14. CHAPTER 14
“ C ould you go any slower?”
I slap my hands down on the rim of the kitchen sink. “Could you be any more impatient?”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
Reaching back into the cold, soapy water, I mimic him under my breath.
“Don’t fuck with me, Jin.”
“Then don’t fuck with me.”
Most of the time I regret what I say the second the words leave my mouth, but I just can’t help it. Eden van der Hart is a walking, talking, brooding contradiction. And another week in, I’m still no closer to deciphering the way his brain works.
I talk back; he gets pissed.
I don’t say a thing; he gets pissed.
I look at him too long; he freaks out.
I don’t look at him at all; he freaks out.
I want to read; I’m too boring.
I want to go to sleep; I’m too boring.
I do the dishes as soon as we’re finished eating, I’m accused of trying to get away from him.
I wait to do the dishes until we need to use them again, I’m accused of being obsessed with him. The only constant is that I can do nothing right. But I guess I should be thankful that he hasn’t tried to choke me out again.
My black eye is gone, but his hand print around my neck is lingering a little longer than I’d like.
I’ve gotten to the point of avoiding the mirror.
Once a day, for a few seconds, I look, then turn away.
And when I’m not in the shower, I have my hood up until Eden goes to bed because I don’t need to give him the constant reminder, that, no matter how many years of Hapkido lessons I’ve taken, the only time I ever have the upper hand is when he’s completely let his guard down.
“For the love of fuck, I’ll eat off a dirty plate. Just get the hell over here.”
Gripping the sink again, I glare out the kitchen window.
The tarps are down, and past the porch, the only colors that can be seen are white, green, and brown.
It’s so fresh and pure out there. Total serenity.
Nothing like in here and the shit fight that bounces around these four walls sixteen hours out of every day.
I’d be out there right now if it weren’t for the dishes and the waist-high powder.
Pulling the plug from the sink, I leave the unscrubbed plate and mug where they lie, and wipe my hands.
“You know I hate Gran Turismo,” I sigh, and flop onto my side of the sofa.
“And you know I don’t give a fuck.”
I roll my eyes and pick the same car I always do regardless of the track; the Alfa Romeo 1938 Touring Berlinetta. For no other reason than it looks like a mobster died in it and it pisses Eden the hell off.
“Are you ever gonna try?”
“Are you ever gonna stop forcing me to do this crap?”
“And what else would you be doing?”
“I dunno. I was having a pretty decent time doing the dishes,” I smirk, and instantly feel Eden's eyes burn into the side of my head. “Just start the thing, already.”
Neither of us are surprised when Eden wins, but he still gloats about it. Calls me a loser, tells me I never stood a chance with my shit car. All while I bite my tongue and pretend to be just a little bit pissed.
I guess it feeds into both of our egos. He gets to feel like he’s better than me, and I get to know that I always let him win.
“You have to pick another car this time.”
“No thanks,” I shrug, and select the Berlinetta again.
A cushion flies against my head. “I thought I told you not to fuck with me.”
“You give me no other freedom of choice, so the least you can do is let me annoy the crap out of you by choosing this car.”
Eden’s feet flex, and he rubs the heels of his socked feet back and forth on the rug.
“Are you gonna make me sit outside again?”
“That’s not a valid punishment anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because you like it too much.”
Placing the controller beside me, I pull my legs up onto the couch and hug them. “You’re screwed up.”
“And you’re getting away with too much.”
“You’re not my father. And I don’t need your discipline.”
“That bratty pout tells me otherwise.”
“You’re punishing yourself, too. Forcing me to play your dumb games. Not giving me a moment to myself… How is that rewarding for you? A person should spend time with someone because they want to, not because they risk another bruise if they say no.”
Eden throws the remote towards the TV cabinet. “Am I really that fucking bad to be around?”
“Do you want the truth, or the answer you want to hear?”
Leaning forward, Eden rings his hands together so hard I can see how white his knuckles are from here. “So you’d seriously rather be outside than in here with me?”
“Right now? Yes.”
Eden stands.
I tuck my head into my legs and brace for impact, but he walks straight past me to the door. A bitterly cleansing rush of coldness hits me when it opens, and seconds later there’s a thud in front of me.
“Go on then.”
Looking up, I see Eden and a shovel. “What am I meant to do with that?”
“If you want out so badly, then go dig.”
