Perfect Opposite (14 page)

“We got away”, I declared, “I guess the crowd slowed him down.”

“So what are we gonna do now? Go home?”

“Of course not,” I tried to sound firm and gave the driver the address of the club where the after party was going to happen.

“Are you sure? If he found us here... maybe he’ll follow us there too?”

“No way.
He probably realized straight off that I’d gone with you to the concert, after he came round. He could easily have checked the venue on the Internet, but I don’t think it’d be as easy to find the party.”

“I hope you're right
, because he seemed really, really angry.”

“No wonder,” I tried to laugh, “I can only imagine what kind of dent his ego got when he woke up to find
me gone.”

“I don’
t even want to think about it. And how come he woke up so soon? One pill should have been enough to keep him asleep till noon tomorrow! That’s what I thought, anyway.”

“Maybe the ones Ryan gave you were out of date
.”

“No, I checked the bottle,” she shook her head, “But isn’t all
this little beside the point? OK, he said you couldn’t go to the concert, but how come he can even decide something like that? Ever since he showed up he follows you round and he never lets you out of his sight, like you two are joined at the hip or something. Why do you let it go on like that?”

Oh,
crap!

My brain was suddenly working overtime, going over all excuses possible, but none of them sounded even remotely plausible. Everything Beth said was right and I’d been expecting her to launch into these kinds of questions. Maybe the only surprising thing was that she’d waited this long. I’d hoped to have a little more time than this to come up with an explanation. I didn’t want to lie, but I couldn’t tell her the truth either.

“Alex feels protective towards me... far too protective. He probably thinks now that we live together I’m his responsibility. And just look at his personality. He’s a control freak if ever there was one…” I kept my eyes fixed on the road ahead throughout, not looking Bethany in the face once.

“Well OK, but couldn’t you talk things over with him? Why did we have to drug him to go to the concert? I went along with it and all, but bizarre or what?”

“With him, there’s no discussion. When he gets something in his stubborn head there’s no more arguing. I wanted just to avoid all the squabbling and go with you tonight,” I shrugged, though it felt sort of forced.

“Sasha, you and I both know that what you just said is a big pile of steaming horse shit. You never back out of a fight. In fact, you get off on them! There’s something else going on. Something you’re not telling me.”

“You're wrong,” I turned my face to the window.

“Whatever you say.
I don’t want to push it any more. But when you’re ready to talk about it, I’ll be here to listen, OK?”

I only nodded
and we were both quiet for the rest of the cab ride.

When we got inside the club it was already packed out and it seemed like a popular enough place on any night. Feeling guilty that I’d lied to Beth, and nervous at the thought of facing Alex, who’s head might actually explode pretty soon, I felt a powerful urge to run off and hide like an injured pussycat.

Not having any better options, I headed straight for the bar. Beth saw where this all was going and opted to join a table full of guys nearby. They’d been looking over at us since we walked in and seemed more than happy with her intrusion.

Only after I’d felt the second vodka burn in my throat did I remember that I’d sworn off the demon drink only few weeks before. It might have been true that I rarely drank in general, but I had been totally wasted tree times in last month or so. To make matters even worse, I’d been driven to the bottle each of those times by a man. To be clear, I don’t see anything wrong with a drink or two to loosen up at parties and get into the groove. Drinking to escape your problems is another thing. That’s just kind of sad. And, this time it wasn’t about forgetting Tyler. Now there was another guy on my mind.

T
he image of Alex comatose on the couch had been in the back of my mind all night, as had the sting of remorse for what I’d done. Nikolai had been right when he accused me of acting like a brat and not facing up to reality. My recklessness only confirmed that, but what worried me most was the idea that Alex would be kind of disappointed in me. I wasn’t happy either that his opinion was suddenly so important.

In the absence of a better companion, I lifted my glass of vodka and looked at it questioningly. Maybe there was some truth at the bottom of a glass after all.

“You know, Vodka, all this shit that’s been happening has really rattled my cage, mentally. For real! I already get panic attacks; I don’t want a bad case of Stockholm syndrome on top of everything else.”

The bartender, who wasn’t much of a distance from me, stopped fixing a cocktail for a second and threw me a puzzled look. Ignoring his question-mark expression, I drained my glass and prepared a flirtatious smile for the boys gathered round Beth. I thought I might just let myself go and prove that Al
ex was just a flash in the pan.

I’d been lonely after
breaking up with Tyler and that’s all there is to it.

Ten
minutes later I was deeply involved in a totally meaningless conversation with a blonde haired guy. I didn’t catch his name, but I was smiling at him like there were no tomorrow. When he asked for my number, I thought what the hell and nodded. He seemed like fun and made me laugh a lot, but he reminded me of a dollar bill that went through the washing machine by accident and came out all faded.

Very soon,
I was standing with my back pressed up against him, feeling strange about his tongue, which was wetly moving around my earlobes. It wasn't as seductive as he, obviously, thought it was going to be.

Observing the crowd
in front of me, I saw two men entering the club and blinked a few times in a real state of shock. If the blonde guy hadn’t been holding me round the waist, I’d probably have ended up on the floor.

This is not happening
!

The first to appear out of the ether was Paolo. He was dancing frantically to the beat of the music. Behind him, hands in his pockets, coolly scanning the crowd stood Alex, and then his eyes were suddenly on me. I thought for a second I might be imagining things. It was surely impossible that he’d found me so fast.

