25
JASON
We leave the pub, the noise and the curious eyes that haven’t taken their leave of us, even for a second. I hold Alex to me and kiss her temple as I feel her shaking by my side.
“Are you nervous?” I ask, looking at her.
“No, I’m fine, I’m just cold.”
“Well then, let’s get off the street. I’ll take you to dinner, what do you say?”
“To be honest, I’m tired and I don’t really feel like going out.”
“Want me to bring you home?”
“To your house. Bring me to your place.”
To my place?Good Lord.
“O-okay,” I murmur, not quite convinced.
“Don’t you want to?”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t you want to be with me?”
What the hell kind of question is that? I want to be with her every second of every damned day. It just makes me nervous being too close to her alone. Because I’m afraid to accelerate things, afraid to hurt her.
“Of course I want to be with you, Alex. Let’s go home, I’ll make you something to eat and we can do what you want. Watch a movie, play cards…”
“Play cards?” She’s making fun of me, and she’s right. I’d do the same thing if I were in her place.
“Anything you want.”
She smiles and lets her head relax on my shoulder.
Whatever you want, Alex.
Anything that makes you feel good and keeps you living.
“Need a hand?”
When we get home I open the fridge and pull out what I’m able to dig up. We’re not great architects of food in this house. We’re lazy and always in a rush, we don’t have time for shopping or cooking, but Rain likes to go to the market and when we’re lucky, we can scrape up something edible.
I’ve found a chicken, some mushrooms, potatoes and am trying to put everything together in a pan, with passable results.
“It’s almost ready, relax.”
As I’m at the stove in the kitchen, I hear Alex moving around in the house, touching things, looking at pictures. It doesn’t bother me to have her here, looking around. It puts me in a good mood and I find myself smiling.
It all seems so normal and natural. She’s already part of my daily life, as if it had been this way all along and that our lives hadn’t taken different paths.
I think this is how you’re supposed to feel with the person you love, with a person who belongs to you. Everything feels spontaneous and comes naturally, you just feel like yourself.
I turn off the flames on the hob and put some food on our plates. I bring it to the table, where she has already set out the cutlery and I invite her to sit in front of me. She smiles at me and sits down, after having taken some pills that I don’t want to know anything about.
“Thank you,” she tells me as she tries a bite of food. “It’s all perfect, Jason. You’re perfect.”
