Perfect Opposite (28 page)

There was a soft knocking on the hatch and a few seconds later it lifted a little to reveal Mike’s mess of hair and a pair of sad-looking eyes.

“Sorry,” he whispered and clambered up sheepishly.

Smiling, I patted the bed next to where I was lying. It was impossible to be very angry with him, especially when he looked at me with those eyes of his; the same ones that I’d seen shed tears over a dead canary.

“I didn’t tell you earlier because I wanted to savor the moment, but yesterday they offered me the job of assistant at the university,” he flopped down on the bed but was careful not to spill any
wine from the bottle he was holding. Pointing to it with his other hand, he looked serious, “I think it’s time to celebrate.”

“You’re shitting me!
I told you they will hire you!”

“
It was about time. This was my third time to apply,” he took a glass from one of the pockets on his shirt and filled it to the brim before handing it over.

“I don’t even remember the last time I took a drink,” I acce
pted the glass and took a sip, “but if this isn’t a good reason then I don’t know what it is.”

“Well, now I feel like I’m leading you astray.”

“Oh yeah, you’re totally leading me astray.”

“Your Dad
called the other day to ask about you. He said he couldn’t reach you. I guess you didn’t want to talk to him.”

After six months in and out of the courts, and a ridiculous amount of money thrown at numerous lawyers, all charges against Nikolai were dropped. I was pretty sure he’d paid as much money on the side as he had across the table, but I didn't give the matter too much thought. As he’d promised, there’d been nothing but legitimate business since
then.

Of all things, he’d wound up involved in the organic food production and was already incredibly successful at it. If anyone had told me a year earlier that Nikolai would become a farmer of sorts, I’d have laughed in their face.

“I wasn’t in the mood to talk to my dear father,” I shrugged, drained my glass and took a refill.

“Maybe you should go and see him.
..”

“What, and put up with that expression on his face, like he’s looking at his daughter the mental case? No thanks.”

“Stop that. You’re not a mental case.”

“I’m glad at least one of us thinks so.”

I knocked back the second glass and shut my eyes, letting my neck come to rest against the upholstered headboard. I felt my body relax gradually as my mind took on that floating feeling I associated with being drunk, like a child’s bunch of balloons released to the breeze.

Wow. I’m really out of shape
.

In the silence I could hear the sound of cars on the street outside and I tried to imagine all the people and the homes
they might be rushing back to.

After some time I remembered that Mike was adrift on the same ship as me, and that he hadn’t spoken for quite some time. Opening my eyes to look at him, I could see that his brow was creased in the middle, and that he was staring at
his glass.

“Why the gloomy face?”

“I’m thinking...” he shrugged and emptied his glass.

“H
mm... sounds painful.”

“Maybe,” he avoided my eyes as he took a swig from the bottle
cradled between us.

“I’m not used to seeing you so
moody,” I nudged him in the ribs and snatched the bottle from his hand, “Spill the beans!”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Knock that off. You know you can say whatever’s on your mind. Anyway look, I probably won’t remember a thing in the morning.”

I grinned and brought the bottle smacking to my lips again, waiting for an answer that didn't come. Instead of words, he reached over for my hand and brought it up toward his face to study the thick, gold ring on my finger.

“Why?” he asked quietly, “Why did you keep it on all this time? Wouldn’t it be easier to forget if you took it off?”

For a moment I couldn’t swallow as I fought against the brick he’d thrown into the water. I might be ready for this line of questioning eventually, but not yet. That said
, the alcohol coursing through my veins definitely went some way to freeing my tongue.

“Maybe... well
maybe I don’t want to forget.”

“That’s what I thought,” he pressed his hands to his eyes and shook his head. “You know... I’ve always wondered what you saw in him. Not that it’s anything new. I never met a girl who didn't fall at his feet. It was enough just to set eyes on him and they’d start batting their lashes right away, as if they had damned conjunctivitis.”

“Yeah... I know what you mean,” I remembered Bethany’s reaction when she’d first run into Alex and smiled wistfully.

“While we were roommates, I always ended up playing his secretary. Man, the amount of times I had to make up excuses for that guy. I’ll never forget the time the phone rang for six hours straight. In the end I had to rip the cord out of the wall and throw the damn thing out the window.”

I should have told him to shut up and stop talking about Alex, because every new word cut me deeper, but instead, I lingered over each fresh insight, soaking up the feeling that memories of him were being brought out of the shadows just a little.

“All that changed when he went on his first
undercover assignment, though. When he came back, six months later, man I hardly recognized him. Tattoos and a shaved head, he looked like the leader of some LA gang. He just strode into the apartment, collected his stuff and left without saying a word. To be honest, he always seemed a little crazy in the head, but since then... it only got worse. Sometimes it took me hours just to get him to relax and shoot the breeze a little. “

The bottle was nearly empty and I stared at the light reflected on its surface, then poured the last of it into my glass with a flick of my wrist. The room was starting to float a little so I set my head against Mike’s shoulder.

“Unfortunately,” he continued, “that did absolutely nothing to put the girls off his scent of course - quite the opposite, in fact. They buzzed around him like bees after pollen and there seemed to be more of them, the more distant he became.”

“Were there really a lot of them?” I struggled, feeling the words heavy on my tongue.

“A lot of what?”

“Girls.”

“Does it matter?” he leaned over and stroked my cheek gently with the back of his hand, “Why would you beat yourself up over it?”

