Spilled Drinks
Warning: Not for the faint hearted. I mean it. And Genevieve so means it!
Foreword: 1. I couldn’t decide between Genevieve and Medea. Genevieve is sexier but Medea is so much more appropriate to the plot. So read it as whichever you like. 2. I know, lousy title. Whatever.
Valentines day.
Paul Leon Scavo was a nerd. But that didn’t stop him from thinking about the beautiful blonde whose name he still did not know. All he remembered was the way he had collided into her in the bustling cafeteria a month ago, his drink drawing a coffee brown stroke down the side of her dress. They had both cried out in surprise.
He had expected to be socially cast out from that day onwards. But she had been friendly, gracious and very forgiving. Her eyes glowed with some light he had never before seen. He was thinking of how beautiful she was when a kick from below drew him from his reverie.
“Hmmm?” he muttered, still dazed.
“I asked, did you get anything,” Dirk uttered irritably.
“Oh… actually, yeah…” Paul opened his backpack, rustled through his numerous notes and gingerly removed from it a dainty white card. He showed it to Dirk but did not put it in Dirk’s expecting palm.
Dirk looked at the “Happy Valentines Day!” carefully written there and commented, “Spartan…” and then he asked with a grin, “your first ever?”
Paul nodded slightly, cheeks blushing. His hands cradled it as if it were made of glass.
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” he replied before putting it back in his backpack.
“Never thought you’d ever get one. Very plain… not one of those fancy celebrity types. Know who it’s from?”
Paul shook his head.
“Secret admirer? Better watch out. Might be a stalker,” Dirk joked.
Paul smiled weakly. “If you only knew”, he whispered.
Their organic chemistry professor’s lecture drew to a close. Dirk left him with a “bye.” As the lecture hall emptied out, Paul stole a glimpse over his shoulder. His heart lurched. Could it be? Am I being paranoid? he asked himself. He had begun to notice the figure of the man, hiding in the shadows following him about a week ago. Hastily finishing the note of thanks, he got up and left at a little run.
By the time he arrived on the third floor, Paul was already panting. He slipped the note behind a portrait of the school’s founder and then paused to rest his lungs. He had been communicating with his “secret admirer” in this way for a month. Ever since they had began speaking to one another, Paul felt on top of the world. He was in love. And though he never actually saw his romantic correspondent, he knew it was her… he knew it every time they passed one another in the hallways and she winked at him. He almost suffered a seizure the first time or at least an asthmatic attack. But now, he replied by winking back.
His eyes swept the corridor. There was no one in sight. Not even when he squinted at the shadows. Smiling, he left, head still in the clouds.
As soon as Paul’s footsteps receded, a different pair of shoes came down the corridor and stopped in front of the portrait. Upon reading the note, the tall figure smiled, exuberance expressed in the curves of his mouth.
***
Dark clouds smothered the waning evening sunlight, portending rain. Autumn leaves were blown down the street, leaving a trail of orange and yellow all over the pavement. The howls of wind followed by the howls of dogs took turns drifting down the darkening streets.
Even footfalls tapped out its four beat rhythm as it crossed the street and approached the playground. Then it stopped. Listening. Listening. Listening to the silence and to the quick heartbeats.
Taking in a lungful of air, Paul told himself to calm down before continuing. Then he heard it again, the soft pattering that he had become so familiar with. Closer and closer they came but he could see no one in the gloom, just the silhouettes of firs and birches. I’m being stalked again, he thought. Very close.
Loosing his composure, he ran. Though his lungs hurt for desperate want of breath; though his head spun and his eyesight blurred, he kept on running. The rain came, deafening to him in his dizziness. Its din sounded to him like more than a single pair of feet were chasing him, its rhythm faster and faster.
Then out of nowhere, thunder reached for him. A flash of lights pierced the rain. Brakes screeched. And he screamed as a strong hand from behind caught the back of his t-shirt and yanked.
Paul screamed as he was thrown backwards onto the grass, glasses askew. His vision clouded as he reached for his inhaler and breathed in over and over, knowing that death awaited him should he blackout before his airways were cleared.
