Chapter 20 Sasha #4
Sasha whisked the baby away to her room, and they settled on the floor mattress together.
Freya was on her chest, her body moving up and down with Sasha’s breath.
It was in these moments when Sasha thought most of Daphne, of little Theodore and his tiny coffin.
She dozed off thinking of her sister, her nephew.
The next time her eyes flicked to her phone, it was after two in the morning.
She heard a soft knock on her door and realized that was what must have awakened her.
“Yes?” she asked.
The door opened, and Erik was there, in his usual middle-of-the-night attire, which was very little attire at all.
“Sorry, did I wake you?” he asked.
“You did, but it’s okay. What’s up?”
He looked over her shoulder. “Can I come in?”
She looked over her own shoulder, as if also checking for the presence of someone or something that would make their interaction problematic.
“Um, sure,” she said.
Sasha slowly eased herself into a sitting position, Freya still passed out on her chest, her little mouth open, drool creating a small circle of wetness on Sasha’s camisole.
Ironically, it looked like a circle formed by nipple leak.
As she stared at it, she realized how visible her dark nipples were through her thin, white camisole.
She felt a flush of embarrassment at how exposed she’d made herself.
Had Erik noticed? The room was dark except for a soft glow from the full moon through the window. She was thankful for that.
“I might need another therapy session,” he said.
That was how he’d jokingly referred to their last middle-of-the-night meetings, when he’d shared a bit more about his childhood, his parents’ divorce, drinking his first beer when he was ten.
“Everything okay?” Sasha asked.
He sat on the floor next to the mattress, close enough that Sasha could reach over and touch him if she wanted. She angled her phone toward her, hit the red record button.
“I don’t know if everything’s okay,” he said. “Angeni is going through something.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” She knew if she waited patiently, he would tell her more.
“She seems to think you hate her, by the way,” he said. “She has some weird discomfort with you.”
Discomfort? Was Angeni onto Sasha?
“Oh,” she said. “That is weird.”
“I told her it was weird. I told her you love Freya.”
“I do love Freya.”
After a beat, she said, “Did I do something wrong?”
“Oh, no. No, no, no,” he said. “She’s got these insecurities. You have to understand . . . Ang had a rough upbringing. Lots of trauma.”
That word again—trauma. It was everywhere. Everyone and their trauma. Everyone and their childhood wounds.
“She has some abandonment stuff. She lashes out when she feels threatened. Pushes people away before they can push her away,” he said.
Sasha took mental notes, adding this information to her Angeni Anthology.
“It’s like all these things are tangled together. Freya, the book project, our marriage . . . You.”
Sasha was something for them to discuss, something for them to untangle. She was a potential cause of upheaval.
“I think you can take me off that list,” she said. “I’m not trying to cause any trouble.”
“You’re not. I promise. You’ve been a friend to me. Really.”
She found herself staring at his chest, and he must have noticed, because he said, “The tattoos are kind of weird, right?”
“Oh, um, I don’t know. They’re tattoos.”
“I was totally drunk when I got them, don’t even remember getting them. Isn’t that awful?”
“Could have been worse. Could have been a tattoo of Donald Duck. Or Betty Boop.”
He laughed. “True.”
“I like them, actually,” she said.
She did. They suited him. They looked like something he would have chosen sober.
“I’m sure the tattoo artist had deep thoughts behind the designs, but I wouldn’t know.”
“You could assign meanings to them now. Like, retroactive meanings.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I like that. I never thought of that.”
She studied the swoosh of ink that traversed his pectoral muscles.
“That,” she said, pointing, “could be like an ocean wave.”
He glanced down, chin to chest, then up at her.
“Wow, yeah. An ocean wave. That seems . . . right.”
He kept his eyes on her for an awkward length of time, so awkward that she had to look down at sleeping Freya on her chest.
“Anyway,” Sasha said. “You and Angeni don’t have to worry about me. I’m just here minding my own business.”
“Yeah,” he said.
