Perfect Opposite (27 page)

After the first morning of wakefulness, memories of that bloody night haunted my every waking hour, never allowing me a moment’s respite or escape. Every time I woke from a drug-induced sleep, there’d be the briefest moment, just a fraction of a second before I remembered, and then everything would come crashing down, as though my mind were filling with shards of broken glass.

“Something’s
gotta change around here girl.” the nurse leaned over the bed to look at me with a worried face and sad eyes, a tray of untouched food held in her hand.

“The doctor’s signed the discharge papers, which means you’re going home today. You’ve been here for ten days already, which is nine days more than we intended.”

Ten days? Was it really that long?

I took a deep breath and focused again on the wall in front of me. It could have been ten years for all I knew at that moment, and in truth it didn’t seem to make any difference one way or the other.

The door opened again and someone else entered. More footsteps approached, and I felt the bed sink down on one side as someone sat close to my back, a warm hand settling on my own.

“
Baby girl...” was Nikolai’s hushed voice.

I pulled my hand away from his and tucked it under the pillow, staring at one of the faintest cracks, a tendril that veered off in a different direction to the others, only to disappear behind a threadbare curtain.

“I don’t know what to do with her. Maybe you’ll have better luck in bringing her to her senses,” the nurse waved a hand dismissively and shuffled out of the room clacking her wooden clogs.

Nikolai came every day and
each time he seemed to have contrived a novel tactic to bring me back to my old self. He’d already tried gentle encouragement, cold-blooded reverse psychology and offers of lavish rewards if I might just take a few steps back towards the land of the living. Inevitably, he’d end up slumped in the armchair in the corner for most of the time, waiting for visiting hours to be over, looking thoroughly deflated and dismayed. He couldn’t seem to fathom the reasons for my behavior. Maybe he really thought I’d finally lost my mind.

If Nikolai did fear for my sanity, he probably had good reason, because even I couldn’t offer a rational explanation for my current state. I knew what I was supposed to feel; sorrow, pain and rage would have been elements of a normal reaction. I should have cried, but tears hadn’t come, not since that fateful night when it seemed like I’d stopped feeling anything at all. The emptiness I felt was absolute, like the vacuum of space, and I was grateful for it. If the floodgates of emotion did open, I had no doubt that I’d be swept out to sea.

“Bethany was asking about you. You should give her a call.”

I thought about it for a second, but then dismissed the idea. I knew she was probably sick with worry, but I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone.

“I talked to the lawyer today. Things are moving along faster than any of us expected. The only thing they have against me is a signed statement by a protected witness, but since they have no solid evidence, the whole case goes up in smoke. Of course, they’ll try to get something out of it. The case will probably linger in the courts for a few months, but it won’t amount to anything,” he was looking at me curiously, as if he wasn’t sure whether I could even hear him.

“I haven’t mentioned it to you before, because I wasn’t sure how you’d react, but I think you should know... charges were filed against you as well
, as an accomplice.” he paused for a moment, anticipating a reaction.

“That charge was thrown out of court yesterday, thank God. The reason why it was dismissed is something of a mystery, though,” he got up from the bed and paced over to the window, staring out towards the drab parking lot.

From my position in bed, I could clearly make out his profile against the bright morning sunlight that shone into the room. Looking exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes and several days’ growth around his chin, he seemed to have aged twenty years in the last few days.

“I’ve decided to retire,” he said softly, running a hand through his hair.

For a couple of minutes, the ticking of the wall clock was the only sound in the room. I pulled a sheet closer to me and wrapped it around my shoulders. It may have been a bright summer’s morning, but I felt a chill that I couldn’t shake off. Perhaps it came from inside.

“I still can’t understand what the hell the two of you were doing there, or how you even knew where we’d meet. I’ve been trying to figure it out for days, but I can’t,” he shook his head and turned to me, his eyes begging me again for an answer.

I had no intention of explaining anything. And anyway, it didn't seem to matter much any more.