Slowly, vision swirled back to clarity. He was on his side on the edge of the road. A truck had stopped a few metres down the road and its driver was walking in his direction. He tried to get up but his legs wouldn’t obey him. So he just waited there, shaking from the cold and from fear, wet to the bone, listening to rhythm or the rain and the squeaking of wind-blown swings.
“Ya okay?” the truck driver asked in a scared voice.
He nodded.
“Can ya walk?”
He shook his head.
“All right then. I’ll take ya back home.”
He wanted to object, having heard every variation of the “hitch-hikers taking rides from strangers” stories but decided that it might be better than being chased again by the stalker – for he was sure by now that he was being stalked.
***
By the next day, Paul hadn’t told anyone about the previous evening, not even his parents. But now, he recounted every detail on paper as he wrote a letter with no address. Somehow, he mused, he was not at all afraid to tell his love about anything and everything. Somehow, she just understood him and he understood her. Although they were socially so far apart, somehow, they ‘clicked’. As he slipped the letter behind the heavy portrait, he already felt better.
As soon as he sat down in the lecture hall, Paul felt a swell of elation. Upon his table, there was an elaborately decorated invite. Pink and reds lines formed curls and flowers that boxed in a few printed details. After reading it, he was bursting with joy – he had just been invited to a party by some socially revered girl named Genevieve. How did a social pariah like me get invited to this, he asked himself. “Oh,” he exclaimed a moment later. Of course, this had to be her. “Genevieve, Genevieve, Gene…” he pronounced a few times and decided that he liked it.
***
That night, Paul spoke with her for the first time. His guess was right. Her name was Genevieve and she had eyes that glittered away his senses. She escorted her guest into the house, striding through the door in that sienna dress that accentuated her eyes. The others in the house looked up at her guest with smiles often given for the sake of politeness while the people behind them cursed and slandered in perfect silence.
Paul, being a nerd, knew this very well. But he couldn’t care. The important thing was that he was here. With her.
He didn’t talk to many of the other guests as most of them either avoided him or glared. He did greet a few prominent personalities such as Libby, the bitch, Sandra, the stooge and Amanda, the slut. Such were the descriptions that were given them at school and he found it obvious why.
As the night progressed, he started to feel giddy from all the drinks. He didn’t usually indulge in alcoholic beverages so he found whatever it was that they were serving a little much. Noticing the slightly queasy look on his face, Genevieve suggested a little fresh air and together they walked out into the gardens of her house. Wealth showed very clearly in the way the gardens expanded outwards in a great radius of one and a half kilometers and in the way the trees formed a small maze of foliage.
He noticed how far her personality was from what he had imagined from the letters. Perhaps letters are a lousy medium of communication, he thought. He would have worried that she would think the same and be disappointed with his personality but she said nothing so he relaxed. But something from the pit of his stomach nagged at him. Perhaps the fish wasn’t very fresh, he mused.
“You look uncomfortable,” she said.
“Er… yeah… I don’t know why.” He looked into those glittering eyes and felt a wave of vertigo sweep over him. It was gone as quickly as it had come but she had already noticed it.
She looked away “I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“It’s not you.” He blushed. But his instincts said it was. Something was very wrong and it stirred incomprehensible dread in him.
“I want to show you something.” She gestured for him to follow, her hand placed at his shoulder comforting. Putting aside whatever it was that bugged him, he followed her as she stepped through gaps in the trees and over small man-made streams.
“You have… lovely garden,” Paul said, trying to break the uncomfortable silence as they walked deeper into her garden, past the leafy curtains that obscured vision. It sounded flat. She smiled, amused.
Finally, she stopped by the side of a bench and sat down, one hand motioning for him to join her. He sat beneath the light of a lamp post.
As he sat, what she did was wholly unexpected. She grasped her own dress at the hem and tore ferociously while her other hand knocked the bench hard, bruising herself. He stared at her in bewilderment, wondering why she should assault herself.
Then she turned to face him. Both her hands held tightly to his arms, constraining him as he tried to escape. He stood up but fell to the ground, his legs like jelly.
“How did you enjoy your drink?” she jeered. “Don’t you find me… paralysing?”
