Perfect Opposite (28 page)

“
Mhh... what time is it?” Alex mumbled and brought me back down to earth.

“E
ight.” I whispered, and jumped out of bed, turning my back before bending to rummage through the closet, trying to compose myself.

“What’s got into you, moving so fast? Get back here!” he sounded sleepy and the honest demand was enough to banish all the dark thoughts from my mind in an instant.

When he saw me hesitate, he reached out to grab me by the waist, pulling me back into the bed in one fluid motion. I let out a yelp, which turned into a satisfied groan the moment I felt his lips on mine.

“Now you can get up
.” he whispered in my ear and slapped me gently on the butt before sitting up straight.

“ Nice
hair style, by the way. It looks like a couple of delirious magpies built a nest on your head last night.”

“
Oh, you sweet talker.” I giggled.

He screwed up both eyes, then opened one just a little to eye me suspiciously, and got out of bed to move in the direction of the kitchen. My nerves stood on end when I saw that he winced at the pain from his right leg.

“You need to get ready.
” Alex said as he was rattling through some jars in the refrigerator, “I heard from Nikolai last night, we have to meet him in about an hour.”

“For any special
reason or what?” I asked quietly.

I went up to him and drew my arms around his waist, leaning my head against his back to stay like that as he prepared coffee, not wanting to let him go. The news that Nikolai wanted to meet me had shaken me
because I was afraid he might say that Khalil had given up, which would mean that Alex was going away.

“He just wants to see you
.” he shrugged, “Maybe he wants to make sure I didn’t strangle you trying to restrain that tongue of yours.”

“You're so witty.
” I sighed with relief and ran to the bedroom to get dressed.

When we turned off the highway and parked in front of an unsightly gas station located a half hour’s drive from the city, I noticed the big black car with tinted windows immediately. I turned to Alex and he understood my question without me asking, and simply nodded. For a few moments, I looked at his face, which had again lost all expression. Seeing no alternative, I got off the bike, gave Alex my helmet and walked slowly over to the car.

The door opened as I approached and the smell of expensive cigars wafted towards me, causing me to wrinkle my nose.

“You look different.” Nikolai said as I sat next to him, before bringing the palm of his hand up to the side of my head.

“Oh yeah?
I wonder who’s to blame for that.”

He might have flinched at the harsh edge to my voice, but I didn’t care. It was still a bitter pill to swallow that I'd undergone such an extreme makeover without any choice in the matter.

“Say what you have to and get it over with. I don’t wanna sit here chatting when you've pretty much ruined my life.”

Nikolai turned away to stare out of the car window, puffing thoughtfully on his cigar before speaking in a cold voice.

“I'm sorry this shit involved you, Princess, you can’t even begin to imagine how much. Thankfully, it seems like everything’s gonna be over soon and you can get back to your life.”

“Soon?”
I choked, feeling my voice begin to quiver as a wave of nausea washed over me. “How soon?”

“It seems Khalil's finally found who planted the bomb... it was some fool who owed him money. Seems like the guy thought he could solve his problem that way. I don’t even want to think about how he’ll end up...”

I was watching him speak, but the words lost their meaning at some point as I tuned out completely. What seemed most urgent was to control my rapid breathing. I gripped at the seat at my sides, feeling my knuckles turn white and my nails start to break as a hard lump formed in my throat.

“...
right now, but I think it's better to wait until tomorrow. Khalil wants to meet me tonight, face to face, and it seems he even plans on making amends. If all goes well, Aleksey can get you back to your apartment first thing tomorrow morning. It's all over, Princess.”

For several heartbeats I sat and stared at one point in the middle d
istance ahead of the car, then grabbed the door handle and exited the car without a word. Nikolai was calling after me, but I paid no mind as I headed towards Alex, who was waiting for me leaning on his bike. The one, awful word ‘over’ went on ringing in my ears.

“Sasha, are you OK...” Alex's voice woke me up from the trance I’d fallen into, and it was only then that I realized we were in front of his building.

“Yeah.
Why?” I answered after a short pause.

