The answer is right in front of me.

The answer is right in front of me.

The answer is right in front of me.

I kept staring at the reflection in the mirror. A corpse with sunken red eyes and pale skin. Bones peeking out a little too prominently. A soul, equally dead. 

What could he mean? What did he mean? That somehow Liza is in front of me or did I know the answer already? Or was he the one who knew it. Of course, he did, but then it would mean he didn't answer my question at all. Except explain a ridiculous paradox that somehow a cat can be both dead and alive at the same time which is not possible.

A cat, a radioactive substance, a radiation detector, a hammer, and poison. 

If the cat was Liza then I was the radiation? The radiation detector... Dimitri and the hammer and poison just tools? It made sense only partially.

I sighed and looked away from the mirror. The sight revolting me as I felt disgusted of the shell I was living in. I wasn't starved or anything. They made sure to feed me every meal except for the ones that I missed whenever I got knocked out. What made me look like that was the growing sickness inside me. An invisible parasite that clogged my head with a dull pain which got triggered every time I thought about the million ways I failed and fell. 

I picked up the brush and pulled through the knots in my hair, relishing in the pain as it tugged on my hair. It made the soreness clinging all over my body feel less painful as well as the tiresome and compulsively necessary process of tidying myself up into a little bearable clump. 

Dimitri didn't think I would need much rest except for a day's wait to start with the piano lessons. He wanted to waste no time in preparing me as an ideal student and perfecting me in the true light as a pianist which I always wanted. Those were not my words but his when he came in to the room yesterday and ate dinner with me on the couch. Ivan as always enjoying the first class view of the situation tried very hard to suppress a smile. The thought of some raucous exciting him yet again.

The thin dress shirt barely complemented the cold and pouring weather outside as it rained relentlessly. The socks and the dress shoes only thing keeping me warm as I walked down the stairs as slowly as possible no matter how loud the stairs squeaked beneath my feet in the empty stairway. 

It was a beautiful house. Liza would have liked it as well. 

I wasn't looking down like I usually do when I missed a step and lost my balance. My head spun hard when my shoulder slammed against the wooden wall which gave away a little too easily only to reveal another wall. Not planked but instead another wooden wall, not planked. Smooth, plain and attached to the wall. Almost like a door.

A hand grabbed my arm and turned me around. 

"What do you think you are doing?" Dimitri, closer than a breath away, looked at me with anger fuming all over him. His jaw clenched hard, his grip equally so.

"I-I fell." Tears brewed at the corner of my eyes as I expected him to snap again as I closed my eyes and braced myself for whatever was coming my way.

Arms wound around my waist as I was slowly picked up and led down the stairs the rest of the way. I opened my eyes cautiously to find myself in the room which I dreaded the most. He sat me down on the chair and went to the freezer as my eyes involuntarily averted towards the sink and stayed there until he blocked my vision and acquired it more when he knelt down and gently investigated my ankle. 

The lace unknotted, the socks came off and the ice pack a little colder than his fingers replaced them. It was fascinating to look at the growing swell in my foot and yet somehow not feel much pain. I frowned as I realized how odd that was. 

His fingers drew small circles on my feet, his head down, the kitchen silent. Rain poured outside as hard as ever, knocking on the windows. A loop playing again and again until he looked up and met my eyes. 

"I love you." 

I drew in a sharp breath and kept it inside. 

His eyes traced mine, unblinking and surely not asking for a response when he drew closer and touched my lips with his. They stayed still when they met. One cold and one a little less so. The pressure increased as I was pressed against the back rest until I couldn't lean any more. He was so close and occupying that I couldn't do anything but shut my eyes as he kissed me more. Not strong or hard but soft and gentle against my limp lips. 

He didn't press on my wound or do anything to make me kiss him back like I thought he would. Instead, he kept it slow and stopped before I could get breathless. His other hand reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and whispered quietly.

"You are beautiful."

I was utterly confused as I stared at this man and his hypnotizing green eyes. 

Everything that happened and everything that didn't happen in the past couple of minutes overwhelmed me beyond belief. He was behaving like a completely different man as if he was somehow possessed by someone else.

He stood up and picked me up once again and took me into the study with the books, piano, fireplace and floor to ceiling glass door wall and placed me on the couch as if I was merely a play doll of his. Or a pet.

"You clearly can't play through the pain, and it wouldn't be an efficient employment of time to I've you lessons right now. You are clearly still..." He paused and looked at me with something that might relate to guilt but hard to detect on him since he was who he was. " Weak. So let me play for you instead." He kissed my forehead and kept his lips there for some time. Then walked away and sat down on the bench. A deep exhale and a pause later he played not the classics but a song. Something which I thought he never would as his voice accompanied the tune of Unchained melody sung by The Righteous brothers. 

A huge part of the puzzle was missing. 

Something happened.

He did snap.

But not the way I think he would've.