“If anything had happened to you, I... If the police hadn’t shot the goon down who tried to get you, I would have done
it myself. When I only think... If it wasn’t for...”

I closed my eyes determinedly
and forced myself to switch off, refusing to hear the rest of his sentence. I knew that a single word was enough to break the high wire I was balancing on, enough to break that fine line between inertia and the flood.

“ ...
and I’m glad it wasn’t you, that’s all.”

I sighed very deeply and kept my eyes closed, holding up my mental barrier with all my energy, as if it were a real thing I’d erected to protect me. Behind that wall there was his name, and all the feelings and memories that went along with it.

I was standing in front of the door to my apartment, staring at the keys in my hand, hesitating over the act of actually going inside. It had been an hour since Nikolai had driven me back from the hospital. He’d dropped me off a
nd ordered me to pack my stuff.

All the way he’d talke
d of nothing but his retirement and how things were going to be different now. He was focused on my wellbeing, he said, and was going to do anything necessary to help me take a break and enjoy some healing time. His plan was to whisk me off to one of his more remote ranches, where I could ‘come around in my own time’. It wasn’t long before that such a plan would have made me very angry. I’d have kicked up a storm and told him to go to hell, but this time I acquiesced without protest. I guess I was glad not to have to make any decisions for myself. It was easier not to think at all.

Taking a deep breath, I turned the key in the lock, opened the door and took a first, hesitant step into my apartment.

The air was stale and it was obvious that no one had been in there for a long time, especially since everything was exactly as I’d left it. Feeling like some kind of ghost returning to haunt an old family home, I passed through the living room and then the kitchen, looking around me at all the objects that had once been part of my life.

It
was hard to believe that only two months had passed since this had been my home; everything now seemed so strange, so foreign. Like years had passed since I’d made coffee in the kitchen, quarreled with Beth over whose turn it was to wash the dishes or fallen asleep on the couch in the living room. All those rituals belonged to a past life now.

Taking slow steps, I headed towards the bedrooms, keeping my eyes fixed down on the wooden floors, counting the steps. When I reached the narrow hallway, I stopped, raised my head slowly and looked towards the door at the far end.

This was where I’d stood, watching as he emerged in the mornings, frowning and grumbling to himself. This was where he’d leaned against the doorframe watching me and commented on my cleaning skills. And... this was where I stood, wishing he would go out of my life.

Seconds passed and turned to minutes, but I kept my eyes fixed on the door at the end of the hallway, the bar he installed on the doorframe still there. Even though I knew no one was behind it, I wished with all my heart it would open.

As time went by, the light coming from the living room gradually faded, until eventually I found myself standing in pitch darkness. Still, I went on staring at the door, with only memory to assure me it was still there, a few feet from my face.

My hands suddenly started to shake and my breathing changed drastically as panic set in. I couldn’t stand another moment in there; I turned and almost flew from the apartment. I kept running even when I got outside, and didn’t stop until my legs started to give way beneath me. Within seconds I’d flagged down a cab headed in my direction and clambered in, half stumbling in the process. When the driver asked me where I wanted to go, I could only stare at the reflection of his eyes in the mirror. And when the words finally spilled out of my mouth, I was amazed to find the address still there in my head.

It was a little over an hour before the taxi stopped in front of a small single-story house on the outskirts of the city. I was on some kind of autopilot setting as I paid the driver then got out of the car to trudge up the narrow gravel driveway, not stopping once to consider the ratio
nale behind my actions.

I rang the
bell twice in quick succession and had to wait a while before it opened.

“Sasha?”
Mike gasped.

He was obviously shocked to discover me on his doorstep.
Without meeting his eyes, I passed around him and moved into hallway, looking through a doorway into a room off to the left, where a dog was lying still on a large metal table, whimpering forlornly. A little late, I noticed that her belly was swollen and looked at Mike in the hope of an answer.

“Well, she’s about to give birth.”

“Do you need any help?” I said hoarsely, probably because it was only the second time I’d used my vocal cords in more than a week.

