Page 111 of Chasing Gold, Catching Her

She wanted to talk to Tora.

“Tora…” she whispered into the empty room.

She opened the first-aid kit, rummaging through it until she found a tube of joint pain gel. She turned it over in her hand, squinting at the expiration date.

“Damn… two months expired…” she hissed, then tossed it into the trash with a defeated motion.

Standing there for a second longer, she finally gave up on fighting her body for the night and dragged herself back to bed, wrapping herself tightly in the blanket and pulling a pillow into her chest like it could substitute for warmth. Her thoughts drifted inevitably back to Tora.

If I weren’t here in St. Petersburg right now… I could be anywhere else. Somewhere quieter and warmer. Somewhere like Norway… with Tora. Fucccccckkkkk!

In the morning, Alisa woke up with the same unpleasant pain in her knees, that dull, lingering ache that hadn’t gone anywhere overnight. She dragged herself to the kitchen, made coffee, and put together her favorite syrniki with raspberry jam and sour cream, sitting down to eat them out of habit more than desire, but sadly they brought almost no pleasure today.

She chewed slowly without appetite, staring somewhere past the table, and in the end she didn’t even finish her coffee, she just poured the leftovers into a thermos.

She packed her bag mechanically and went downstairs. Hermann was already waiting for her in the parking lot, leaning back in the driver’s seat, sipping coffee from his own thermos and lightly tapping the rhythm of something only he could hear against the steering wheel with his long fingers.

Alisa opened the back door, tossed her bag onto the seat, slammed it shut, and slid into the front beside him.

“Not even gonna say to me a good morning?” he raised his eyebrows, making a mock-offended face. “Did something happen?” He tilted his head, looking her over carefully. “You look… normal.”

“Knees…” Alisa exhaled tiredly, squeezing her eyes shut as she leaned back and clicked her seatbelt into place.

They pulled away.

“I’m sorry, kid… I’ve got some body gel in the glove compartment, want it?”

Alisa let out a slow breath. “Yeah… please.”

She leaned over, rummaging through his things until she found the tube, then rolled up one pant leg, squeezing a bit of gel into her palm. The sharp, familiar smell immediately filled the car, it was always something cold, biting, maybe menthol…

She rubbed it into one knee, then the other, sitting still for a few minutes until it dried and soaked in, the skin cooling almost painfully. Then she pulled her pants back down and shifted slightly in her seat, feeling that uncomfortable mix of numbness and cold spreading through her legs.

Outside, it wasn’t snowing, not raining, everywhere around them was just that dry, cruel cold. One fucking degree. The kind that got under your skin and bones.

Hermann reached over and turned on the heated seat for her, adjusting the airflow.

“It’ll warm up now. Sorry… forgot to turn it on.”

“It’s nothing…” she murmured.

He switched on the radio, and Sweater Weather by The Neighbourhood started playing.

Alisa turned her head toward the window, watching the city slide by with its gray buildings, gray sky, everything dull and washed out, like someone had drained the color from it overnight. It matched too well with how she felt inside.

She remembered how she used to listen to this song on repeat when it first came out… how badly she’d wanted to go to their concert when they came to Russia and she didn’t. And then… they just stopped coming to Russia altogether.

Funny how things just… stop.

She started singing along quietly, her voice a little hoarse, carrying that same tired sadness that sat in her chest.

Hermann didn’t interrupt, he was just listening to his friend singing.

“Are you sure you want to practice today?” he finally asked after a while.

“I don’t want to,” Alisa said honestly, still staring out the window. “But I have to.”

He nodded once, glancing at her with something like respect.