Chapter Twelve Willow
Chapter Twelve
Willow
The pain in my chest is too much. Too much to be brought on by someone I barely know.
I’m standing outside the door to my apartment and I can’t move. I feel like Dragna walked away with my heart in his hand. The hand he was just touching my face with not even five minutes ago.
I knew it was all too good to be true. A man like him would never see a girl like me and think ‘yeah, I want her’.
The worst part is that I don’t think this is really about him though, I just feel like I’ve went back in time to how I felt when I found out Fred had been cheating on me.
That sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach where I didn’t feel good enough, pretty enough or worthy enough and I feel sick.
This is why I haven’t given anyone since Fred the time of day. I can’t trust anyone to see my soul or my heart and to take care of it how I would take care of theirs.
He just left. After picking me up and taking me for dinner where I shared so much about my life because he seemed to want to know everything about me.
He seemed interested, caring, attentive.
The man who has just left me on my doorstep is not the same man I’ve spent the last two and a half hours with and I don’t know how to take the whiplash. I’m just hurt.
“Girl, what’s wrong?” Alina walks down the stairs towards me with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a cup of tea in each of her hands.
“He just left. I swear he was about to kiss me, and then he just left me standing here.” I say completely dumbfounded.
“Come inside. You’ll get sick like me if you stay out here in the cold.
Come on I have tea for you.” She hands me one of the mugs and takes my hand before linking her fingers with mine, bringing me up to our apartment.
We reach the top of the stairs and for whatever godforsaken reason, I cry.
It starts off slow before the next thing I know we’re standing in our kitchen and I’m sobbing, the tears dripping off my chin onto my sweater.
“Aw Wills, come here.” Alina says as she takes the mug from me and puts both mine and hers on the kitchen counter. She pulls me into a hug and I can’t help but cry harder into her shoulder as I wrap my arms around her waist, holding onto her like the lifeline she is to me.
“Let it out babe. I’ve got you.” So I do. I spend the next hour snuggled up to her telling her about our dinner and what happened on the doorstep while crying harder in between every few words that I manage to get out.
She knows this is more to do with how I feel about myself and the aftermath of Fred rather than crying over Dragna. It’s not the man I’m crying over, it’s the situation I stupidly found myself in after swearing I wouldn’t and I hate myself for it.
I built walls around my heart that I swore I would never let anyone break, I reinforced them with steel but then Dragna somehow found a crack and just slipped in.
Each attentive look he gave me tonight, each follow up question to a story I told at dinner, all of it slowly allowing me to feel like maybe I could lower that wall.
Now though, I’ve been proven once again that I’m not the girl that gets the work put in for her, I’m not the girl who gets chosen.
After a while, Alina and I fell into a comfortable silence watching a movie once I had cried myself out.
“I’m calling things off with Lev.” She announces quietly as she strokes my hair.
“Alina no. Don’t do that just because of what happened with me.” I tell her as I sit up and look at her feeling guilty.
“You think I could be with him or around him when his stupid fucking cousin has done this to you? I don’t care how good the man fucks, it’s not worth you being upset if he ever came round.
Plus, I’d want to punch his stupid face just so when Dragna see’s him, he’d know the punch was intended for him.
” She laughs while weakly punching the sofa cushion beside her and I can’t help but smile at how stupid she is and how much I love her.
“I love you Willow and I would never, ever put a man before you. Even though Lev hasn’t done anything wrong, he is guilty by association in my eyes and I wouldn’t keep him around to remind you of Dragna either.” She says while kissing the side of my head.
“I know you wouldn’t, but it’s not right to take it out on him. The boy brought you soup then came back over to keep you company tonight while you’re sick. He’s obviously obsessed with you. Him being around isn’t going to hurt me. He’s actually growing on me.” I say while side-eyeing her.
“I knew it! You do think he’s funny!”
During one of our many conversations about Lev, I told Alina he was like a pest you couldn’t get rid of because I just like riling her up. The truth is that I think Lev is great for her. I haven’t seen her smile so much in the past few years over a guy as she has for last week over Lev.
“He’s tolerable.” I say gently smiling back at her and she hits me with the sofa cushion in the face as I break out into laughter.
“I’m kidding! He’s pretty great Ali, I think you should keep him. His comedic value might even bring some relief for my sad little heart during these trying times.” I say while putting on an overdramatic pout, pulling myself together.
I’m cried out, drained and my best friend has helped bring me out of my pity party so it feels good to joke with her about Lev.
“If you say so girl, but if he comes round and makes you upset, you tell me and he’ll be out the door faster than he can make me come.”
“Alina!!” I groan, covering my face with both my hands and shudder while she laughs beside me. My best friend ladies and gentlemen.
—————————————————————
I wake up feeling stiff and sore and quickly realise Alina and I fell asleep on the sofa together tangled in her duvet. We don’t do this often but between her being sick and me having an emotional breakdown it’s no wonder we both passed out after last nights events.
I reach over her to pick up my phone and check the time and sigh when I see the battery died during the night. Thankfully today is our usual day off from the bookstore so we didn’t miss any phone alarms going off.
I stretch and give Alina a little shove.
“Wake up, we slept on the sofa and you’re starting to squash me.” I say as she groans and only further wraps herself around me.
“Nooo, just five more minutes mom please.” She jokes as she starts to move off me.
“Come on, give me your phone and I’ll put it on charge with mine.” I say as I climb over her to get up. She throws her phone over to me as I make my way to the kitchen.
“Do you want coffee or tea?” I ask her as she groans some more and stretches out into the free space surrounding her now that I’ve got up.
“Ohh tea please, I still feel like shit.” She looks at me while blowing her nose and I feel guilty I left her here last night to go for dinner. Okay, nope, not going there, not doing that. I won’t think about last night ever again.
