Chapter Thirteen
Alexandr Miroslav
“You know, it’s going to be cold tonight.
” Wolf said from his reposed position against my windowsill, the cigarette smoke twisting out into the concluding September air.
If I were to voice my opinion, I’d say he looked like a debauched prince, too careless of his responsibilities to stand up straight.
I didn’t look up from the French assignment Madam Lavoisier, our foreign languages professor, assigned for tomorrow, only adjusting my cap over my ears. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I didn’t remember how he’d gotten here or when he’d started smoking my cigarettes, but the conjugation was of greater concern at the moment.
So, an ‘e’ makes the noun feminine, and in passé composé there is an extra e on the verb… but also an s? If it’s plural?
I was beginning to get the hang of learning a new language, and I almost smiled in pride before a prickling wave sent a zap through the calm atmosphere; the suffocating presence that was Wolf Kingsley.
I sent him a dark sidelong glance that he’d caught and returned with one of confusion.
I didn’t elaborate, turning back to my work.
“No need for the long face, I have a coat for you if you need it.”
“Hmm?”
I could hear him take another drag of my cigarette as I closed my workbook and set it aside, standing from my desk and stretching out my limbs. There was no point in forcing myself to focus if Wolf didn’t look like he was leaving.
The boy in question spoke through the smoke billowing out from between his lips, “I said I have a coat for you, if ever you need one.”
I stood silent for a few moments, wondering how I’d appear to him depending on my answer. If I refused, I’d be cold and he would know I was too proud to be smart.
If I accepted his offer, I’d feel that I would owe him, and I didn’t like the feeling of accepting help from others unless they are the ones indebted to me.
Not particularly because I wanted one over them, but because when you have nothing to offer others for the entirety of your life and suddenly, you do, it makes asking for help a little easier.
Wolf looked to me for an answer and I gazed back, refusing to give one until, after a silence that stretched for far too long, he stubbed the cigarette he’d held between his fingers on my soap tray, flicking it out onto the field below before reaching for the homework I’d just finished.
He didn’t explain or look back before walking straight out of my dorm, quietly shutting the door behind him.
I stood exactly where I was in equal silence and confusion, looking around the empty room before my eyes reached my door, waiting.
If he didn’t return with the homework I had put my full brain power into completing, he’d be drinking liquids through the gaps I’d be making in his teeth.
It wasn’t long before Wolf re-emerged, sauntering into my dorm as if it were his own. In his right hand was a mass of thick black fabric that I couldn’t properly make out, and something similar yet grey in his left.
He moved closer towards me and held out his right hand, nodding for me to grab whatever it was he was offering. “For the homework. I haven’t done mine yet, and French is a pain.”
I knew what he was doing. I knew what Wolf was doing.
Nonetheless, I reached for it and unfolded what appeared to be a trench coat.
I swallowed the strange lump growing in the back of my throat and looked to Wolf as he peered back at me with indifference.
Except, Wolf didn’t know how to school his features as much as he thought he did, and the barely-there crinkle of fondness around his eyes was more than noticeable.
“No problem,” I mumbled.
He nodded curtly before throwing his own trench coat onto my bed with a careless fling of his arm, his attention on the secret stash of cigarettes he kept dipping his sticky fingers into.
Upon joining him by the open window, I found it wasn’t so bad being friendly with Wolf.
Sure, I enjoyed riling him up, but when he was like this, mostly silent, it wasn’t so bad.
“What was your mother like?”
Never mind.
I shrugged, breathing out the smoke through my nose with a sigh. “A mother… I don’t know how else to describe her.”
Wolf dropped his head and huffed out a breath, ignoring the sidelong glance I sent him. “Try.”
I took an even deeper breath, as if each molecule of oxygen would lend me strength, bravery to open the dark and bolted box that only begged to be opened in the dead of night. A soft and enticing whisper, a scream when I refused. “She had pale skin and hair to match, blue eyes–”
Wolf laughed quietly. “I didn’t mean what she looked like. I mean… Like–what was she like as a person, her character?”
His question stumped me. Because I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t know my mother, and that realization hurt more than I thought it would. “I… She used to…”
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
Wolf seemed to mistake my silence for something else, because he said, “Sorry, you don’t have to answer. It was inconsiderate of me to ask in the first place.”
