Growing Up and Other Tall Tales

Chapter 12

It didn't take the effort or sacrifice I was not willing to invest in it. And for some reason that is scarier.

I bought up the subject a couple of weeks after my encounter with Iced Tea and Diana wasn't that surprised. It was as though she was waiting for me to say something. She had been holding her breath for the past month every time I was in the room: her eyes following me out of the room, shoulders tense, waiting for me to break the silence.

The air had been tense and the other girls picked upon it as well. Kathy would start to ramble loudly and awkwardly about something just to fill in the silence and smudge out the stiffness whilst Hye-Rin did the exact opposite: she fell silent and looked between the two of us.

It was getting tiring. And I had promised something.

"About that night..." I began. It's barely the next day, the throbbing blue is dissolving into the sleepy morning. Diana blinks at me but she didn't run away or tell me to stop talking about it so I cautiously dredge ahead.

"Why don't you call him?"

She looks down at her cereal and then inhales deeply. "You think I should?"

"Doesn't matter what I think,"

"It matters to me." she says and I smile to myself, a little touched

"I think it wouldn't hurt to hear what he has to say."

There is no change on her face: no flickers of anger that I had been poking my nose in her business, no tinges of refusal and none of acceptance either. But quietly and casually, she picks up her phone from the counter, the screen sets ablaze the dark apartment and I wonder again if this is the right thing to do.

Blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. Family that isn't blood and blood that isn't family.

She presses the phone against her ear, I leave.

But I think I hear crying.

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The next time I see Aiden it's 11pm and he is covered in blood.

I go to the door and ask who it is. Sometimes, Nick crashes over but he always texts me beforehand. Hearing no reply, I retire to the homework on the coffee table.

But the bell rings once more. Then twice. And now three times.

Grumbling, I pull the blanket around my shoulders and shuffle slowly to the door and suddenly, pressing the card against the scanner and pulling the door open seems like too much effort. I am tempted to ask Diana, who is working late and has probably left her key card at the office, to sleep outside.

But when I look through the eyepiece and see Aiden's familiar mop of white blond hair and odd eyes, I feel obligated to open the door. Just a crack. To ask him to leave.

I pop my head through the small space to tell him to fuck off when I see it.

"Yeah nope,"

Aiden's bloody hand splays across the door before I could shut the door. His shoe polished with a dried red interjects itself between the door and the frame. There is a cut on his lips and his chin is ensconced with blood like a nasty rash. The perimeter around his right eye is turning blue and he looks like the bloody Russian flag.

He chokes on his blood as he opens his mouth to speak and I sigh.

He's Diana's friend, he's Diana's friend, he's Diana's friend.

It's what I keep repeating to myself when I sling his arm around my shoulders and hoist him up to his feet. He staggers a bit and leans slightly against me. My blanket falls to the ground and I am aware of the inappropriate nature of my attire. But I don't have any free hands to award myself a face-palm so I resort to a wince.