Page 26 of Chasing Gold, Catching Her

Tora quickly pulled on her pajamas and went downstairs, taking Alisa with her. There was no one left in the living room anymore, apparently everyone had gone home, the house was completely empty and quiet. And most importantly, it was clean, except of course for the dishes in the kitchen sink, but overall the house after the party looked as though there had only been an evening feast there, that’s what having adequate friends means…

Through the windows Alisa noticed that a taxi was already waiting outside, a white jeep of some brand unknown to her. Tora pulled Alisa to her one more time and kissed her on the lips, not taking her eyes off her, and then let her go, but not completely, she still held her lightly by the waist, as though she did not want to let her go at all…

“Well… see you at the qualifiers or at the other champs?” Tora smiled.

Alisa nodded, her face serious. Inside she felt sad, as though something in her was being eaten away by acid; she did not want to leave, she desperately wanted to stay for breakfast and find out what Tora would cook for her… no one had ever done anything like that for her before, at least not when it came to relationships, not that she had really been seeing anyone… and whatever had happened between them that night, it could hardly be called a relationship, it was only a one-night stand… probably. But Alisa wanted more, her soul sobbed and screamed for more. And her heart was already aching inexorably inside her chest.

“Apparently, yes…” Alisa nodded sadly.

They went outside, and Tora walked her to the car, opening the door for her and helping her into the back seat.

“Well… see you later,” Alisa whispered.

Tora only nodded and waved, closing the taxi door behind her, but Alisa had already turned away and was looking ahead, only ahead.

When she arrived at the hotel, she got out of the taxi and walked into the lobby, where she noticed Pike standing at reception with a cup of hot black coffee.

“Where the hell have you been?” the coach roared from the reception desk. The staff clearly did not understand why she was shouting at her, because they had switched to Russian.

Alisa lowered her gaze and looked dumbfoundedly at her coach, who was scolding her.

“But I’m here now, it’s okay, I need to pack for the airport.”

Alisa had already gone down the corridor toward her room, but Pike rushed after her, catching up in only a second with long hurried strides, forgetting the coffee she had left on the reception desk.

“You don’t pick up your phone! You don’t answer the door! Then I went to reception to ask about you, and they said the night staff saw you getting into a pink Geländewagen and driving away! I thought you’d been kidnapped and killed, I was already planning to go to the police!”

“I was with friends.”

“What the hell kind of friends, Alisa?”

“Tora invited me to a party, they won gold yesterday.”

Pike froze for a moment, then asked:

“Did you know each other?”

“We met at a competition.”

“Hm…” Apparently she had not expected that answer, because she fell silent. “Can I go pack my things?”

“Yes, go… we’ll talk later.”

“Yeah.”

Alisa went into the room and began to pack her things, or rather whatever still remained scattered in the corners, and when everything had finally been shoved into the suitcase, she looked around the room one last time. Taking her phone in her free hand, she closed the door behind her, leaving the hotel room, and went downstairs to the lobby.

A long journey home awaited her, with transfers and airports and endless waiting, but all the while she kept looking at her phone and receiving nothing in return, not a single notification, only silence, absolute silence.

Apparently… apparently it really had only happened once.

And still, somewhere inside her there remained a kind of naive hope that this had not been the first and last time, that it had been something more, or rather the beginning of something more, but judging by Tora’s farewell, the next time they would see each other would only be at the next national championships or even qualifiers, maybe even later on, on March twenty-fourth through thirtieth.

And probably they would not even hug when they met again… how stupid.

And how the hell was she supposed to move on after that? Just like that? As though nothing had happened?

She couldn’t believe it.