The Girl Who Shook The Skies

Chapter 6

              With one terse look, Erik intimidates Ginny into leaving the room, then he ushers his friend in, and closes the door behind him.

            Suddenly I realize that my inner scream has been muted, or rather muffled by the loud tribal-drum-like sound of my heart beating through my temples and ears. The only person who has truly seen me, who truly knowsme, is here at last. 

Now I can breathe…

I barely have the courage to look up into his huge, clear, painfully beautiful eyes, and my breath hitches in my throat. Was he this… this… heartbreaking when I first saw him? His ash-brown hair seems to strangely give more light to the green in his eyes; those eyes he underlines with big black-framed glasses. And his lips… I realize I hadn’t noticed them before. How could I not? Even from a distance, they look too full, too soft, too young. His entire posture seems somehow adolescent, untamed, untarnished. It’s like magic balm to my wounds. I just know, then and there, that when it comes to this person, I’m in deep trouble. He could ask me anything, and I would do it in a heartbeat.  But first, I just need to wrap my head around the idea that he’s here!!! Right in front of me, looking straight at me once more…

            But then I wonder: what does hesee, if not bandages, casts, disgusting swelling, and pain? I haven’t exactly looked at myself in the mirror, but the gauze covers most of my skull – with my hair shaved at the back and right side – and goes diagonally over my nose and right cheek. My lower lip is sore and heavy on one end, and as for my eyes… well, I’m still looking through slits. I tried touching them once, and it felt like brushing against water balloons. And by the way he’s staring at me right now, with that slight, puzzled frown, I’m sure his assessment of me is in a whole other register than mine of him. 

            He slowly walks towards me carrying what looks like a laptop computer pouch, and sits where Ginny was a few minutes before.

 

            “Hello, I… I’m Peter,” he says, looking every shade of guarded.

            Two realizations hit me at once: First, he most probably does not know me from Eve. So I’ll have to rein in my obsession, because I’m two breaths away from behaving like I’ve known him all my life. And second, I should probably go even further in the reining-in process, and not tell him who I am at all! I suspect, with a deep pang, that even if I do tell him we’ve already almost-met, he might not remember me one bit! He draws portraits for a living, and mine was so… insignificant that he just left it behind, on the train… Oh fuck… Why didn’t I think of this before?!

            I plummet from instant euphoria to mind-boggling despair… Stupid, stupid, stupid… There is a reason why girls stop being so desperate after fifteen; but it seems I needed one more embarrassing disappointment to learn that lesson.

It’s decided then, I won’t tell him anything.

“Peter Alberic,” he continues. “I’m sorry, I heard your father speak English to you... Would you prefer French?” 

By his accent, I’d say he’s a Londoner, born and bred, and by his question, I know he’s been told things about me. I slowly shake my head.