16. Elara #2
He can’t mean — he’s a stranger — there’s no version where that’s the —
I’m staring. And now I’ve realized that I’m staring and there’s no getting out of this.
“Cream,” he says, lifting the mug. Like he’s being helpful, patient even. The picture of innocence, except for his eyes, which are laughing at me.
Cream.
He means cream. For the coffee. Because that is a thing people put in coffee and not a thing I should be standing here turning fifty shades of red about.
“Cream. Yes. Of course. Cream. Why would you — yes. I’ll get it.”
I do not walk to the kitchen. There’s a word for what I do and it’s closer to fleeing.
The fridge is cold and real and I put my forehead against it for one second of dignity I don’t have time for.
Okay. Questions. I have questions.
Why does Erik look so calm, like three enormous strangers caving in his neighbor’s door is a thing that happens on Tuesdays.
Why are they all — like that. Statistically, you don’t get three.
Why is nobody mentioning the door. The door is GONE.
A normal person leads with the door. And why, and I’d really like this one back, why did the words “white stuff” do what they did to me.
The cream is in my hand. I don’t remember getting it.
I go back out, because the alternative is living in this kitchen forever, and Gerald’s out here with them, and somebody has to keep an eye on Gerald.
I hand the one with the tongue ring the cream. He takes it by the top, careful, without touching me. Which I notice. Which is not a thing I should be noticing.
Not that it matters. He pours it, takes a sip, and considers it like I handed him my best bottle of wine.
“Better,” he says.
I almost relax.
“What about the sweet stuff?”
“The what?”
“The sweet stuff.”
“…Sugar?”
“There it is.”
He says it like I passed a test. I have never wanted to fail one more.
And the smirk goes full, because he can see exactly what’s happening to my face and he is having the night of his life.
My body did not get the memo, and my body is the one running my face, which is currently the temperature of an active volcano.
I look at Erik. Erik is my neighbor. Erik is a known quantity. Erik will help.
Erik is smiling.
Not big. Just at the corner. Just enough.
Like he knows something. Like they all know something, and I’m the only one in the room who doesn’t.
Fuckers.
And maybe it’s the adrenaline finally crashing, but I am suddenly very done being the flustered one in my own apartment.
“Okay,” I say. “Hi. Questions.”
The one with the tongue ring… Is he pouting? His mouth tugs down. He’s not getting his sugar — a man built like a felony, sulking over sweetener. Poor thing. Not.
“How do you know Erik?”
“Old friends,” the normal one says. Warm. Easy.
“Uh-huh. Sure.” And my arm’s already up, finger already pointing, because apparently we’re doing this now. “Trap.” His eyebrows shoot up.
The one with the tongue ring. “Trouble.”
Somehow that smirk gets bigger.
“And you.”
The blond one—
My brain glitches but it’s already made up its mind.
“…Are a problem.”
Silence.
I put my arm down.
I said that out loud. I pointed at three enormous, attractive strangers with giant muscles and gave them nicknames. With a finger.
“Trap?” the normal one repeats. I watch him light up, delighted.
Oh, that’s not how…
The guy with the tongue ring loses it completely.
Nope.
I push on, because the alternative is lying down on my broken door and waiting for death.
“From where?”
“Out of town.”
“Where out of town?”
“Far.”
And right then a look goes between the Trap one and the problem — fast, there and gone, the kind of thing you only catch because you happened to be staring at the wrong spot at the right second. I have no idea what it meant. I’m choosing not to think about it right now.
I’ll come back to it.
There are three of them. I count. Three.
Except when they knocked the door in — that first second, all noise and bodies — I’d have put money on four.
I can still almost see him. One more, off at the edge of everything, there and then gone.
I count again. Three. Whatever the fourth one was, he’s not in my apartment now, and grown men don’t evaporate, so I must have double-counted somebody or maybe I’m seeing things. Weird.
The trap is still smiling at me.
“Why’d you break my door?”
“We heard you scream,” the ink one says.
“And the solution was to break the door…”
“It was in the way.”
I look at the problem one without deciding to. It just happens. He’s already looking at me. He’s been looking at me this whole time, with that look on his face that makes me feel things I do not want to feel right now.
I look away first. I always look away first. We’ve done this four times now and I’m keeping score and I am losing.
“Why were you looking for Erik?”
“He’s family,” the curly one says.
“He’s my neighbor.”
“He can be both.”
None of it is a lie. That’s the thing turning me slowly inside out — I can tell none of it is a lie, and none of it is an answer. It’s like interviewing myself. Giving the truth except for the part that matters.
Trouble is enjoying this far too much. And the back of my head still says four.
I try once more. Something easy. A question that should be straightforward.
“So how long have you known Erik?”
“About four hundred,” the trap finally says.
The room doesn’t move. Nobody laughs. Nobody corrects it. Nobody does the little shuffle people do when a bit has run its course.
So I laugh. Somebody has to. Four hundred is a punchline — it’s the thing you say to rattle the jumpy girl whose door you just destroyed — and any second now one of them is going to crack and hand me the real number and we’ll all—
I’m laughing alone.
I stop laughing without meaning to because my stomach suddenly doesn’t feel right.
“Four hundred what?” I say.
Nobody answers me.