Dropping my feet back to the ground, I take hold of the shaft of the shovel with one hand, while Eden still grips the handle. “What am I digging?”
“Does it matter?”
My head dips to the side. Touché .
Eden lifts the shovel, standing me up in the process. Pushing me towards the door, he follows so close behind me that he bumps into me when I pause to slip my feet into his—far too big for me—work boots.
On the porch, he reaches around me to open the screen, then jabs me in the back. “Dig.”
“What the hell am I—”
“Just dig, little man.”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Stop acting like a baby.”
“You’re the baby.”
Landing face first in the snow is a lot more shocking than you think it would be. It looks soft—and it is for the first few inches, then it’s like the coarsest sand scratching at your skin.
“Why don’t you start there? And in an hour I’ll see how far you’ve gotten.”
Walled in by white, I roll on my side, and push the snow-covered hood off my face so I can look at him.
“Is there any purpose to this?”
Eden tosses Tek’s jacket on top of me. “Is there any purpose in anything I do?”
“You’re a sociopath,” I tell him, then struggle to get myself back to the porch landing.
The game controller is back in Eden’s hands by the time the shovel is in mine. But at least I'm outside. It is what I wanted.
Starting with the top step, I clear it and toss aside the snow as far as I can get it.
After the stairs are done, I clear a patch about one yard in diameter, then work in circles from there. Digging down a foot at a time, I toss the snow away until I reach the grass, then move out a little further, and start again.
I’m even a little smug about it when Eden shows genuine surprise at how far I got, though it’s short lived, because, as he gathers his hair into another stupid bun, he’s barking the next lot of orders at me.
“Fire pit. Wood. You know the rest.”
I give him a sarcastic salute, and he glares back. Then I tell myself the reason he turned and walked back inside is because I’m still holding onto the shovel.
The fire pit is the collapsable camping type with four steel pieces that slot into each other to make a trough.
After momentarily heading back inside for some newspaper and matches, I’m building the fire like it’s second nature.
Sitting back on the top step, I watch the largest pieces of wood catch a light as the sun starts to set. It’s only early, maybe four-thirty, and the lower the sun sinks behind the tree tops, the colder it gets.
I look down at my feet and see the gash I left in the bottom step the night I got here.
I wish I still had the axe.
“Here,” Eden says, dropping a beanie in my lap as he walks down the steps. As I pull my hood down to put it on beneath it, I watch him place four aluminum foil wrapped parcels into the fire.
“Potato and carrots?”
“Potato, beet, sweet potato, and carrot.”
“I don’t eat beets.”
“You will,” he tells me. “They’ll be an hour.”
I continue watching Eden as he walks back past me to the porch.
Expecting him to retreat into the warmth of the cabin, he instead holds the screen door open and sits on the right-side bench to pull out one of the crates of beer.
The ones I’ve seen him take bottle after bottle out of without ever offering me one.
“You want?” he asks, unwrapping the thermal blanket from around the crate then pushing it with his foot to prop open the door.
“Um… You sure?”
“You think someone’s gonna come out and arrest me for it?”
With a silent nod, I hold out my hand.
Eden pulls the same red bottle opener out of his pocket that he always uses, and pops off the cap before handing it to me. The shock of its coldness against my teeth makes me splutter a little, and I turn back to the fire so I don’t have to look at Eden as he judges me.
“Don’t tell me that’s your first beer.”
“You’ve seen me drink before. I just wasn’t expecting it to be that cold.”
His laugh is like daggers in my back. “Well, it’s outside.”
“I know, okay!” I slam the bottle down beside me and walk to the other side of the fire to put as much distance between us as I can. “I’m not an idiot. But shoot me for being distracted by you actually offering me one after almost a month.”
“I didn’t realize it meant that much to you.” On paper, his words might seem sincere, but IRL, they twist the knives his laugh already stabbed me with.
“I’m just saying, it would have been nice—”
“I’ve already given you half of everything I have. Why the hell do you think you’re hungry all the time?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think you are… You might not realize it, but you do a lot of complaining.
I brought enough food here for me , and I’ve been splitting everything down the middle.
We're lucky all those cans from years ago are still good. And in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m twice your size, so god forbid I take some extra calories. ”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You know what, Jin? I don’t know what you mean half the time. You go on with some real cryptic shit, and I’m meant to just decipher it so I know what you want?”
“When have you ever cared what I wanted?”