He started approaching in long strides that were better suited to some big animal of prey set to pounce. Revelers in the crowd seemed to sense something and quickly cleared out of his way, leaving him a straight line in which to approach. I closed my eyes with the foolish hope that like in some fairytale, the monster might just disappear, but when I smelled him close to my face, everything came crashing down.

“Oh
, no!” I yelped and slowly opened my eyes.

Alex was standing right in front of me and to my astonishment he seemed quite composed. I’d expected him to lash out, start dragging me off, or even lay into the blonde haired guy. But like the very model of tranquility, he observed me and the scene around without saying a word. Timidly, I raised my eyes to concentrate on his face. There was simply nothing there to read. If any facial expression could reveal absolutely zero, he had it then.

I wriggled free of the blonde guy’s embrace and, feeling as though I were about to face a firing squad, let my legs carry me to towards the door of the club, with Alex trailing behind me. As we were leaving the place, I caught sight of Bethany and Paolo leaning up against the bar, watching in amazement and whispering to each other, but not doing anything to get in my way.

I sto
pped when I got to the sidewalk and looked around for a big black motorcycle, but it was nowhere to be seen. Moving past me, Alex went straight up to an old Volvo parked at the curb, opened the passenger door and looked me in the eyes. My legs were trembling as I got in, and I expected him to slam the door hard. Instead, it only clicked shut before he moved around the front and got in behind the wheel, still not saying a word.

“I didn’t know you have
a car.“ I said, trying to make my voice sound normal.

Ignoring my comment, Alex bent down, twisted two wires hanging down under the wheel and somehow made the engine start. Shocked, I looked from him to the
wires, then back again.

“Guess I shouldn’t ask
how you got the car...” I finally heard the words come out of my mouth and sat back in my seat.

For some time we drove in silence, my level of anxiety rising with every passing block. A million questions raced through my mind, though I wasn’t sure it would be wise to ask anything given the situation. I glanced at Alex a few times, but he was still a blank slate.

“I’ll tell Beth I’m not coming back,” I said, waiting for a reaction.

Nothing.
He didn’t even look at me. I waited a few more seconds, pulled the phone out of my purse and quickly typed a message. It crossed my mind that he must have tried to call me after he woke up, but that I hadn’t noticed it ringing. Curious to know just how many times he’d tried, I checked my missed calls. Seven from Paolo. None from Alex. Baffled, I carefully put the phone back in my purse and turned to him.

“How did you know where I was
?“

Silence.

No response, no reaction. He just drove the way a limo driver might, acting like I wasn’t there at all.

I took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the road ahead. I didn’t know how to come to terms with his lack of emotion, and after all I’d done this was the last thing I expected. His silence felt somehow even more menacing than the alternative, so I drew my knees up to my chest and stayed that way for the rest of the drive, not saying a word.

When we got to our neighborhood, Alex parked the car in front of the building next to ours, apparently returning it to its rightful owner, then beckoned with a movement of his head for me to follow him to our door. He stayed a pace behind, never letting me out of his sight.

Though I couldn’t see his face, I felt his eyes burn into the back of my neck. I was the one to unlo
ck the door and I had an idea that I might run straight to my room, but when I made it through the apartment door, I stopped straightaway.

The coffee table that used to sit in front of the
couch was now lying upside down, and shards of glass from its top now lay scattered across magazines strewn across the floor. Parts of a broken flower vase lay in a puddle of water, along with some wilted roses. I studied the room a little more, but it seemed like the coffee table and what had been on it were the only things that had been damaged.

I thought someone had broken into the apartment while we were out, but rejected the possibility when Alex approached the table and righted it with one hand before moving it back into place. Ignoring the glass that crunched underneath his boots, he walked casually across the room, sat down in the armchair across from me and motioned me with his eyes to sit on the couch. For quite some time I could only look at him, feeling like this was the first time we properly met.

“You’re an animal!” I started yelling when I recovered myself a little, “What gives you the right to smash up my stuff?”

“Sit down,” was all he said, though I didn’t see his lips move.

I felt my palms start to sweat and my cheeks turning crimson, and it seemed like I might actually be getting ready to hit him. However much my instincts told me that was a stupid thing to do, I paid little regard.

“I won’t! Who do you think you are, acting this way? What's the matter with you? Are you mad because a
girl gave you the slip? I guess your ego couldn’t take it so you vented your anger on the furniture. You like destroying things, huh?”

“Sasha,” he whispered very softly.

“No one, hear me, no one will tell me anymore what I can and can’t do! It’s my life and I don’t plan on spending it locked inside four walls. Eighteen years I spent hiding, but it's over with it! And if you have some problem with that, you can pick up your stuff and get back to the hell you came from!”

Furious
, I rushed to my room and locked the door behind me with shaking hands. Climbing into the bed, I curled up against the headboard and was still breathing fast when Alex's footsteps approached and then fell silent outside my door.

“Sasha,” he pressed down on the handle and tried to open it.

“Leave me alone!”

“Let me in,” he said in an even lower voice than I’d heard before, but not loudly.

“Go away!”

For a few moments everything was quiet, and just when I thought he’d decided to leave me alone until the morning, the door seemed
to burst off its hinges, bending first before giving way under pressure. I screamed and pressed my head back even further against the board, watching as Alex came into the room and sat down in my chair, his head bent slightly to one side, an inscrutable expression on his face.

If I hadn’t been paralyzed with fear because a
maniac had just broken into my room, I surely would have let rip another almighty scream. As it was, fat tears began rolling down my face, and I wasn’t sure whether they were from fear or anger.