4. Blesk
CHAPTER FOUR
blesk
Walking beside Erik, my mind empties out completely.
And it’s quite the contrast, given that only moments ago, with Konnor, my thoughts were so loud, so insistent, so alert.
So full of enthusiasm. I didn’t know what to do or what to expect from one moment to the next, and it was…
exciting. Like butterflies. Something wholesome and real.
“Erik,” I say softly, looking at him over my shoulder. His brows are furrowed, his expression hard.
My stomach clenches.
“Not now,” he says, nodding to a side path that cuts between buildings. “Just… walk with me, yeah?”
“That was…” I huff. “Unnecessary.”
And embarrassing.
“I was fucking worried,” he spits out, low and careful, but I still feel it in my chest, hearing his concern fracturing his voice. “It’s your first week here, Blesk. How am I supposed to feel when you disappear?”
“Um.” He is right. Oh my God, he’s right. I nod. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I should have at least told you.”
“That’s all I want, yeah?”
I nod again. “Yeah.”
That’s not unreasonable.
I wander beside him. My body knows the rhythm of being next to him; my feet know the steps, left then right, slowing when he slows.
We pass the grassy quadrangle where the orientation was held, but it’s nothing like the bustling hub it was then.
It’s quite serene, and I can imagine sitting here under the stars.
My mind goes to Konnor Slater, and a smile finds my lips.
Green eyes—green is my favourite colour.
Dimples—perfectly placed and wonderfully telling.
That easy way he looks at me. And I hate what happened back there.
Konnor and Erik are supposed to be friends and yet, they clearly don’t share any mutual respect. Whether they even like each other at all remains to be seen.
And this 'Konnor character' described by Erik is not the same Konnor I walked with for over an hour. His Konnor likes trophies and using people. My Konnor is sweet and funny and lets me breathe and make decisions, which is scary but…
I like it.
I keep strolling beside Erik, the wind moving my hair around my back. Feeling discomfort in my belly while I think about his friend as if Erik can reach inside and draw out my thoughts, I feel the need to add words to the space between us.
“I want to have friends,” I say.
“Not him.”
“Why not him?”
“Not now, okay? I’m tired.”
Fine. I don't look at my brother, barely glancing at the path, barely noting the trees. With Konnor everything is so alive, but with Erik everything seems so still.
I know that Erik’s behaviour might have seemed…
irrational to others who don’t understand, but he’s my big brother.
That’s what they do. They protect their little sisters.
I can’t blame him for that. I can’t be mad at the hand that keeps me safe when so many others have beaten me or pushed me away. Can I?
Can you, Blesk?
Konnor Slater…
Erik touches my shoulder, drawing my attention to him, steering me down another path. My feet follow mindlessly. I don't know where we're going and want to ask. The question is there, on my tongue. It just won’t… come out.
I’ve never visited him on campus. He’s been at university for six years, and I’ve never visited.
I kind of just knew without being told that home is where he wants me.
In our house. In our hallways. At our kitchen table and playing in our activity room.
In my room that is next to his with a shared wall that we knock Morse code through.
The sound of a door buzzing breaks through the night air, and Erik is suddenly holding a door open.
And I’m walking through it.
A hallway stretches before me, smelling immediately of boys. Carpet cleaner and various colognes masking something underneath that no one wants to identify.
My heart quickens.
Erik leads me up a stairwell and down a dimly lit corridor. And I follow him, because I don't know the way and he does. It’s as simple as that.
My stomach knots when we get to a dorm room door.
The hallway narrows on me. I've been lying to myself.
The entire walk here, I was pretending we were merely walking, or heading to a common room with couches scattered for the night owls or maybe a 24-hour kitchen where we would discuss how to act now that we are here together. This is new for us. We are not at home.
Not in our world.
But there's just this door, with its small blackboard overhead and someone's name scrawled across it.
His name.
Erik Bellamy.
My heart is beating fast, but it also feels warm. That name means the world to me. That boy hung my stars and moon. Quite literally. He stood on a stool in my bedroom and stuck glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling and a big moon with a happy face that he called Happy Henri.
He unlocks the door.
When we enter, I notice the room is larger than mine, which is a duh-moment. I’m a first year, and he’s in his final year. Still, it’s larger than I expected.
