07
“Thank you so much for everything, Lena. You are the best.” I let Romina throw herself into my arms. The way she molds her body to mine, squeezing me gently, feels sincere. She rarely shows affection.
I wave my hand in the air as a way of saying goodbye. Jason appears behind me with a lemon ice pop. He’s so focused on my friend’s arse that he doesn’t notice I’m there too, but my fake cough brings him back to reality.
“You will not be the only one drooling around here.”
“What?” He makes a face that exudes mockery in all its glory.
“It’s pretty obvious you like that guy. Who doesn’t? Even I like him. The damn guy is fine as hell,” he scoffs.
“How long have you known?” I don’t bother denying it. It would be useless.
“Since you almost fell off the terrace gazing at him as if he were some kind of deity.”
“That’s not true,” I reply, my cheeks flushing.
“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. I won’t say anything about Count Dracula,” he says in a mocking tone before running up the stairs two at a time.
This year is one of the most boring of my entire life.
My other friends are abroad, and my parents are worried sick about me going anywhere from the city.
I wrap my wet hair in a messy bun and wrap the towel around my body.
Then I walk barefoot to my bedroom, where I change into something simpler to go downstairs and watch TV for a while.
I’m going shopping with Jason this afternoon for an upcoming boxing match.
I spent the rest of the day on distractions to pass the time.
I’m tired of having him on my mind all the time, but my brain loves the idea so much that it has even made a little space only for him.
I end up going down to a room that looks like a movie theater.
I can’t find anything interesting to watch, so I flip through the channels until I find something I like.
I stop at the news channel. They’re talking about a murder that happened a couple of days ago in the city.
There aren’t usually cases like this in the city where I live, but it’s even rarer for them to show so many details on TV.
Soon, the victim’s body shows up on screen, sliced into pieces, with eyes removed from sockets, along with hands and genitals.
The torso has mutilated nipples, showing he was also tortured there.
My eyes are glued to the screen, but a sudden wave of nausea sends me to the nearest bathroom.
It turns out to be a false alarm. Still feeling sick, I brush my teeth as if that could erase what my eyes have just seen.
As I leave, I notice Jason coming down the stairs, dressed in a dark green tracksuit and holding a black bag.
He looks at me suspiciously from a distance.
It’s too late for me to run to my bedroom when he steps in my way.
“Did you see Aunt Anne’s ghost too?” he whispers close to my ear. Concern marks his voice. “I feel like my room is cursed. Ever since we went to the movies, I haven’t stopped seeing strange things.”
“Jason, ghosts don’t exist,” I say.
“How do you know they don’t? No one can say for sure.”
“Because they don’t exist. They’re just things in your head.”
“Whatever you say. I’ll go to the gym.”
“I’ll go with you.”
I rush upstairs. In less than five minutes, I’m back downstairs wearing a silk skirt and top that I use as a gym outfit.
“Does it fit in there?” I ask, holding out the towel. He snorts before taking it.
“When will you learn to carry your own things?”
“When you stop carrying them for me. Besides, you can’t expect me to carry these things in my bags.” A gym towel inside a Birkin bag is like serving champagne in a plastic cup. Just no.
“Have you thought about buying a bag that functions as a bag?” he says after putting my things away, raising his eyebrows.
“The primary function of a bag is to look good.”
The sliding glass doors slide open. Inside, there are lots of sweaty people walking back and forth. It’s one of the most popular gyms in town. And expensive. I think that’s the reason there are always so few people there, which I’m not complaining about.
I go straight to the women’s changing rooms to use the bathroom and tie my hair back in a ponytail.
That’s when I remember Jason still has my phone.
I gave it to him halfway there when his ran out of battery, as usual.
On another occasion, I wouldn’t have cared, but now I need it to listen to music while I train, otherwise I can’t muster the motivation to do it.
Not finding it upstairs, I go down to the men’s locker room, checking every corner of the room while praying not to find anything my eyes don’t want to see.
“You again?” someone says behind me.
When I turn around, I find those blue eyes giving me an unfriendly look. What have I done now? It seems that the simple fact of me breathing annoys him.