Apparently bemused by my suggestion, as well as my unannounced appearance, he looked me up and down
, and then concentrated seriously on my face. I was expecting him to be surprised when I turned up on his doorstep, not least because I’d found it hard to believe my own reflection in the mirror that morning.

Looking gaunt and pale, dark shadows lingered around my eyes, and the
T-shirt and jeans Nikolai had brought for me hung off my body, as though they were already two sizes too large. Even the thick, gold wedding band, which I clung to for dear life, was now in my pocket, since it felt loose and I was afraid of it falling off my finger.

Mike started to say something, probably wanting to ask what exactly I was doing there, but when our eyes met he closed his mouth and looked away.

“Sure,” he nodded and pointed to the faucet in the corner, “just wash your hands real well first, and put on the white coat that’s on the hanger over there.”

Chapter 1
4 – Eight

Eight months later.

I closed the front door behind me and sniffed the air, setting my keys down on the wooden dresser. After a week spent at the dig, which had meant unearthing dusty relics from dawn till dusk, boxing them up and then sleeping in a cramped tent, I’d been looking forward to getting home. To my dismay, I realized as soon as I walked through the door that the archaeological site was a more inviting place than what awaited me here.

I heaved off my heavy backpack and let it drop with a thud on the kitchen floor, following my nose and the odor of stale food through to the kitchen.

“Dear God...”

I stopped at the door and surveyed the scene in
awe. The sink and all the surfaces were obscured beneath dirty dishes, empty noodle boxes and other kinds of junk food. Beneath a pile of papers on the table there was a plate with the remains of something like a half-eaten meatball sandwich on it, well on its way to becoming penicillin. A fat, striped ginger tomcat lay curled up asleep in the big metal colander. As I watched, he opened one eye ruefully and gave a lazy yawn.

“Get down!”

I marched over and tipped him out. He let out a cry to show his consternation before landing deftly on his feet, evidently giving this unexpected turn of events some consideration before stretching and shaking his tail in the air.

I shook my head despairingly and moved through the living room, picking up many articles of clothing on my way before coming to an eventual stop in front of bedroom door. Turning the knob a little more loudly than necessary, I entered and quickly
kicked the door shut behind me.

Letting the bundle of clothes I was carrying fall i
nto a messy heap on the floor, hands planted firmly on my hips, I glared down at the man lying on the bed, his arms and legs sticking out of the twisted sheets at unlikely angles. From somewhere under the mess his snoring stopped for a second, but then continued louder than before.

“Wake up, you rotten bastard!” I yelled and yanked the cover off him.

”Mmhmmm,” Mike’s muffled groans of displeasure reached me.

“Quit wallowing in your lair and get busy s
orting out this pigsty we call home!”

He raised his head a little to look at me through a haze of sleep,
then turned away and immediately pulled a pillow over his head. Realizing the hopelessness of it, I flopped down on the bed myself and turned to face the ceiling.

“Serves me right, I guess,” I murmured.

Quite a lot of time had passed since I’d arrived unannounced on Mike’s doorstep. That evening, after several agonizing hours of waiting to discover the fate of one of the puppies - the poor thing had been born with a lung defect - I’d fallen asleep on his couch. When he mentioned the room in the attic the next day and offered it to me if I wanted to stay, I accepted, not thinking for a moment that I’d still be there eight months later.

It still surprised me
that I hadn’t searched out Bethany right away. Maybe I was afraid of the awkward questions she’d have fired at me, the answers to which I just didn't have.

I did see Bethany and Paolo a few weeks after I got out of hospital, and it turned out they’d actually gotten together and were planning to move to Italy. It put a strain on my mind to try to figure out how that might have happened, since it was weird to imagine them as a couple, but
many things had obviously changed in month I was gone. Difficult as it was to accept that my two best friends were leaving, I was still happy for them.

