Chapter 17. Ophelia #2
He stares at the TV with mild disinterest, watching a contestant putting potatoes through a sieve with so much gusto that sweat is beading on his forehead.
Alex is restless, the muscles beneath the ravens on his forearm flexing as he spins the gold ring on his index finger.
There’s a darkness about him that reminds me of that first day we met outside the Sorrowsong gates, like there’s a storm brewing just beneath his skin.
I lean over to scratch my fingernails through his hair, watching his eyes drift shut and the tension dissipate from his shoulders just a little. “Talk to me.”
“We’re never going to catch my father.”
“You will. He’s just slimy.”
“He’s too smart. Too well connected. I don’t think there is a police force, airport, government authority, or crime group anywhere that he doesn’t have a contact in … Why are they mashing potatoes through a sieve?”
“I gave up trying to understand this TV show when you were on your first cigarette. That ginger guy just compressed a tomato.”
He sighs, like it’s genuinely the TV program that’s distressing him, and not everything else. “What is the point of it all?”
“Dunno,” I say, putting a biscuit in my mouth. “You’ll get your father, Alex. It’s a waiting game.”
“I just want to be done with him. We’ve been through enough. We’ve waited long enough.”
“It feels like that, but three months isn’t that long.”
“When you had to wait three months for a new book to release you said three months was the longest time period imaginable. And when I said, ‘What about four months?’ you told me to mind my own business.”
I did say that, but I don’t admit it. “Oh dear. Deteriorating eyesight and memory. You’re a lost cause, Corbeau.”
“I am.”
Somehow, we’ve ended up horizontal, spooning on the too-narrow sofa with the TV blaring. A contented silence settles in the dated living room as we watch Clare make a mess of plating her dauphinoise and pretend the world isn’t burning around us.
When the judge says he appreciates the rosemary that went into the roux, Alex turns the TV off like a disgusted football fan, covering my ears until the sound stops, like I’m a child and he doesn’t want me to hear something inappropriate.
“That’s bullshit. Don’t listen to them, baby.
You were right about the roux; they were wrong. ”
“I’m going to email in and complain.”
He sighs, his body tense behind me. I rotate where I lie on the sofa, so we’re almost nose to nose. I think we’re both delirious from lack of sleep. “We’ll get through this, Alex. And then we’ll get through the next thing. And the next.”
He smiles, and it makes my heart skip a beat. “I’m tired of things.”
“Tough luck. Life is full of things.”
His smile is soft, finger tracing down my nose. “Thank you for being mine.”
“Thank you for coming to that life drawing class.”
“I’m irrational. I can’t bear the thought of someone else drawing you.”
I bite my lip. “Jealous, Alex?”
His hand moves down, thumb pressing against the spot where my pulse hammers in my neck. “I’m sick with envy at the wind that slips through the holes in your knitted sweaters, Winters. Jealous doesn’t cover it.”
“You don’t need to be.” My grin is involuntary, but it feels so good. I like jealous Alex.
His eyes are alight again, no longer endless pools of desperation. I run my finger over the scar beneath his eyebrow. His father’s handiwork.
I hate Cain Green for so many reasons.
His throat works with a swallow, stare fixed on the world beyond my yellowing curtains. The sun is setting outside, copper shards of light illuminating the crumbling terraces on my street. A plane cuts through the haze, and like he’s reading my mind, he says, “I have to fly home soon.”
“I know.”
“I have no idea when I’ll next have time to come to see you.”
“You deserve so much more than what I can give you.” I’ve been trying to listen to fear-of-flying podcasts so I can come visit him, but my fear runs so deep, braided with so much trauma, I’m getting nowhere. “The distance is just another thing, Alex. We’ll get through it.”
He’s tense, muscles taut as though he’s holding something in. “You should know what you’re getting yourself into with me. I need you to be sure.”
“I do know.”
His lips brush mine, soft and tender. “I come with an unwell mother.”
“I know.”
A kiss lands on my jaw. “And custody of six girls who are really great but also really, really mean. After you graduate, when we’re finally able to be together, the youngest girls will still be with me.”
“I know.”
Another kiss, this time on my collarbone. “And a tired, miserable brain.”
“I know.”
“I’m not sure if I ever want kids.”
“Neither am I.”
“I’m exhausting to be around on my lowest days.”
“I want you. I want all of your baggage, too. I love your mom. I love the girls. I want everything about you.”
The relief on his expression almost brings me to my knees. He really thinks I don’t understand. That I’ll run when his homelife gets too hard, or when his depression gets worse.
“I want the messy life, Alex. The big fights, the small ones, the leaking washing machines and the car breakdowns and the grumpy teenage girls. I want a normal life, full of people and all their issues.”
Now he’s full-on smiling. “I want that, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He swallows, brushing a tear from my bottom lashes.
I didn’t even realize it was there. “I want a cottage, and an overgrown garden. I want long, lazy afternoons between your thighs. I want to watch you go gray. I want fresh flowers, and an old wife. And if we did have children, they’d never fear the sound of their father’s footsteps. ”
I feel a second tear fall, slow and silent as it trickles across my cheek. For someone who refuses to think about his future because he struggles to believe he’ll have one, the magnitude of his confession isn’t lost on me. “We can have all of that. We just need to get through the things.”
“I can hold on.”
“Hold on until midnight. Tread water until midnight.”
I feel his smile against the top of my head, arms tightening around me. “Until midnight.”
WHEN I WAKE, Alex is sitting on the end of the bed in a black hoodie and those rugby shorts. His bags are packed at his feet, and disappointment I have no right to feel swirls within me.