Now that it’s daylight, I can see his facial features.
Over the years, they’ve become much more pronounced.
Even if his hair now has a buzz cut, you can notice that the colour seemed to have darkened, reflecting the colour of his soul.
His skin is decorated with more tattoos than I thought.
Too many. I might have responded to him as he deserves if the water droplets tracing his abs hadn’t mesmerized me.
“Aren’t you tired of chasing me?” I blink, looking up at him. This time neither his gaze nor his attractiveness makes me hesitate.
“What the hell are you talking about? Do you think I have nothing better to do than chase you around all day, or what?” He’s the one who always shows up at my house to talk to my father about things I don’t know. As if they had no other place to talk.
“Watch how you talk to me.”
“When you do, so will I,” I say with a forced smile. His long, toned legs move until we are just inches apart, and before I know it, I am trapped between the sink and his wet body.
“Move.”
There are seven free sinks around us, but he decides he wants to use the one I’m leaning against. I should push him away and tell him to fuck off, but he’s stronger than me and it wouldn’t end well for me.
You only have to look at his biceps to realize that.
Because he has a lot of muscles… like his abs, for example, or the ones that stand out on his chest, or the ones on his…
“Stop playing with me, Lena.” His voice, now a few tones softer, cut my little scrutiny.
I bet he has bipolar disorder or something, but his mental problems still can’t stop me from blushing after he caught me red-handed.
“I’m not playing games, Alek. I don’t even know what games you’re referring to.”
“You understand nothing. Or maybe you don’t want to because it doesn’t suit you, is that it?” His eyes rest on me with more irritation, and my ears burn. “All you do is complicate things for me,” he says to himself, extinguishing that little light I had inside.
He hates me. My head repeats as he turns around and walks away, leaving me with my mouth open once again. The anger and frustration left over from our last encounter make me train harder.
I don’t understand him. I don’t understand his behavior, or why he says those things, or why he hates me so much. Jason stands in front of the treadmill I’m running on, looking at me with an amused smile.
“What?” I ask.
“Your face is red as fuck.” I say nothing. I get off the treadmill and head to the locker room with him following close behind, looking rather unhappy. I wanted to shower here, but after that incident, I’m reconsidering changing gyms.
I don’t wait for Jason to leave the locker room before heading out onto the street well ahead of him.
“Wait. What’s the rush?” he asks behind me, trying to follow my footsteps.
“I’m hungry.”
“As usual,” he says, sitting down next to me. “By the way, there’s a party at Count Dracula’s house in a few days. It’s the Older Count’s birthday.”
“Who?”
“Alekei.”
“Are you going?”
“You?” he asks back.
I don’t think I could go to his house alone, but with my brother there, I might consider it.
Besides, I’m eager to go and find out more about him.
I want to know where he lives and what his home is like, including his kitchen and bedroom.
I also want to understand why he dislikes me so much and know who that blonde girl is. I bet he’s less unfriendly with her.
“If you go, I’ll go,” I reply, nodding my head, and he flashes a sly smile.
“We’ll go then. No way am I missing that shit.”
“Romina has called,” says the butler behind me.
I don’t have time to thank him before he hurries off to the dining room. On the way to my room, I dial her number. She picks up on the first ring. The first thing I hear is her sobbing.
“Romina? Are you okay?” She tries to say something, but I can’t understand her.
Then she sniffs, and there is a long silence in which I can only hear her agitated breathing.
“He’s dead, Len,” she stammers between sobs.
When I understand what she’s saying, my breath catches for a moment, realizing whose body I saw this morning and why it was on the news. It was all planned by him. He wanted me to see it.
My hair stands on end, just like the first time I saw the images, without understanding why on earth he did that. What does he gain from it? Is it some kind of threat because of what happened that night in the dumpsters?
“I went to his mother’s house. She says they called her to confirm the identity of the body. The funeral is next week.” Her broken voice brings me back to reality. My fingers cling to the phone as I search for the right words to say, knowing it will never be enough.