F
or a few moments he just watched without saying a word, and when our eyes met, I sensed him flinch and look away fast.

“You still love him,” he bit down on the words.

“Yeah...”

It’
s absurd, I know, t
he fact that my heart still beats for
a person who isn't among the living anymore. But, yes. I still love him. And I think that I always will.

Every morning, before I opened my eyes, I expected to see his gray eyes watching me. Every day, when I walked down the street, I felt a certain confidence when I remembered him by my side. When I was out, I looked for anything that might remind me of him in the guys I met. I still slept on the left side of the bed because that’s how it had been – he was always on the right, not far away.

“I never cared...” I croaked, “I always knew he didn’t feel the same way, but I never cared...”

“Well, that’s some irony,” Mike la
ughed sourly and shook his head. “You have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Don’t. Please
, don’t try to make me feel better. There’s no need. I knew it and I accepted it.”

I buried my face deeper under Mike’s shoulder and closed my eyes, listening to his deep breathing.

“You know, doll ... the most difficult thing is to open the eyes of those who don’t wanna see.”

I wasn’t sure how much time I spent curled next to Mike, and when he spoke again the first light of dawn was already breaking.

“You never asked me what Alex’s real name was. Why?”

“Because, it didn’t matter. I never knew that other guy...” I whispered.

“Maybe you should have asked, doll.”

“I’m not sure if I want to know.”

He took my left hand and spread my fingers so that they fanned out, bringing it up with his own so that my wedding band was right in front of my eyes.

“Because of his Russian origin, he was almost always sent to missions that were linked to the Russian mafia. Aleksey, Roman, Dimitri... these are just some of the names he used when he was working on different operations, but his real name is Oleg,” he paused for a moment and squeezed my hand, “Oleg Andreyev.”

At first I didn’t understand what he meant to say
. The name did sound familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. And then I remembered.

It’s not possible.

The ID Alex showed me the day we “got married”. The one he used when we filled in the marriage papers at the town hall.

“But... but he told me that
those were fake documents,” I blinked a few times and put my hand over my mouth, “Why?”

“So they wouldn’t get
him to testify against you.”

Horror-stricken, I could only stare at
Mike.

“Oleg was going to be the key witness in
the case against your father and his partners.” he sighed and looked away, “ Then he found out charges were brought against you as well, and that was the only way to avoid having to testify against you. By law, spouses can’t testify against each other...”

One, two, three...

I started to count to myself, trying to fight off the demons that were breaking through the walls I’d put up around myself.

“
There wasn’t any ‘bounty’ on your head, doll. He made that up because he couldn’t tell you the truth. When he told me what he’d done I said he was mad, ‘cause there was a real risk it would get him fired or even sent to prison.”

“But
, why? Why did he do that?” I whispered, my voice barely audible.

“Why
?“ Mike let out a bitter laugh and dropped his eyes, “I’ve known it since that night when you both showed up at my door. The expression on his face when you passed out told me everything I needed to know. Oleg would never have admitted it, of course... but I clocked it straight off,” Mike’s voice was coming to me from far, far away.

Four, five...

I felt cracks grow in the dam I’d come to rely on.

“A month later, he burst in when I was in the middle of surgery and pushed an envelope full of money and some plane tickets into my hand.
He pointed a bloody gun at me, crazy son of a bitch, and made me promise to take you out of the country if anything went wrong, and if the police came after you. Well... that sealed it for me...”

Six, seven...

“I really didn’t think my friend would ever come back to this world and fall in love. I guess I was wrong.”

Eight, nine...

I didn’t get any further because the walls that had kept me composed crumbled in an instant. After more than half a year I felt the tears well up finally and roll down my cheeks unbidden.

Everything I’d kept inside for all this time - pain, sadness, anger, guilt, remorse... within moments everything had collapsed and crowded in on me. The fire burning in my soul turned into a blaze that threatened to engulf the whole world as I twisted the sheets in my hands and held back the scream that was building in my throat. I buried my face in a pillow, and let it out.

***

The following day I woke up at seven in the evening.

Although it had been morning for quite some time when I eventually fell asleep, that hadn’t stopped me from waking barely an hour later in a cold sweat. I’d only managed to get to sleep a second time after taking the damp sheets off the bed and wandering aimlessly through the house for a couple of hours, memorizing the various street scenes visible through the different windows of the house.

This routine had become more or less normal for me, since the nightmares had become an intrinsic feature of my life. I’d more or less come to terms with the fact that I’d have to revisit that fateful, hellish hour, night after night in my dreams. It was my own, personal purgatory as I hung between the land of the l
iving and that of the dead. But, if my stupidity and stubbornness had led directly to the death of the man I loved, then it was only right that I never be allowed to forget it.

Moving my feet down off the bed and onto the floor, I felt crumpled sheets between my toes and then discarded clothing from the night before as I made my way to the bathroom. Avoidi
ng my reflection in the mirror, I stepped straight into the shower to let the water bring me round.

I put on the first clean clothes
I could lay my hands on and went down to the kitchen in search of something to silence the oompah orchestra and the disco lights in my head. In a drawer mostly filled with bits of string and old screws, I found a blister pack of aspirin and swallowed two, washing them down with some filter coffee Mike had left in a cup in the fridge. Waiting for the pills to take effect, I sat down at the table and lit a cigarette, watching the tomcat’s belly rise and fall as he dozed lazily next to the sink.