HER
He really is a bastard.
It's been three days and I'm still fuming. How dare he bring up that day to me? After he flat out rejected me?
It was one thing to question me about how I've been living, after all, I told him in my letter exactly where I'd be. I'd told him to join me if he wanted to.
Clearly, he didn't.
But it was another to bring up the kiss.
Even Mr. Stephens, tired of my anger, forced me out of the house to see Amber to, in his words, "cease my wretched stomping." Now I take my heavy feet in the direction of the village hospital.
Dry dirt crunches under my boots, a soft wind ruffling the ends of my hair. The air smells of smoked meat from the butcher and sweet summer flowers.
I'm so focused on my tirade I almost don't notice the soft meows coming from within a small alley. I pause, questioning my ears, when another distinctly feline sound reaches me.
I take a tentative step into the alley, the shade immediately cooling my warm skin. A beautiful tabby cat takes refuge from the heat, stretching lazily on what looks like a hand sewn pillow. Next to it there is a full water bowl and a food bowl licked clean.
Relief fills me at knowing this cat is taken care of, and I reach out a tentative hand to where the cat now rubs affectionately against my skirt. I smile for the first time in days, slipping my fingers through the soft fur. The cat meows again, looking beyond the alley, and I look up just in time to see him.
Aleksi.
From where I'm crouched, it would be hard for him to see me, but I see him perfectly.
He's glowing in the sunlight, smiling easily as he crouches down in the same way I am, but instead of a cat, a small child toddles over to him, followed by his beaming mother.
Recognition strikes me immediately.
It's the woman we helped the year I left. The woman I got the job for.
My heart squeezes as I watch her greet Aleksi with gentle familiarity. Of course he would check on them.
He presents a flower to the child he now holds, who grips it in its chubby fingers and babbles words I can't hear to a patient Aleksi.
He's the same.
The realization lands like a blow. Maybe I thought after he didn't respond to my letter he had somehow been a completely different person. Maybe I had never understood him. He had fooled me.
I never really believed it.
"Aleksi." I whisper the word, the name useless on my tongue. Jealousy and sadness marring it.
"Meow." The cat answers.
–
"You should tell him."
I sigh, realizing my pleas for a change of subject are clearly not going to work.
"I don't see what difference that would make."
Amber sighs, mimicking me.
"Well before you told me I was rather angry with you and now I know the truth, I'm not."
I wince.
I haven't told her that I already told Aleksi, not everything, but that it wasn't safe for me to stay and that I was going away. That hadn't seemed to sway him.
Shrugging, I try a different tactic.
"You know the more people that know the more danger there is."
At this she finally seems to relent.
"Alright, well, just think about it."
I nod, and this time when I change the subject she goes along with it.
I can't stop thinking about it though. Aleksi with that woman, once alone and poor, without a friend in the world.
He hadn't hesitated then, to help her, to befriend her.
So what if he didn't feel that way about me?
Perhaps we could be friends.
The word tastes slightly sour in my mouth, but I swallow it down. Maybe that would be enough.
A small spark of hope roots itself in my chest. I should crush it out, extinguish it in favour of sense and casualness.
But I don't.
By the time I leave the hospital and am walking back to the house I am decided. I will tell him.
After all this time did he not deserve my trust? He had proved time and time again that he defied my expectations of him.
A picture started to bloom in my imagination, him and I, laughing teasingly at each other. Debating nonsense topics like we did in our letters. Not having to lie again, being honest with each other like before.
I'm buzzing when I get back to the house.
Until I see them.
They stand, framed under the swaying willow branches, the fading light catching on stray hairs. She nudges him with her elbow, a wide smile accompanying her ringing laugh. He smiles at her, too.
Aleksi and Sara.
They look perfect.
Before they can spot me, I duck behind the shed, pressing my back to the metal, now cool in the early evening.
The same bitter taste floods my mouth.
Sara didn't fit into my imaginings.
More like I didn't fit in theirs.
As I walk away I can't help but admonish myself.
You know better than to hope.