He was too shocked to reply, too nauseated to resist. As his vision blurred and lost focus, he could only stare in horror at the shining glint in her eye, predatory. How had he missed it? It had been there all along. The moment he spilled coffee on her dress, she had eyed him that way. He should have ran. He should run. But it was too late, wasn’t it?
“No! Stop! Please, no!” was all he could manage. The glint of a sharp instrument of some sort joined the pair of golden eyes. Cold steel traced painful chilling lines along his skin. His heart beat sluggishly but loudly enough to be audible over Genevieve’s high pitch taunting.
He lay there for a long time, drifting to and from consciousness, squirming with dread, pain and humiliation. At some point, he couldn’t tell when, his shirt was forcefully removed. He knew because of the way the cold wind rustled through the trees burned at places where he must be bleeding.
“You could have asked for his permission you know.”
Genevieve gasped. She was startled to hear the angry voice reprimand her and even more surprised to recognize it. The corners of her mouth stretched in a grin that contorted her features. As she turned around, Paul could see a familiar tall figure behind her – his stalker.
Panic finally emerged through the thick miasma of shock. Paul screamed as loudly as he could. His voice formed a muted moan before failing him in a series of aggravated coughs and wheezes. He gasped for air and his airways dilated even more.
Above him, the stranger and Genevieve battled. She fought with an animal frenzy while he fought with desperation. Phrases like, “you never learn”, “did you miss me?” and “never!” intruded themselves on Paul’s fuzzy recollection of that moment. Her long nails slashed red streaks across his face. In retaliation, he hit her with a brick that was used to border one of the trees. She moaned as she fell unconscious.
Hands shaking, he searched for and found Paul’s inhaler and frantically puffed medicine into Paul’s mouth. Paul’s skin felt clammy beneath his hands, like that of a corpse.
Paul opened his eyes, breathing deeply. Someone put his glasses back for him. He could see his stalker clearly for the first time. “ Who?”
“I’m Alexius. You should know me quite well from my letters by now…”
Paul’s eyes widened in disbelieve. “You?!” He coughed and wheezed again but pushed away the inhaler, controlling his breathing on his own. Finally, his airways cleared again.
Alex smiled, relieved. “Yes, me. I found it hard to approach you so…”
Paul stayed silent for a few minutes, not knowing what to say. As Alex moved closer, into the light of the lamp post, he noticed how Alex’s eyes were a dazzling shade of hazel that reminded him of his mother’s. He's quite good looking, Paul thought in spite of himself, obviously still very much intoxicated. Alex’s hard jaw and ruler-straight nose were connected by bright red gashes on the side of his face. Seeing the blood trickle from his cheek, Paul made a strangled sound, still dazed from the shock and drowsy from whatever was in his drink.
Alex wiped away the blood before frowning at Paul, wondering if Paul was afraid of him. “Are you hurt?”
When Paul did not answer, he leaned closer, coming into the lamplight. Another question was poised on his lips when Paul blacked-out.
***
A pair of glittering eyes stared at him from the darkness. First they were soft. But they slowly zoomed into focus, two blazing pinpricks of golden light. Then he heard “I’m Genevieve, nice to meet you. Don’t you find me paralyzing?”
Paul woke up with a scream. He was sweating profusely and wheezed. Subconsciously, his hand reached out to the right where his inhaler was usually found in his room. Realising that he was not in his room, he sat up and frantically searched when his inhaler was stuffed into his hand.
After a few breaths of medication, he looked up to see Alex standing over him. “Where?”
“My house… try not to make too much noise. My parents are asleep,” Alex answered. He pulled up a chair and snuggled up in it. He offered the mug in his hand but Paul shook his head.
“So, why were you stalking me?” Paul asked, still quite scared.
“I wasn’t. I mean, Genevieve was following you, so I followed her… to make sure she didn’t try anything,” he explained.
“Then how did you know where to find us?” His voice still rang with suspicion.
“Forgive me. I didn’t. That’s why I was almost too late.”
Paul looked at him for a while, waiting for more. When he didn’t continue, Paul insisted that he explain everything. Alex hesitated, pained.