I plug our phones into their chargers and start to make us both cups of tea while trying to force my mind to think of anything other than Dragna.
“You don’t think there will be any texts or missed calls from him do you? Maybe he regretted walking away when he got to the club.” Alina asks me from across the living room bringing my mind right back to what I didn’t want to remember.
“No, I don’t think he’ll even have a second thought about me after last night.” I reply honestly, because how could he walk away like that and then still think about me?
Our phones both come back to life after a few minutes charging. Alina’s phone dings and dings with all the messages coming through. Mine stays silent, absolutely no texts or missed call messages, nothing. Good, it would only confuse me more if Dragna had contacted me after he left.
I walk back to the sofa with our tea and hand Alina hers while sitting back down beside her. We both let out a long sigh at the same time that makes us both laugh. We’re exhausted, both for different reasons but at least we’re both feeling like crap together.
“Oh! I have something for you. Amongst all the chaos last night I forgot to tell you. I got you a little pick me up surprise.” I tell her and she snaps her head to me with hopeful eyes.
“Don’t you dare tell me it’s the book Willow, I’ll collapse from excitement!” She all but screams and I boop her on the nose while laughing.
“It’s a good thing you’re sitting down then isn’t it. I grabbed us each a copy before I left the shop yesterday, and since we are both off today, we can sit and read undisturbed all day!”
“Eeeekk oh my god, have I told you I love you recently, because I do!” She screeches at me.
I set my tea down and make my way to my handbag to retrieve our books when the doorbell rings.
I immediately stand straighter feeling anxious wondering who’s at the door. Please don’t let it be him, please don’t let it be him I repeat over and over in my head as I make my way down the stairs to the front door. I take a deep breath before opening it to reveal a smiling, overly cheery Lev.
“Willow tree, moya lyubov’! Hows it going?” He grins at me and I don’t know what to say back to him. Does he know what his cousin did to me last night? Would he really be this upbeat and nice to me if he did? Oh god, he must not know. That means I’m going to have to tell him what happened.
“Uhh, Alina is upstairs. She’s still sick so we were going to have a girls day but you can come up if you want.” I say opening the door wider for him.
“I love girls day.” He says while winking at me as he strides past me and up the stairs to Alina.
Just as I’m closing the door, something makes me stop and I get a feeling in the pit of my stomach about looking outside. When I do, I realise why the feeling was there and I feel sick.
I see the same car that was following me to work driving down our street.
I know it’s the same car because I memorised the registration plate.
I slam the door shut as I start to shake and I try to calm my racing heart.
I lean my back against the door wondering what to do, or who I should tell.
If I told Alina she would only worry. I can’t call Dragna again even though he said he would update me.
If I tell Lev, he’ll tell Dragna and will also most likely tell Alina because he’ll worry about her.
The logical answer is to call the police, but what if it’s nothing and I’m just being dramatic and I waste their time?
I start walking up the stairs lost in my thoughts when I hear chaos erupting.
“Calm down kotik!” I hear Lev shouting as I reach the hallway.
“Calm down? Your cousin is a fucking asshole Lev! How dare he do that to her.” Alina screams back at him and I rush into the living room to find her pressing him against the wall by his chest while he’s holding both hands up in surrender.
The scene would actually be quite hilarious under different circumstances.
“Do you girls want to tell me what the hell is going on here?” He says looking between Alina and I.
I let out a sigh and pick up my cup of tea as I mentally prepare myself to tell Lev what happened.
“Dragna ditched me at the doorstep last night after dinner.” I tell him, throwing myself on our sofa.
“That ublyudok.” He sighs and scrubs his face with his hands.
“I had no idea, I’m sorry. I’ll kick his ass for you if you want me to.” He laughs warily as he looks between me and my five foot two best friend who still has him pinned to the wall.
“Down Alina, he’s fine.” I say as I plant myself on the sofa, laying on my back and covering my face with my hands wondering how this day is going to go now that Lev is here.
Alina makes her way over to me after letting Lev go with what can only be described as a growl and she lifts my legs and settles on the sofa beside me before resting my legs back down over her lap.
I just want to forget about Dragna and spend the day like this, lost in my book and chilling with my best friend.
“So… heartbroken girls day then.” Lev says softly and I peak from under my hand to see him making his way across the living room to our kitchen.
“Good thing I brought you all this ice cream last night moy kotenok.” He says to Alina while he continues rummaging around in our freezer.
He returns to the living room with three tubs of ice cream and three spoons before making himself comfortable on one of our lounge chairs.
“I don’t think Willow wants company today.” Alina grits at him as he starts opening a tub of strawberry ice cream.
“Put your claws away Ali cat.” He replies before handing me the opened tub and a spoon.
“Would you like me to leave Willow tree?” He asks me directly and I debate asking him what’s with the nicknames, but it’s Lev, and from what I know of him so far, he is literally like an excitable toddler that you can’t really control.
He’s completely harmless, except for being scary looking and some prized MMA fighter.
“You can stay, I don’t mind. I’ll chill in my room and you two can have the living room.” I tell him as I begin to stand up, but before I can Alina holds my legs tighter while Lev throws the cushion from his chair at me hard enough to knock my head back down on the sofa.
What is with them both using sofa cushions and resorting to soft violence. They really are a match made in heaven.
“You’re going nowhere Wills.” Alina says while Lev chimes in.
“You’re Alina’s best friend and you’re upset because of my cousin and not to mention she’s still sick. I’m here to look after you both today, okay? Both of you get comfortable and choose a movie. I’ll order us all some breakfast.”
I don’t know why, but between Ali clutching onto me and Lev being adamant that he will make this day better for us both, I feel like today won’t be as bad as I thought it would be with having him around.