Since I no longer had a roommate, and I couldn’t imagine living on my own, it made sense to stay on at Mike’s. He didn’t mind at all, in fact he seemed thrilled to have some company, as well as someone to clean up after him.

Mike turned out to be a walking disaster. Never in my life had I met anyone more disorganized, and it was a constant wonder to me that all those animals he operated on came round with their right vital organs fixed and in place. I eventually managed to bring a little order to the place, but whenever I went away, even for a day or two, anarchy would swiftly return.

From the way he acted, he was just like a fifteen-year old trapped in a twenty-four-year-
old’s body. But in spite of his many faults, I’d grown very fond of him, and maybe felt towards him something of what he felt for the stray animals people brought in, and which he treated free of charge.

Most of the time we enjoyed each other’s company,
even though he’d complain that I was ‘mistreating and psychologically oppressing him by means of my perfectionist manias’ and then threaten to ‘kick me out of the window along with the vacuum cleaner and the scrubbing brush’. But I knew he didn’t really mean it.

If I ignored his air of catastrophe and lack of any sense of order, Mike was really a great housemate and from time to time he reminded me of Bethany. We soon became very open and relaxed around each other, and after a spell I started to look on him as the brother I never had.

In the beginning, I’d go to him for advice about small things, like how to get Internet in his place or how to use my new phone. I quickly realized that he knew nothing of such practical matters, since I invariably wound up in a bigger muddle after his ‘help’. Over time, though, I started to turn to him with all sorts of other problems and dilemmas, and eventually the only topic of conversation left out of bounds was Alex. Mike had started down that road in conversation a few times, but recognized my wish to drop the subject and never pressed me. However, it became obvious early on that he knew more about the situation than I’d initially assumed.

“You’re not supposed to be here until the weekend,” Mike grunted under his pillow.

“Well it’s a good thing I am, because I think you probably would have died of some infectious disease if I’d stayed away much longer. How in the hell did you manage to make such a mess in just one week?”

“Don’t nag...” he drawled, throw
ing the pillow in my direction. “You’re overreacting…”

“Overreacting? When I came in, that monster of yours was sleeping in a kitchen utensil, not to mention...” I stopped in mid-sentence and took a closer look at the mop on top of his head. “What have you done to yourself?” I asked after a pause for delayed shock.

“What do you mean?” he frowned a little and raised a hand to feel the vulture’s nest on top of his head. “Dreadlocks are a total hit. They’re ace, right?”

“Amazing... You look like one of those guys who stand round fires under the bridge!”

“And you, on the other hand, are ready for the cover of Vogue now for certain,” he hit back sarcastically.

“Maybe I’m not ready for that yet, but at least I don’t risk growing tree roots on my head. Looks like a paradise for all kinds of bugs and rodents…
Eugh!”

“Yack
yack yack...” he raised himself to nudge me in the shoulder and extricated himself from the sheets, bending down to sift through the heap of clothes I’d dumped on his floor. “At least I don’t look like I poked my fingers in the electricity sock…”

“Bite me!”

I’d had long hair for as long as I could remember, so it was hard for me to get used to my new cut. Even after two months I still found myself moving to tie it back in a ponytail or tuck it behind my ear, realizing a little behind the beat that it simply wasn’t there any more. Now I had a bleached blonde bob and my hair didn’t reach out further than four inches anywhere.

“Hey, no need to be self-conscious. You know even with that Einstein hairstyle, you’re still my favorite porcelain doll,” he threw me a wink over his shoulder.

“Get lost, please!” I jumped off the bed and pointed a threatening finger at him, “I’m going to clean up this hen coop and you‘d better not get under my feet, ‘cause I’m sorely tempted to come over and slap you silly right now.”

“Yes, Sir!” he stood and brought his left foot down on the floor, bringing his hand up in mock salute. “I’m leaving right away. There’s work to be done anyway, and on the way back I’ll swing by the store. There’s nothing in the fridge ‘
cept a shriveled zucchini.”

“Why am I not surprised,” I shook my head and went back to the living room, moving over to the TV to pick up the
T-shirts piled on top of it.