After some consideration, he said, “two years back, she drugged me too…” He paused to think of what to say next. “The smart bitch even tried to accuse me of raping her… Thankfully, the one who walked in was a police officer. Not one of those corrupt ones either... Anyway, when I saw her following you one day, I suspected something. She wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice.” His voice was even, not showing the slightest hint of anger. But where his voice succeeded, his eyes failed. They smoldered.
“So she made it look like I…?” Paul asked, incredulous.
Alex smiled mischievously. “Almost made it too. But I have the knife with her fingerprints all over it. Besides, she doesn’t have any evidence. If she’s smart, she’ll keep quiet about it. And she will… I got your glass too, unwashed. So, basically, you’re safe.”
“Should I go to the police?”
“You can try… but I doubt they’d believe that a girl… wouldn’t hurt though…”
“Thanks. Thanks for saving me… twice… and for cleaning my wounds.” Awkward...
Alex grinned, unsure of what to say. Instead he muttered, “I hate being asthmatic… I can’t run down a single corridor without breaking out into wheezes.”
“You… that was in my letter to… it can’t be…” Paul objected.
They both stayed silent for a while. Then Alex asked, “are you disappointed? That your letters weren’t read by some girl? By Genevieve?”
Paul gulped. “No… No, I’m not. Just… just surprised. I should be getting home… what time is it?” He glanced at his watch. The digital screen was scratched across the middle and the time was no longer legible.
“Half past two. Not safe to travel the streets at this time though. You’re better off staying here.”
Paul wanted to object but he felt much too tired to stand up. Smiling weakly, he nodded. At least let me call my parents.”
“Okay. Here’s the phone. Watch out for the…!”
He was too late. Paul had reached over for the phone and tipped over a mug of cocoa sitting on the arm of Alex’s chair. The drink splashed onto Alex’s pants, creating a brown streak across his lap.
Remembering doing the same to Genevieve, Paul started laughing. When Alex demanded an explanation, Paul motioned for him to approach and then gave him a peck on the cheek. There was an awkward pause before they both began laughing together.
Foreword: 1. I couldn’t decide between Genevieve and Medea. Genevieve is sexier but Medea is so much more appropriate to the plot. So read it as whichever you like. 2. I know, lousy title. Whatever.
Valentines day.
Paul Leon Scavo was a nerd. But that didn’t stop him from thinking about the beautiful blonde whose name he still did not know. All he remembered was the way he had collided into her in the bustling cafeteria a month ago, his drink drawing a coffee brown stroke down the side of her dress. They had both cried out in surprise.
He had expected to be socially cast out from that day onwards. But she had been friendly, gracious and very forgiving. Her eyes glowed with some light he had never before seen. He was thinking of how beautiful she was when a kick from below drew him from his reverie.
“Hmmm?” he muttered, still dazed.
“I asked, did you get anything,” Dirk uttered irritably.
“Oh… actually, yeah…” Paul opened his backpack, rustled through his numerous notes and gingerly removed from it a dainty white card. He showed it to Dirk but did not put it in Dirk’s expecting palm.
Dirk looked at the “Happy Valentines Day!” carefully written there and commented, “Spartan…” and then he asked with a grin, “your first ever?”
Paul nodded slightly, cheeks blushing. His hands cradled it as if it were made of glass.
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” he replied before putting it back in his backpack.
“Never thought you’d ever get one. Very plain… not one of those fancy celebrity types. Know who it’s from?”
Paul shook his head.
“Secret admirer? Better watch out. Might be a stalker,” Dirk joked.
Paul smiled weakly. “If you only knew”, he whispered.
Their organic chemistry professor’s lecture drew to a close. Dirk left him with a “bye.” As the lecture hall emptied out, Paul stole a glimpse over his shoulder. His heart lurched. Could it be? Am I being paranoid? he asked himself. He had begun to notice the figure of the man, hiding in the shadows following him about a week ago. Hastily finishing the note of thanks, he got up and left at a little run.
