The light from the recessed lights in the ceiling were shining off of the long strands splayed across the man's face.
It wasn’t bleached blond, like she thought initially, but genuinely white, like sugar. When the sight of it had replaced the glow of the train lights, Suri vaguely remembered how she had marveled at the color as he had cradled her shaking body.
“When I had agreed to join you in the city, it was for one purpose,” he gave the receiver a tense smirk. “So why then, pray tell, am I now burdened with all of this when I so clearly wanted nothing to do with the situation in the first place?”
A pause. She tucked herself back behind the wall and frowned. Was he talking about her?
“A mishap you say?” the man continued. “Well I should expect it to be corrected shortly.”
Another pause. When the man spoke again, his voice had lowered. Though whether it was in annoyance or severity, Suri wasn’t sure.
“It would be best to cut our ties immediately and have her return home,” he scoffed. “Wherever that may be. I can’t even begin to describe how absurd of a spectacle that was.”
Suri flinched. That was the most embarrassing part.
When she had been resurrected from the tracks, some of the first questions that the officers had asked were about as annoying as they came—what her name was, if she had been hurt, what she had seen? Then they had asked her where she lived. And home was the last place that she wanted to be.
So, after they had asked that, she could only remember clawing across the ground to try and get away from them, suddenly irrational and inconsolable. Pleading.
She had even gone so far as to pull at the man in the leather jacket and beg him not to let the police take her back home. She had practically forced him to take her with him, refusing to calm down until he had conceded to take her wherever she wanted to go. Then, once she was in his car, she went mute.
Apparently, though, she wasn't as quiet as she had thought.
“Eavesdropping is unbecoming, young lady.”
Crap. She peeked back around the corner to meet the dark eyes sharply focused upon her. The man didn’t look too thrilled.
“I’ll call you back, mate.” With that, he lowered the phone from his ear and ended the call.
She wanted to move, or at the very least look like less of an idiot as she hugged the wall, but his narrowed eyes held her in place. Even as he placed his phone into the back pocket of his black skinny jeans, he watched her guardedly. When she continued to shield herself behind the corner as if he were the invader in her home and not the other way around, he sighed.
“It’s just past sunrise,” he said, his harsh look flattening, “Go back to sleep.”
Suri frowned but he only raised a brow at her before standing upright and walking out of her line of sight. The indifferent reaction to her caution released Suri from her anxious standstill.
She moved into the main space. Her eyes watched him turn behind the black counter of the open kitchen before she slowly took in the posh modernity of the open living space.
The space from the door to the kitchen was fully visible. Deep and medium brown leather seating was balanced out by a large oak wood coffee table. Books, bowls, and small abstract sculptures accented nearly every flat surface in a neat display of décor. The polished silver frame of the chair she walked up to smeared beneath her fingertips, creating an imperfection in the methodically clean area.
Her eyes rose to the high ceilings and then lowered towards the man standing by the stainless-steel stove. Instead of moving towards him or back to the room, she froze once more. Her nervous fingers tugged and twisted the oversize sleeves of the shirt she wore.
She wasn’t sure what to do.
Then, a sharp whistling sound screeched alive. It shrieked, making her ears ring with the sound of metal brakes on rails. She quickly covered the sides of her head with her hands to drown out the noise. Without realizing it, she let out her own short scream.
Her body reacted to the quick emotional upset: her breathing rapidly formed into hyperventilating, the tension in her caused her to feel chest pains, and by the time the man had strode towards her weeping tears were escaping her eyes.
A feverish heat rose in her face as he guided her to the nearest seat and gently sat her down. Though the whistling sound had only lasted a moment, it was enough to set off the broken sobs leaving her throat as her hands pressed more tightly against her skull.
The man crouched before her. His face was blurred between the wet spots in her vision, but she could see his expression waver between calm observation and concern. When he caught her looking at him, he demonstrated himself taking a deep breath for her to replicate.
The first breath she took was staggered, it made her chest tighten and caused her to keen, but he repeated the act again.
Comments (8)
See all