He plucked the cigarette from my fingers and took a deep drag.
Once he inhaled as much as he could, he spoke through a tight airway of smoke, his words coming out strained, “My dad was horrible growing up.” He said his next words quickly, “Not to compare or anything. Just… He just wasn’t a good person.
And my mother was this shell I’d see the inside of once a year–if I was lucky. ”
I tried not to let his description of his parents affect me, but in a way, maybe Ajax was right.
Do friends become friends because of their similarities, or because fate knows of the similarities they are yet to find out and brings them together?
“So, yeah, she just… wasn’t always there. I mean, she used to be. Apparently, she used to be quite the woman, strong-willed with a deep sense of justice, or so my grandfather says. But then my father happened, and now she can’t leave her bedroom without three different drugs in her system.”
His words struck a chord. “What… kind of drugs?”
He shrugged as if it were the most casual of conversation topics. “Prescription drugs, anti-depressants and that sort of stuff. I keep an eye on her intakes and ask that the staff do the same… But I can’t always be there.”
He let out a sigh so deep, I had become exhausted on his behalf. Then, it hit me.
Wolf’s father is dead, and from Callum’s words at the beginning of the year, Wolf was now responsible for his family, and that must mean the management of their source of wealth, whatever that may be.
I understood why he didn’t really bother making any friends that might take more of his time. Perhaps that explained the secrecy he kept around his dorm and its contents.
“At least you’re trying. After your father’s death and all. It must be hard.” My words were difficult to push out, and so they came out as whispers.
Wolf let his head fall back as he moved it from side to side in a massaging motion. “Yeah, but you know, one step at a time and all of that.”
I huffed out a quiet laugh that he followed in on.
He straightened and stole the almost finished cigarette from between my fingers again. “So, what was our young Sasha like as a child?”
The nickname made me flinch back into my memories. To the day I’d boarded that damned plane from New York.
“Where’d you come up with that nickname?”
Wolf continued to speak casually, ignorant of my inner turmoil, “I asked Madam Lavoisier, actually. I didn’t think ‘Alex’ was a good enough nickname, since it’s something anyone could call you. Plus, it’s closer to home.”
An abrupt laugh bubbled out of me at his last words, “Where do you think home is for me?”
Wolf tilted his head back and watched me as if I were the stupid one. “Uhm, Russia?”
I laughed again, this time harder. Wolf didn’t like that, though. In fact, I could still make out, despite the dim lamp’s glow coming from my desk, the red creeping up his cheeks as embarrassment overtook him. “What?… What! Stop laughing! Just tell me.”
I sobered up enough to say, “I was born and raised in America. Been there my whole life.”
Wolf reared back. “But–your accent…”
I shrugged. “I didn’t communicate much with others, mostly just my mother growing up, and she came from Russia and had an accent, so… you can imagine the rest.”
My words must have sounded like the opening line of a tragedy, because Wolf didn’t speak for a long time after, and neither did I. We both fell into an awkward silence, and I didn’t know if what I’d said was the main cause.
I didn’t find it as awful as anyone else might have. Then again, I wasn’t a good judge of character when it came to things requiring deep emotional intelligence.
The cigarette finished a long time ago and I flicked it out the window, reaching for the pack to light another.
I’d barely taken a drag before Wolf’s soft tone sounded to my side, “This is the last one. We have to leave soon anyway.”
I scoffed, amused. “You’re not my keeper.”
For reasons I didn’t understand, those words jolted Wolf into action as he straightened and shoved me over, almost making me drop the cigarette out the window in the process. I dove only slightly into the night air to catch it. “That reminds me!”
“Watch it!” I held onto the wall and regained my balance with a scowl. “What’s your problem?”
Wolf glared. “What was that scene about, today? In Ms Ransom’s class?”
Ah.
I settled back and avoided his eyes, focusing on the cigarette in my hands. I took a deep drag, hoping the matter would be long forgotten and buried by the time I emptied my lungs, but Wolf didn’t budge. “Are you going to stall any longer?”
I sighed. “Ajax just said some stuff I was wondering about, that’s all.”
Wolf twisted up his face, something passing over his eyes I couldn’t make out, there and gone. “When you and Ajax both skipped Mr Browne’s class.” He nodded to himself. “He’s on a rampage, by the way.”