By the time he arrived on the third floor, Paul was already panting. He slipped the note behind a portrait of the school’s founder and then paused to rest his lungs. He had been communicating with his “secret admirer” in this way for a month. Ever since they had began speaking to one another, Paul felt on top of the world. He was in love. And though he never actually saw his romantic correspondent, he knew it was her… he knew it every time they passed one another in the hallways and she winked at him. He almost suffered a seizure the first time or at least an asthmatic attack. But now, he replied by winking back.
His eyes swept the corridor. There was no one in sight. Not even when he squinted at the shadows. Smiling, he left, head still in the clouds.
As soon as Paul’s footsteps receded, a different pair of shoes came down the corridor and stopped in front of the portrait. Upon reading the note, the tall figure smiled, exuberance expressed in the curves of his mouth.
***
Dark clouds smothered the waning evening sunlight, portending rain. Autumn leaves were blown down the street, leaving a trail of orange and yellow all over the pavement. The howls of wind followed by the howls of dogs took turns drifting down the darkening streets.
Even footfalls tapped out its four beat rhythm as it crossed the street and approached the playground. Then it stopped. Listening. Listening. Listening to the silence and to the quick heartbeats.
Taking in a lungful of air, Paul told himself to calm down before continuing. Then he heard it again, the soft pattering that he had become so familiar with. Closer and closer they came but he could see no one in the gloom, just the silhouettes of firs and birches. I’m being stalked again, he thought. Very close.
Loosing his composure, he ran. Though his lungs hurt for desperate want of breath; though his head spun and his eyesight blurred, he kept on running. The rain came, deafening to him in his dizziness. Its din sounded to him like more than a single pair of feet were chasing him, its rhythm faster and faster.
Then out of nowhere, thunder reached for him. A flash of lights pierced the rain. Brakes screeched. And he screamed as a strong hand from behind caught the back of his t-shirt and yanked.
Paul screamed as he was thrown backwards onto the grass, glasses askew. His vision clouded as he reached for his inhaler and breathed in over and over, knowing that death awaited him should he blackout before his airways were cleared.
Slowly, vision swirled back to clarity. He was on his side on the edge of the road. A truck had stopped a few metres down the road and its driver was walking in his direction. He tried to get up but his legs wouldn’t obey him. So he just waited there, shaking from the cold and from fear, wet to the bone, listening to rhythm or the rain and the squeaking of wind-blown swings.
“Ya okay?” the truck driver asked in a scared voice.
He nodded.
“Can ya walk?”
He shook his head.
“All right then. I’ll take ya back home.”
He wanted to object, having heard every variation of the “hitch-hikers taking rides from strangers” stories but decided that it might be better than being chased again by the stalker – for he was sure by now that he was being stalked.
***
By the next day, Paul hadn’t told anyone about the previous evening, not even his parents. But now, he recounted every detail on paper as he wrote a letter with no address. Somehow, he mused, he was not at all afraid to tell his love about anything and everything. Somehow, she just understood him and he understood her. Although they were socially so far apart, somehow, they ‘clicked’. As he slipped the letter behind the heavy portrait, he already felt better.
As soon as he sat down in the lecture hall, Paul felt a swell of elation. Upon his table, there was an elaborately decorated invite. Pink and reds lines formed curls and flowers that boxed in a few printed details. After reading it, he was bursting with joy – he had just been invited to a party by some socially revered girl named Genevieve. How did a social pariah like me get invited to this, he asked himself. “Oh,” he exclaimed a moment later. Of course, this had to be her. “Genevieve, Genevieve, Gene…” he pronounced a few times and decided that he liked it.
***
That night, Paul spoke with her for the first time. His guess was right. Her name was Genevieve and she had eyes that glittered away his senses. She escorted her guest into the house, striding through the door in that sienna dress that accentuated her eyes. The others in the house looked up at her guest with smiles often given for the sake of politeness while the people behind them cursed and slandered in perfect silence.
Paul, being a nerd, knew this very well. But he couldn’t care. The important thing was that he was here. With her.
He didn’t talk to many of the other guests as most of them either avoided him or glared. He did greet a few prominent personalities such as Libby, the bitch, Sandra, the stooge and Amanda, the slut. Such were the descriptions that were given them at school and he found it obvious why.
