Hold Me Close

ya nos conocemos

Boxing is fine. Fine, even though Lucy is onto us. Fine, even if Alexia chooses not to wear her top and I get a right-hook to the jaw from Lucy, my guard let down while I watch her take it off. The day continues to be fine when we walk the demon at the local park, and stays fine when Alexia extends the dinner invitation to Esmee after the twenty-year-old complains she'll have no one to cook her food if I am not there.

Even when Esmee leaves, claiming we are making 'bedroom eyes' at each other, everything is fine.

Alexia sighs for the fifth time, hardly paying attention to the TV. I card my fingers through her loose hair, comfortable under the weight of her back pressing against my front, her body between my legs.

She sighs again.

"What's wrong?" I ask gently, well-aware of her hostility towards her own emotions.

"I'm fine."

"You're tense."

"Maybe I am turned on."

I stop moving my hands. Alexia whines at this, pushing back into me. "You're not," I tell her, having become well-acquainted with her body over the past month. "So what's wrong?"

The protruding silence makes me exhale with slowly building frustration. "Alexia, we have to talk to each other if we are going to be together."

She sits up at that. Maybe it translated into Spanish badly, or sounded better in my head. I can preach communication for all its worth, but, of course, with Alexia there is always going to be a language barrier. We can only wear it thin, not destroy it.

"What was Scarlett like?" She doesn't look at me as she speaks, her question said softly and accompanied by the rustling of the sofa cushions as she shifts off my body and into the space beside me.

I forget that I did not have an ex to talk about when I was with Scarlett. I was a lot younger, a lot more inexperienced, and without an excessive amount of baggage.

I don't ask her why she would like to know because the answer to that is obvious.

"Do you want to know about her or us?" I construct the conversation carefully, wanting Alexia to find the information she seeks. Unnecessary detail will swamp us in the past, especially when talking about someone who is not coming back to apologise for any open wounds they left behind.

Alexia's gaze fixes on some point in the distance as if the air holds the answers she is searching for. I watch her for a moment, trying to understand the thoughts swirling in her mind.

"I want to know about both," she finally says, her voice just above a whisper.

I nod.

Monday.

Scarlett hates Mondays with a passion. She refuses to get out of bed and she refuses to make breakfast.

I take on the tasks without a second thought. I unload the washing machine from our Sunday load, and clean up the dishes we had forgotten about last night.

I tell her she looks beautiful when she plods into the kitchen in her training kit, just to make her smile. Her hair is a mess, and she does not seem convinced, but I know it has made her morning seem less grey, even if the sky agrees with her foul mood and unleashes a storm on our city.

"She liked having a routine, and was very passionate about her dislikes. It could have bordered on being judgemental and stubborn, but it never did. She was too kind for it to come off that way."