One cannot survive without a heart. And you have mine, Aurora. Where you go, I go.
And now I can’t breathe if you’re not around.
My heart gives out a painful pinch as if to tell me something. As if to prove some kind of point but my mind shushes it. I can’t…
“Severin?” Stella snaps her eyes to me with furrowed brows. I bite the corner of my lip and wince, forgetting it was bleeding mere minutes ago. “Minaev? Severin Minaev from the Outlaws? Their goalie? The one who Emett’s been going on and on about?”
“Yeah.” I clear my throat that cracks. “That’s the one.”
“What is he doing creeping outside your house?”
“He’s the one who found me…saved me, tonight.”
Stella is quiet for a second and then she says, pensively, “Huh…well, isn’t he a peach pistol. Do you want to invite him in?”
Yes.
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“What was he doing in Iris Lake? Didn’t they just have a game today?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her, without taking my eyes off the car outside.
“Oh, but I think you do,” she says, making my head turn her way where she stands beside me, watching me like she can read my every conflicting emotion on the inside. “I think your heart knows better than you do, ray of my sunshine. Why don’t you start listening to it?”
“Nothing good has ever come out of me listening to my heart, Stella.” I slide down to the floor, wrapping the blanket around my body tighter and stay there, silently watching him. “It’s always been wrong.”
“Has it?” I turn my head to Stella and back to the window, to the man who keeps coming back.
Hasn’t it?
Stella sighs, like she knows something I don’t but leaves me to it. A few minutes later, she places a warm mug of tea in front of me and leaves. I can just make out her tiny form walking toward Severin’s truck, staying there for a moment before she gets into her own car and drives off.
But he stays, and the minutes turn into hours.
Every place on my skin where he touched, kissed or nibbled on, burns with the severity of his presence out there, in the dark night.
18
18 – Shitshow
Aurora
Bang,bang,bang.Theassault on my front door continues for a solid minute until I realize what’s happening and rise from my bed, rubbing sleep out of my eyes that’s been elusive these past two nights.
“Mommy? Is there an earthquaky thing happening?” Emett mumbles into his pillow, still half asleep.
I stifle a laugh. “No, no earthquaky thing is happening. Someone is just knocking at our door,” I whisper, getting up from the bed and throwing my robe on as I chase away the early morning chills.
The temperatures plummeted again and that means I’ll need to budget for more heating again. Can’t spring just come finally?
Bang, bang, bang.
And can they stop doing that!? Jesus Christ it’s…I pick up my phone, seeing that it’s not even five in morning and barely stifle a curse. Who in the world could come here at this hour?