It took me more than four hours to clean up the bear pit our place had turned into, but finally I was done and standing under the hot spray of the shower. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the water pouring down over my body, feeling the heat penetrate through to my bones. For a long time, I hadn’t been able to feel much of anything, so maybe this was a sign that I was coming back to myself.

When I was sure that I was squeaky clean and that I’d rinsed all the suds out of my hair, I got out of the shower and stared at my reflection in the mirror. With the fi
ngers of one hand I reached out, wiped away the steam caught on the mirror from right to left, gazing into the empty blue eyes reflected in the glass.

S
top lying to yourself
.

I’d become my own explorer
and every day I searched for life at the bottom of these deep dark holes in the ice. There wasn’t any.

“This place looks like a real house again!” Mike sounded impressed as he entered the kitchen some time later, carrying with him the smell of the night air outside.

“Well
, certainly no thanks to you. Where were you the whole day, anyway?”

“I told you I had work to do,” he grinned at my annoyance.

“Don’t tell me, you met some college sophomore at the mall and had a wonderful time, but she had to get home before she turned into a pumpkin.”

“What? Where’d you get that idea?” he approached me from behind and put his
hands on my hips, “You know there’s only one cutie for me.”

“Get those dirty hands off me, you player
, or you will get hurt.”

“OK, OK... No violence, please,” he raised his arms in surrender and sat down at the
table.

“That’s the way to my heart, obedient like a lapdog,” I pinched his cheek, tapped him on the head with a spoon and sat next to him.

“You know, I’ve been trying to solve this enigma for a long time now.”

“Enigma?
”.

“Well yeah, I’m trying to figure out how you can be so indifferent to me when I’m such a fine example of a man in his prime?”

“I soldier on somehow.” I burst out laughing.

“There’s no need to hold back now. It must be a real test to resist a hunk like me. Sasha, honey, you and I would make a perfect couple. Why don’t we get married and have a bunch of kids? They’d all be pretty like you and bookish like me. Huh? What do you think?”

“Maybe it’s time you stopped smoking pot,” giggling, I lit a cigarette and blew the smoke towards his head.

In spite of the fact that I’d always hated cigarettes, I’d gotten properly hooked a few months earlier, around the time I quit taking the sleeping pills.

“Oh… come on, admit you’re not wholly indifferent to my charms.”

“I’m sorry to shatter your illusions, but you’re like my favorite little brother… the goofy not-too-bright one everyone adores.”

“Ha ha, you’re pretty funny,” he grabbed a roll of paper towels and bashed me on the head with it. “Don’t go changing the subject though.”

“What subject?”

”You know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t.”

“Doll, I really think it’s time you take a look outside of that shell of yours and start seeing other people again…”

“What are you talking about? I see people.”

“I didn’t mean girlfriends from your class. I meant other men.”

The smile fell from my lips in a moment and I found myself rising to my feet, but before I could leave the table Mike took hold of my arm to stop me. It was obvious this time he wasn’t content to let the matter drop.

“Don’t.” I half-whispered, but he just shook his head and leaned towards me.

“He’s not coming back.
”

“I know that
!” I shouted in his face, twisting my arm to make it known that I wouldn’t listen to any more, before storming out of the kitchen.

When I got to my room in the loft I let the hatch fall closed with a bang then threw myself down on the bed to stare at the stars through the skylight.
A meteorite streaked the sky, its tail hanging in the atmosphere.

Mike was right, but I couldn’t bring myself to look on any man as more than a friend.
I’d given the matter a lot of thought and even experimented a little, in my own detached way. A couple of times I went out with some girls from my year, and one time I got talking to a guy. I met him again and he was sweet, and he really wanted for us to be more than friends. He was nice and all, but when I let him kiss me and felt his lips touch against my own, I knew I was only deceiving myself. How could I force myself to be with someone just because it made sense, when all I felt in the pit of my stomach was revulsion?