Page 36 of Love is Strange
“Fuck. What did I just do?” I groan, rubbing my face with my hands.
Miko runs down the hallway, slides onto the doormat, and turns around to run away again, making me smile. She can always tell when I’m tense and will do her best to make her human feel better. She’s very smart like that and one of the many reasons I love her so damn much. I always said to myself after I got her, that if I never get the chance to have kids, then I would have at least had her and that’s rewarding enough.
I don’t know what to do with myself while I wait for him to arrive, so I decide to do nothing. I stretch myself out onto my back and cross my arms behind my head and wait.
A yawn escapes me, and I do my best to stay awake. The last thing I need right now is to have another nightmare before he shows up and answer the door a sweating, panicky mess.
It would be too hard to explain without telling him why I’m so stand-offish first.
I’m not entirely sure how the time passed by so quickly, or if he just sped the entire way over, but when a knock on the door greets my ear, I sit up and shake the almost sleep away.
Here goes nothing.
I get to my feet and straighten out my clothes with my hands, push my hair behind my ears, and walk over to the door that’s only a few feet away from my couch.
“Is this a joke?” he asks with a straight face as soon as I open the door.
“Huh?”
I’m confused by what he means, but the moment I see his lips twitching, I give him a playful shove, then step back so he can walk in.
“I just never thought I would see your place is all. I mean, fuck. I barely get to seeyouthese days,” he remarks as he walks passed me into the apartment. “Well, fuck. That’s disappointing.”
“What is?”
“I was half expecting a huge portrait of Axl Rose somewhere in here,” he replies, giving me a side-long glance.
“You’re about to overstay your welcome already,” I say to him pointedly. He laughs and shakes his head as he crosses his arms over his chest.
“Alright, so I’m here. What’s going on, kid?”
“Come on, have a seat,” I say, leading him the few steps back into the living room, pointing at an empty chair across from the couch.
Before I can tell him why he’s here, Miko runs back into the living room and immediately goes over to inspect the strange man in her home. Once she’s sniffed him a few times, and deduced that he’s not a danger to me, she comes over and curls up at my feet.
He raises an eyebrow at her, then at me, and I shrug. A laugh escapes him as he looks around the room for a little bit. I offer him some water, but he declines and turns his eyes back toward me.
I can feel a tear starting to sting my eye, but I blink it away and take a deep breath.
Silas is watching me with curious eyes as I bite my lower lip and think about just how much I want to share with him right now. After all, he’s not exactly my favorite person in the world, but for some reason, I feel a connection to him and I think he can handle what I want to tell him.
“Look, if you asked me to come here so you can tell me something personal, you don’t have to. I think that would kind of take the mystery out of whatever it is we’re trying to do here,” he says, giving me a goofy grin.
I smile kindly at him and clear my throat. “No. I think it will be good for me to tell someone that doesn’t know. It may give you an idea of why I can be such a bitch.”
He nods as he leans back in the chair and clasps his hands behind his head. “I’m all ears, Hair Metal.”
Miko gets up from her place on the floor in front of me, stretches, and trots out of the room. I watch her with a smile because she knows this story. She’s heard it a thousand times before and has come to my bed at night when I’m crying over it, curling up by my head and placing a soft paw on my cheek.
I have a rather large tattoo of her on my back to show my appreciation for her being such a good friend.
Blowing out my breath, I turn my attention back to Silas and force a smile on my face. “I was sexually abused as a kid.”
He immediately leans forward and holds his hands up. “I’m done. I don’t want to hear this story. Seriously, Axelle. I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it knowing it’s something I can’t fix.”
“I’m not asking you to fix anything,” I reply, shaking my head in confusion. “I’m asking you to shut your fucking mouth for a minute and let me get this off my chest.”
Silas crosses his arms tightly over his chest and grits his teeth. I can tell he wants nothing more than for me to stop, but he knows I’m just getting started and he has to hear me out if he wants to mend the bullshit between us.
