Shifting my position in my chair for the third time, I crossed my legs to settle once more, losing my spot on the page for the last time before giving up.
Arkady hadn’t come home for lunch, and I didn’t know why I expected a different outcome from every other day. The weather tonight was going south faster than my mood. The slow, dark clouds crept across the sky and gave us one less hour of true daylight. They seemed heavy, ready to melt into spring showers.
“Foolish,” I muttered to myself, tapping the surface of the kitchen counter as I finished a few small pieces of spiced pears and cream.
I wondered if the night before had been some lucid dream. Perhaps I’d imagined the tenderness, the familiarity. I should have changed before; I looked silly wearing nice undergarments for ghosts. It was past time I retired anyway.
The more I thought about it, the hotter my face got, and the more abuse my lip endured from chewing on it.
I snuffed the candles after I finished my meal. The last candle guided me as my feet dragged along the newly bare hallway. I still wasn’t used to the floor being uncovered. There was even a pale spot of virgin wood that had never gotten to see the light until now. Its first exposure christened by an unsightly brown stain.
The front door creaked open, a flash and the chatter of rain smacking the pavement ringing clear.
Arkady dragged himself inside, wiping his shoes on the carpet as he shook the rain off his umbrella, a satchel stretched across him under his coat.
“You’re home.” I stood straight, placing the candle carefully on the table.
He glanced up at my words as the door closed behind him, a few wet, misplaced strands of hair falling in front of his face, as if I’d interrupted a conversation in his head.
I hadn’t meant for my words to be any sort of aggression, but my frustration wasn’t unfair.
“I was going to turn in.” I crossed my arms, pulling my robe closer. “I can leave the last few candles lit—”
“Stay” is all he said, shedding his coat and tossing it over a hook, water dripping in an unpredictable tempo onto the hardwood.
I squinted at him, unsure if I’d heard him right. “I can leave you to rest, it looks like you had a rough—”
He strutted across the living room, confident in each stride, before he hastily dumped the satchel’s contents.
A collection of fruits rolled around the coffee table as they fell from the sack.
“I thought you hated fruit.”
“I didn’t say that,” he said. “I was curious, is all.”
“I don’t need this.”
“Yes, you do.” He went to the kitchen, the clinking of silverware sounding as he rustled through the drawers, slapping them shut in triumph when he found his desired tool.
I sat down in one of the armchairs, staring at the pile with my arms crossed, one leg resting over the other.
While I didn’t understand his bizarre behavior, it was one step above ignoring me, so I decided to entertain it.
He returned with a knife.
“I thought when you said you’d cook for me, it would be something with more substance.”
“Behave, or I’ll refrain from bringing you nice things,” he warned, gesturing playfully with the knife. “Close your eyes, we are playing a game.”
“A game? Are we adolescents?”
“I can’t speak foryou,” he teased. “Trust me.”
I glanced from the knife to him.
“Do you trust me?”
“Not one bit.”