She could feel the electricity between them, a nearly audible crackle. Was she reading this right? The next words came tumbling out of her mouth:
“I mean, you’re not, like, attracted to me, right?”
There it was. The elephant in the room, exposed.
When he looked at her, she couldn’t make sense of his expression. It was a mixture of surprise and knowing and guilt and confusion and revelation. In just his few seconds of hesitation, she knew the answer to her question.
She did her best to sit still there on the edge of her bed, to not jump in and relieve them of the awkward silence. She watched him struggle with a response.
“I mean, that’s sort of irrelevant, isn’t it?” he said finally.
He said it with a sheepish grin that made Sasha’s cheeks feel hot. He would kiss her if she leaned just a bit closer. She was surprised by how much she wanted that. It wasn’t just curiosity about what would happen if they did kiss; it was undeniable chemistry between the two of them.
“Right,” she said.
She leaned slightly back, away from any temptation. She didn’t trust herself.
“Sitka,” he said.
Nothing more. Just her name. His eyes were still on hers. It was like they were playing that childhood game of who could go the longest without blinking. She was determined to win.
She stayed still and silent. She was surprised by his obvious angst. He was admitting, wordlessly, that he was tempted too.
“Sitka,” he said, again, “I should go.”
She didn’t say anything to try to dissuade him.
She nodded once to confirm her understanding.
He stood and started backing out of the room, still facing her, as if waiting for some shift in her appearance, some utterance of a suggestive word, to change his mind.
There was more power in refusing to give him this. She wasn’t stupid.
The tension of the moment was broken by a noise coming from the living room. It was the slider door opening. As Erik turned to leave the room, he collided with Aurora.
She yelped, then quickly covered her mouth with her hand.
“Oh my god,” she said.
Freya lifted her head from Sasha’s chest, but didn’t open her eyes. After a moment, she collapsed fully on Sasha again. Aurora and Erik were frozen in place. Sasha waited to hear if Angeni was awakened, waited to hear her footsteps in the hall. There was nothing.
“God, you guys scared me,” Aurora said.
“You scared us,” Erik said.
Us.
Sasha watched Aurora take in the scene, trying to make sense of Erik there in Sasha’s room.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I came in for some tea,” Aurora said. “Thought I heard voices in here.”
“You did hear voices,” Erik said. “You’re not the only one who couldn’t sleep.”
Aurora’s eyes kept darting between Erik and Sasha, as if her brain was trying to make sense of something. When her eyes landed on Sasha’s chest, Sasha knew she was noticing her thin white camisole, the nipples underneath it.
“I’ve been having some insomnia. Sitka here’s been my nightly therapist through it,” he said.
“Nightly?” Aurora said.
“Unfortunately,” Erik said with a laugh. “I’m going to have to start paying for services.”
Services.
Aurora’s brow furrowed. Her confusion or disapproval was obvious.
“I’m just about to head back to bed, see if I can catch some z’s finally,” Erik said.
He glanced back at Sasha one last time, and his eyes locked with hers for a split second. As he turned to leave, Sasha said, “Good luck with that.”
He passed by Aurora, who was still standing in the doorway, before disappearing into the hall. Sasha heard the door to the family bedroom open and then close.
“I guess I’ll get my tea and head back to bed too,” Aurora said, though she didn’t make any move to leave. She jutted out her hip against the doorframe and crossed her arms over her chest.
Sasha could have jumped in to assuage her fears, but she decided that wasn’t her job. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Aurora could spin whatever stories she wanted in her own head; that wasn’t Sasha’s business.
“I hope you get good rest,” Sasha said with a tight smile.
Aurora watched her carefully. Before finally turning to leave, she said, “Yeah, you too.”
When Aurora closed the door to her room, Sasha lay flat in her bed, placing one hand on Freya and the other over her own heart. It was beating so hard she could feel the vibrations in her chest.
She sat up, ended the recording on her phone, and texted Jay.
Sasha: this place gets weirder and weirder
Jay: i believe it. get ur ass back here
Sasha: i will. soon.
It was a lie. She couldn’t leave soon. Things were just getting interesting.