’s obsessed, she might as well go all the way.
“How would you feel if I leave for a couple of days?” He asks casually.
I lift my head suddenly, the crazy high woman completely forgotten.
“A couple of days?”
“Yeah. Like a weekend or something.”
“A weekend,” I echo, staring at the back of his head.
“I’d like to spend some time with Ikram in another setting. Maybe go to his place?”
“And… He lives so far away you’d have to leave for a couple of days ?”
He stops tapping on his keyboard but still doesn’t turn. The room feels silent without the sound of his writing, and the sudden tension in the air.
“Thought that I might sleep over.”
Sleep over . But what if something happens? What if he falls? Or his lungs or heart gives up suddenly? I won’t be there to help him…
“What happened to taking things slow?”
“I can sleep with someone without it leading to sex, Prue.”
“Well, Ikram’s welcome to sleep here, you know. You don’t have to go to his place.”
“But I want to.”
I blink, turning his words in my head, over and over again, but no matter how much I try to convince myself it’s okay, I keep imagining the worst case scenarios.
“I know you’re currently thinking it all wrong,” he sighs sadly. “But I want to be in a normal relationship. Not one where he has to sleep here every time we want to spend a night together because we’re worried something might happen to me. And if something ever does happen, Ikram will know what to do. And he’ll call you right away.”
“Not helping.”
“Prue,” he pleads, finally turning to face me.
Pleads is the right word. To describe the tone of his voice, yes, but also the look on his face.
“I know you’re scared, but it’ll be fine.”
“How can you know?”
“I don’t. But I’m feeling happy for the first time in ages. And I know that despite your initial reluctance, you’re happy too.”
Am I? I despise the weather. I feel useless, and this house is a monstrosity.
But I do have people that I already see like friends. I do enjoy spending quality time with Jack, without it being all about medical appointments, or groceries, or helping him with the most basic of tasks when he’s having a bad day. Just us, spending time together and talking as brother and sister. I do love working as a forensic sketch artist again, even though it would have been easier if I didn’t have to dodge Raphael everyday.
And Nate. I don’t know how it’ll turn out, but I’m excited about our date coming up.
Although, I feel guilty about wanting to hide it from Jack for now. And I think it’s the main reason why I force a smile and cave.
“Yeah, you’re right. Just let me know before you go so I can mentally prepare and do some damage control on my freaked out brain.”
The smile he gives me reaches his eyes.
“Good. And you know, if you ever want to… I don’t know, sleepover somewhere else, you’re free to do so.”
I force my face to stay neutral. Does he know about Nate and me going on a date? Or is he just saying that to imply that my lack of love-life is getting a little sad? Because it’s not. It’s actually getting more interesting by the day… But I can’t say that, because he’ll ask questions I don’t want to answer.
“Uh… Sure?”
“I mean for other reasons than you being drunk. Friday night doesn’t count.”
“Why would I be sleeping somewhere else? Oh, maybe a girl’s night. I could sleepover at Evie’s…”
Note to myself, ask Evie if she can cover for me Tuesday night… Jack will wonder why I’m not coming home after work, and let’s keep the date thing with Nate to ourselves.
“Sure,” he shrugs, turning back to his computer. “Or you could meet someone…”
“Oh, no… You know I don’t want to. We move around too much and… You know. I’ve got time, and I’m not ready.”
Lies. Big, fat, lies. I wonder if my nose is growing. It’s kind of itchy all of a sudden… I scrunch and scratch it discreetly.
“I’m not moving anymore. I have everything I need and love right here,” he says softly. “And I kind of want to tell you the same thing you said to me yesterday.”
“I say a lot of clever things, you’re going to have to be more specific.”
“You deserve some happy things too. I know you’re scared of being hurt, but there’s nothing stopping you from loving and letting other people love you.”
“That’s low, using my almost own words against me,” I grumble, focusing back on my absurd drawing.
He turns his head, just enough to look at me from the corner of his eye.
“I’m just saying, I’m sure there’s more to life than just me and work. You’ve made friends, haven’t you?”
I think of Evie. Ikram. Even Matthew at the precinct with whom I drink my coffee nearly everyday with. And I know that I wouldn’t have been as open to our friendship if we met before. Before Jack told me he wanted to settle here.
Because meeting people and building friendships can be easy when you meet the good ones. The hard part is to let them go.
“Yes.” I admit.
“So deep down, you know we’re here to stay. There’s nothing stopping you from finding love as well.”
I know, I just don’t want you to know about it. Because I don’t know where this is going. Because I have no idea what I’m doing. Because, if I screw up, it will be awkward between Nate and you and this time, I’ll be the actual reason you lose him again. Because I’m scared of messing things up for you, and for me. It’s easier for me to pretend I’m not ready, than to risk breaking something that is so new. Because reality scares me after I spent so much time hiding in fantasies and stories.
“Yeah. I know,” I say instead. “Maybe soon. Who knows? We might even go on double dates.”
He smiles, the expression creasing the corner of his eye. “Yeah. Definitely. No matter who the lucky guy will be, if he makes you happy, I’ll be happy.”
He turns his face then, and I frown. Why does everything he says feel like it has a hidden meaning? Am I so worried he’ll find out before I’m ready to tell him that all his words make it sound like he already knows?
I look at my drawing. No matter how high she is, at least she looks like she doesn’t have a worry in the world.
Maybe I’d like to fly too, sometimes.