“Why?
You look like your puppy just died, that’s why.” he narrowed his eyes, “What did Nikolai say to you?”

Perplexed, I blinked a few times before the penny dropped.

He doesn’t know!

“Nothing.
It was like usual. He railed on me for a while. We had a fight and that’s all I want to say about it.” I forced a resigned smile onto my face.

“You’re sure? Didn’t look like that to me.”

“Well, duh. That’s the effect Nikolai always has on me. Forget about him.” I said and entered the building.

I had only one
day with Alex and I’d decided to spend it as though nothing had changed. If there was ever a king of wishful thinking, it was me.

I’ll live this day like
there's no tomorrow. And tomorrow... tomorrow the house of cards will fall.

***

“I think that was the single most incredible experience I’ve had,” Alex spoke as he lay stretched on his back, breathing heavily as he held me tightly in his arms.

“I thought the most amazing experience was this morning.”

“Well, it was…” he laughed, leaning over to bite my lip playfully.

“Ah! That hurts! You savage!”

“Sweet angel!”

“Barbarian!
” I grinned in his face and started to tickle him.

“
Ahh... don’t!”

As I squirmed, he kept trying to catch me by the arm,
but I slipped through his grasp. Alex's deep laughter echoed through the apartment, and I tried to soak it in and memorize every line of his face, so as to keep a diary in my mind that I could open whenever I wanted. Quickly, I shrank from his embrace and held my back straight as I walked towards the bathroom.

“Hey, where are you going now?”

“I wanna take a shower.” I spoke past my shoulder and closed the door behind me.

Taking rapid, shallow breaths, I managed to turn on the shower befo
re falling to pieces completely. Holding myself steady, I let the powerful jets of water spray me full in the face, to muffle the sound of my sobs and wash away my tears, presumably down to the sewers beneath us, and then to the ocean to mix with the rest of humanity’s. To keep up the pretense till morning seemed impossible.

How
can I let him stroke my cheek, bury his face in my hair or kiss me full on the lips so that my heart leaped over the moon, knowing that I'll never see him again?

It felt like the fates were always mocking me. For Alex, I was just another mission to take care of, and he’d told me so himself,
more than once. Just another order from my father to be followed… Just, this time, one with benefits.

There are things you're convinced you’ll never do, words you know for sure you’ll never say, boundaries you think you wouldn’t cross for anything. You live in the belief that you are a person of s
olid convictions and principles and that there’s no man in this world for whom you’d cast them by the wayside. Even when they take everything away from you, the only thing that’s yours to keep is your pride. And then... then out of nowhere someone appears for whom you are ready to throw it all into the wind.

It was then, staring at the small white tiles on the wall of the shower cabin, that I realized for the first time what it really meant to love someone.

When you truly love another person, you’re fragile. Not in the sense that someone’s words or actions could hurt you, because you can be true to yourself even when you’re feeling hurt. When you really love someone, you’re willing to lose everything that makes you who you are, and you’d do it in the blink of an eye. And even if it’s all in vain, there’s nothing in it you'd regret.

Watching the water run off my body, it felt like my pride might be moving with it, exiting in the same direction as my tears, to be lost in the vast blue expanse that forgives nothing and outlives us all. It was
true, I’d lost myself, because I knew that I was willing to do anything to keep him.

Suddenly,
a swift anger took hold of me and I found myself starting to shake.

“I hate you!” I mouthed
the words, my forehead against the tiles, and I felt my lips tremble as I hit the side of my fist against the whiteness in front of me.

I hated him because I was ready to beg and plead, to throw everything that was precious to me under the w
heels of his approaching train, a gesture aimed at keeping him close just that little bit longer.

When I left the bathroom half an hour later, I’d managed to compose myself a little and thought I looked quite calm. It seemed like I might hold on to spend a few more hours in my fairytale world.

Wrapped in a towel tied high around my chest, I breathed in deeply and pressed my fingers against the wooden door of the bedroom, about to push it open. When Alex’s voice came to my ears, I stopped in my
tracks.