As the night progressed, he started to feel giddy from all the drinks. He didn’t usually indulge in alcoholic beverages so he found whatever it was that they were serving a little much. Noticing the slightly queasy look on his face, Genevieve suggested a little fresh air and together they walked out into the gardens of her house. Wealth showed very clearly in the way the gardens expanded outwards in a great radius of one and a half kilometers and in the way the trees formed a small maze of foliage.
He noticed how far her personality was from what he had imagined from the letters. Perhaps letters are a lousy medium of communication, he thought. He would have worried that she would think the same and be disappointed with his personality but she said nothing so he relaxed. But something from the pit of his stomach nagged at him. Perhaps the fish wasn’t very fresh, he mused.
“You look uncomfortable,” she said.
“Er… yeah… I don’t know why.” He looked into those glittering eyes and felt a wave of vertigo sweep over him. It was gone as quickly as it had come but she had already noticed it.
She looked away “I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“It’s not you.” He blushed. But his instincts said it was. Something was very wrong and it stirred incomprehensible dread in him.
“I want to show you something.” She gestured for him to follow, her hand placed at his shoulder comforting. Putting aside whatever it was that bugged him, he followed her as she stepped through gaps in the trees and over small man-made streams.
“You have… lovely garden,” Paul said, trying to break the uncomfortable silence as they walked deeper into her garden, past the leafy curtains that obscured vision. It sounded flat. She smiled, amused.
Finally, she stopped by the side of a bench and sat down, one hand motioning for him to join her. He sat beneath the light of a lamp post.
As he sat, what she did was wholly unexpected. She grasped her own dress at the hem and tore ferociously while her other hand knocked the bench hard, bruising herself. He stared at her in bewilderment, wondering why she should assault herself.
Then she turned to face him. Both her hands held tightly to his arms, constraining him as he tried to escape. He stood up but fell to the ground, his legs like jelly.
“How did you enjoy your drink?” she jeered. “Don’t you find me… paralysing?”
He was too shocked to reply, too nauseated to resist. As his vision blurred and lost focus, he could only stare in horror at the shining glint in her eye, predatory. How had he missed it? It had been there all along. The moment he spilled coffee on her dress, she had eyed him that way. He should have ran. He should run. But it was too late, wasn’t it?
“No! Stop! Please, no!” was all he could manage. The glint of a sharp instrument of some sort joined the pair of golden eyes. Cold steel traced painful chilling lines along his skin. His heart beat sluggishly but loudly enough to be audible over Genevieve’s high pitch taunting.
He lay there for a long time, drifting to and from consciousness, squirming with dread, pain and humiliation. At some point, he couldn’t tell when, his shirt was forcefully removed. He knew because of the way the cold wind rustled through the trees burned at places where he must be bleeding.
“You could have asked for his permission you know.”
Genevieve gasped. She was startled to hear the angry voice reprimand her and even more surprised to recognize it. The corners of her mouth stretched in a grin that contorted her features. As she turned around, Paul could see a familiar tall figure behind her – his stalker.
Panic finally emerged through the thick miasma of shock. Paul screamed as loudly as he could. His voice formed a muted moan before failing him in a series of aggravated coughs and wheezes. He gasped for air and his airways dilated even more.
Above him, the stranger and Genevieve battled. She fought with an animal frenzy while he fought with desperation. Phrases like, “you never learn”, “did you miss me?” and “never!” intruded themselves on Paul’s fuzzy recollection of that moment. Her long nails slashed red streaks across his face. In retaliation, he hit her with a brick that was used to border one of the trees. She moaned as she fell unconscious.
Hands shaking, he searched for and found Paul’s inhaler and frantically puffed medicine into Paul’s mouth. Paul’s skin felt clammy beneath his hands, like that of a corpse.
Paul opened his eyes, breathing deeply. Someone put his glasses back for him. He could see his stalker clearly for the first time. “ Who?”
“I’m Alexius. You should know me quite well from my letters by now…”
Paul’s eyes widened in disbelieve. “You?!” He coughed and wheezed again but pushed away the inhaler, controlling his breathing on his own. Finally, his airways cleared again.
