Y/N's POV
The next few days, Mom took it as her ultimate goal to fatten me up a bit. She cooked and we drank gallons of wine. When Friday came, I thanked God I was going back to Warsaw. One more day and my stomach would have exploded. It's good that my parents lived by the forest. I could go jogging every day to burn off all the food that Mom had managed to stuff me with. I put on my headphones and sprinted ahead. Sometimes it took an hour, sometimes more. Throughout all this time, I had the feeling of being watched. I would stop and look around, but never saw anyone. I thought about Jimin—whether he was alive and if he was thinking about me, too.
On Friday afternoon, I got into my car and drove back to Warsaw. I called Stela, reporting in.
"Perfect timing! We're going shopping. I need a new pair of shoes," she said. "Give me the address and I'll pick you up in an hour."
"No, I'll come for you. I have something to do on the way."
When I arrived at Stela's, I saw her closing the entrance door and stopping, dumbstruck, in front of my car. She pointed a finger at it, circling the index finger of her other hand above her temple, wide-eyed. As soon as she got in, she cried, "Who gave you that ride?"
"I told you. Got it with the apartment," I replied, shrugging.
"Now I'm really curious how that apartment of yours looks."
"Oh, come the fuck on, it's a regular apartment. And the car's just a car." Her reaction got on my nerves, but what pissed me off even more was that I couldn't tell her the truth. She knew I was lying, and I knew I was making a fool of myself, ignoring the keenness of her intellect. "What's the difference?" Remember how we lived in that studio at Bródno?"
Stela burst out in laughter and fastened her seat belt.
"Yeah, with that crazy lady downstairs who always accused us of having orgies!"
"That wasn't entirely unfounded, you know." I sent her a meaningful look, reversing out of the parking lot.
"I might have moaned a bit loudly once or twice. Don't make it a big deal."
"Yeah, I remember getting back home earlier than I said once and thinking someone was torturing you."
"Oh, right, the little brat that fucked me back then was pretty rough, but his dad had a dentistry clinic."
"And he got you all the dental checkups for free."
"What he got me was a fuck so goddamn rough I scratched the plaster off the wall."
Thank God I managed to change the subject from my apartment and car. For the rest of the way our conversation focused entirely on Stela's rich sexual life.
Shopping never failed to improve my mood. We ran from boutique to boutique, buying shoes we didn't need. After a couple of hours of this crazy marathon, we were sated. Back in the multilevel parking lot, we had to find our car. It took a while, but finally we found it and started packing our stuff into the trunk.
"New ride?" I heard a familiar voice from behind.
I turned around and scowled, seeing Martin's best friend.
"Hi, Michał. What's up?" I said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
"You tell me. Why did you leave us like that? Martin nearly dropped dead—he was so afraid for you."
"Yeah, believe me, I know all about just how afraid he was, fucking that Sicilian girl," I retorted, spinning back around and putting the last bag into the trunk. "He was so concerned that he simply had to blow off some steam, right?"