Two double beds separated by a decent amount of space, two desks, and one long window.
His side of the room is immediately obvious to me; awards and trinkets and a picture frame are meticulously placed, not by size or use, but by how he perceives their value to him.
His award for young entrepreneur of the year is front and centre while the clock he made in metalwork is being used as a paperweight on a stack of letters.
“No books?” I point out.
“Never heard of him,” he jokes, but it’s forced.
“I think we should talk,” I say, my stomach churning with betrayal. Asking him to back off after everything he has done for me? Is that betrayal?
“Okay,” he grunts. “Sit.”
I perch on the edge of his bed, smoothing my dress over my thighs, fingers fidgeting with the hem.
I want to say, ‘Don’t you think that was a little over the top?
’ ‘Don’t you think that was too much, too overprotective?
’ I want him to meet me here, make it easy, and say he just lost his mind.
That he forgot I’m a woman now. Not a little girl.
That it won’t happen again. But none of these words reach my tongue.
My eyes shift to the other bed. Rumpled sheets and a phone charger dangling off the side—clearly not his. For Erik, ownership means things positioned, not thrown. He positions things and that’s where they need to remain.
Without another word, Erik fills a glass of water from a tap at the small kitchenette and brings it over. He holds it out. I’m not thirsty, but I take it automatically, my hand rising before my mind decides.
I sip from the cool rim. He watches my lips wrap around the glass, his gaze sliding down to my throat as I swallow. He sits beside me on the mattress, leaning forwards, elbows on his knees, fingers raking through his blond hair.
He groans. “I didn’t like that.” His hands drag down his face, and his eyes find mine. “You scared me there, Blesk.”
I look at my fingers. “I know.”
I didn’t.
But I should have.
"Going off with him like that in the dark—”
"We just walked."
"I know. You said that already. You don’t know that guy like I do. You know he has a girlfriend, right?”
“He was just being friendly,” I insist.
I think that’s a lie.
I think what we did was more than just walk.
I don’t continue talking about it. The room is quiet, but the building isn’t.
Pipes, someone's music two doors down, muffled laughter from the corridor. It’s only my first night on campus, but I can already imagine these are ordinary sounds of a university at night.
I peer past Erik, at a picture frame on his side table, of our family, me, Mum, Dad, and him, and I wonder—does he have a girlfriend?
He never mentions one when we video call once or twice a week.
He always just wants to see my room, talk about me, and have me show him all the new songs that I’ve learned.
“Blesk?”
I look at him, hopeful he is about to apologise for tonight. “Yeah?”
Then he holds his hand out to me. Palm up.
I stare at it. Blink. Feeling his eyes on my face, a blush creeps up my neck.
His voice is raspy as he says, “Remember?"
I remember.
Of course, I remember.
She was eight years old and flinched at the air, and he sat across from her, and he said, ‘I'm going to touch you, count to three first.’ It actually worked. He fixed something in her that was broken, and then he hung her stars and moon.
He fixed you.
I glance from his hand to his serious gaze. “I don’t flinch anymore, Erik.”
Something dark shifts through his gaze, and he clenches his teeth, saying, “And why is that?”
I exhale hard.
Because of you.
And the touch game.
I hold my hand out.
Palm up.
He begins to count, “One, two, three,” and taps the centre of my palm, and I sigh, filled with warmth and appreciation because I’ve always been able to rely on gentleness from him. In all the touches, in every moment, he’s always gentle—understanding.
For someone who grew up without a gentle hand from ages nothing to eight, that means everything.
His finger comes back to my palm and circles the centre, and his eyes hold mine, and I think… We need to talk. About what the rules are here. How I will probably want to have dates, and what he wants me to do in those situations? Should the guy meet him first?
His finger keeps moving on my palm. I feel that underwater stillness, no noise, no danger, no one else to drag me to safety or pull me down, but for the first time, I wonder if I’m drowning.
I pull my hand back. "I really need to shower," I say, the excuse forming before I've decided to use it.
"Okay," he says, his voice thick.
He doesn't move as I stand and walk to the only door in the room. I open it to find a neat bathroom with a toilet and shower all decorated in blues and whites. Someone chose blue for trust. It’s the colour of trust; I learned that in marketing in high school.
The bathroom is also his. Completely, visibly his. I shared a bathroom at home with him for years.