Alex smiled, relieved. “Yes, me. I found it hard to approach you so…”
Paul stayed silent for a few minutes, not knowing what to say. As Alex moved closer, into the light of the lamp post, he noticed how Alex’s eyes were a dazzling shade of hazel that reminded him of his mother’s. He's quite good looking, Paul thought in spite of himself, obviously still very much intoxicated. Alex’s hard jaw and ruler-straight nose were connected by bright red gashes on the side of his face. Seeing the blood trickle from his cheek, Paul made a strangled sound, still dazed from the shock and drowsy from whatever was in his drink.
Alex wiped away the blood before frowning at Paul, wondering if Paul was afraid of him. “Are you hurt?”
When Paul did not answer, he leaned closer, coming into the lamplight. Another question was poised on his lips when Paul blacked-out.
***
A pair of glittering eyes stared at him from the darkness. First they were soft. But they slowly zoomed into focus, two blazing pinpricks of golden light. Then he heard “I’m Genevieve, nice to meet you. Don’t you find me paralyzing?”
Paul woke up with a scream. He was sweating profusely and wheezed. Subconsciously, his hand reached out to the right where his inhaler was usually found in his room. Realising that he was not in his room, he sat up and frantically searched when his inhaler was stuffed into his hand.
After a few breaths of medication, he looked up to see Alex standing over him. “Where?”
“My house… try not to make too much noise. My parents are asleep,” Alex answered. He pulled up a chair and snuggled up in it. He offered the mug in his hand but Paul shook his head.
“So, why were you stalking me?” Paul asked, still quite scared.
“I wasn’t. I mean, Genevieve was following you, so I followed her… to make sure she didn’t try anything,” he explained.
“Then how did you know where to find us?” His voice still rang with suspicion.
“Forgive me. I didn’t. That’s why I was almost too late.”
Paul looked at him for a while, waiting for more. When he didn’t continue, Paul insisted that he explain everything. Alex hesitated, pained.
After some consideration, he said, “two years back, she drugged me too…” He paused to think of what to say next. “The smart bitch even tried to accuse me of raping her… Thankfully, the one who walked in was a police officer. Not one of those corrupt ones either... Anyway, when I saw her following you one day, I suspected something. She wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice.” His voice was even, not showing the slightest hint of anger. But where his voice succeeded, his eyes failed. They smoldered.
“So she made it look like I…?” Paul asked, incredulous.
Alex smiled mischievously. “Almost made it too. But I have the knife with her fingerprints all over it. Besides, she doesn’t have any evidence. If she’s smart, she’ll keep quiet about it. And she will… I got your glass too, unwashed. So, basically, you’re safe.”
“Should I go to the police?”
“You can try… but I doubt they’d believe that a girl… wouldn’t hurt though…”
“Thanks. Thanks for saving me… twice… and for cleaning my wounds.” Awkward...
Alex grinned, unsure of what to say. Instead he muttered, “I hate being asthmatic… I can’t run down a single corridor without breaking out into wheezes.”
“You… that was in my letter to… it can’t be…” Paul objected.
They both stayed silent for a while. Then Alex asked, “are you disappointed? That your letters weren’t read by some girl? By Genevieve?”
Paul gulped. “No… No, I’m not. Just… just surprised. I should be getting home… what time is it?” He glanced at his watch. The digital screen was scratched across the middle and the time was no longer legible.
“Half past two. Not safe to travel the streets at this time though. You’re better off staying here.”
Paul wanted to object but he felt much too tired to stand up. Smiling weakly, he nodded. At least let me call my parents.”
“Okay. Here’s the phone. Watch out for the…!”
He was too late. Paul had reached over for the phone and tipped over a mug of cocoa sitting on the arm of Alex’s chair. The drink splashed onto Alex’s pants, creating a brown streak across his lap.
Remembering doing the same to Genevieve, Paul started laughing. When Alex demanded an explanation, Paul motioned for him to approach and then gave him a peck on the cheek. There was an awkward pause before they both began laughing together.
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