He was speaking quietly
and his voice was barely audible, so I moved my head closer and pulled the towel even tighter. I was terrified that Nikolai changed his mind and called to tell Alex to take me back that same night. It took a few moments for my ears to tune in and discern real words in what I was hearing, and even then it seemed like there might be no sense to it.

“...
if that was really the case, don’t you think that I’d be the first one to know?” he spoke quietly, under his breath.

“...
no... shit... I'm telling you it’s not like that... No! Do you hear what I'm saying, for fuck’s sake? You can’t do that!”

“... I don’t believe this! Two g
oddamned years and now you’re gonna fuck it all up!”

When I heard footsteps on the other side of the door, I jumped back and bounded over to the couch in record time, so that I was seated when Alex swung the door half way open and looked out. He was wearing only a pair of black baggy pants with oversized pockets
, holding a T-shirt in one hand and with the other he pressed the phone against his ear. Running my fingers through my hair, I attempted a smile as I looked up at him.

“Hey.
” I said, almost soundlessly.

“I'll call you back.”
Alex spoke quickly into his phone, letting it disappear into one of his pockets, before approaching me.

“Something happened?” I asked, thoroughly confused.

For a very long moment, he looked at me through piercing eyes, his features drawn together intensely. Then, suddenly, he came to squat down in front of me and looked me straight in the eye.

“Princess, I need to ask you something and it's very important you answer. OK?”

“OK…OK” I stammered, deeply disconcerted by how serious his tone had become.

“When you saw Nikolai today... did he say he was going to meet with someone tonight?”

“Why?”

“Please, just answer me.”

“Yes... he’s supposed to meet Khalil.” I finally said, wondering why it suddenly had to matter so much.

As soon as I answered, Alex’s whole countenance changed, as though I’d struck him with something hard.
He closed his eyes, like he was madly trying to process the information as fast as possible. When he looked back at me, his eyes betrayed such anger that I flinched before retreating deeper into the cushions on the couch.

“Did he say why?” it seemed to take a tremendous effort of will for
him to go on questioning me.

The only time he’d ever spoken to me with such bitterness was when he’d dragged me back from the concert, after I’d drugged him.

“Khalil found out who planted the bomb in his car. He wanted to meet Nikolai face to face, to apologize. I guess... at first I thought that you knew, and then I realized and… I don’t know, I guess I wanted to spend this last night with you... I thought it’d be better to tell you in the morning when he calls.” I’d started to stumble over the words.

“And did he mention any sort of delivery? Anything about money...”

“I don’t remember anything like that, no.”

“So Khalil wants to apologize...” he almost choked on the words, shaking his head violently.

In spite of his obvious agitation, he stood up slowly and pulled the phone out of his pocket once more, moving towards the far side of the room as I watched in a fearful silence.

“I
t’s been confirmed. False alarm.” he spoke quietly, and then for a few moments he just listened to the person on the other end of the line.

Totally confused, I was trying to extract some meaning from everything that had just happened when a sudden shout from Alex made me jump up from the couch.

“WHAT?! Call them off right now!”

I stopped taking in air as I listened to Alex, whose breaths had become rapid and shallow. The sound reminded me of a dog at bay, and in response I eased my body deeper into the recesses of the couch, so that I was almost hidden between the armrest and some cushions.

“You've got to be fucking shitting me! But, we’re not ready yet. You said you’ll give me more time... Oh, I’m losing it? You know what? Fuck you!”

After he’d hung up, he stared at the screen of his phone for some time before launching it full force at the wall in front of him, where it smashed to smithereens. I
gasped and buried my head behind a cushion, just moments before the awful sound of breaking glass and furniture filled the room. It was only when the noise died down that I dared look up.

That whole part of the room looked like a bomb had exploded. A bookcase lay overturned on the floor and the stereo lay smashed to pieces in a corner ten feet from where it was supposed to be. Damaged books and other bits and pieces lay strewn across the room
. Alex was sitting on the floor with one leg bent underneath him, staring up at the ceiling, expressionless. I guess I breathed out loudly when I saw him, because he lowered his head to look at me, seemingly astonished to find I was still in the room.