Journey || Erik Durm

♂

ERIK:

                   WE must have been at it for hours. The illuminating lights emerging from the outside houses eventually switched off due to the late night hours, leaving us in the brisk, narrow bathroom with no light and only Lotte's audible sobs. The more she convulsed with tears, the more my stomach constricted with intangible emotions.

I wondered what I should be doing, if it was okay for me to hold her, and if it was appropriate for me to be here with her while Marco was in Dortmund. More than that, I wondered why she had come here in the state that she had; what had happened?

Time became a conundrum until her cries subsided, and when it happened that a gentle hum of breaths replaced the sobs, I dropped my free hand under her knees and gently held her body, sliding her into my arms like a threshold. As I mounted from the floor, I discerned her chest movements: up, down, up, down, pace quickening with each step.

I trailed my eyes upward, observing her closed eyes, the dark stain of her trickling mascara, and then, stopping at her pink, plump lips, realizing how they shone in the darkness, coated in saliva.

"Hmm," she groaned, and I darted my head away, entering the door to her room. Dropping her on the memory foam and coating her in layers of heavy blanketing, I observed Lotte a final time before making my way way toward the door. The room grew crispier with each step, and I contemplated adding an additional quilt.

When I reached the doorframe, I stopped momentarily.

"Erik?"

My breath clogged in my throat. "Ja?"

"Will you stay?"

I hummed, unmoving.

"Please?"

I walked back toward the bed, sitting down. "Okay."

"You're so tense," Lotte said as I gazed into her eyes, immediately looking away. Her gaze was especially vigorous today, and she innocently trailed her fingers to my shoulder, leaving a path of flames at their wake, making all of my blood drain from my face. "Say something."

Feeling myself tighten, I crossed my legs.

"Hey," she pressed. "Will you at least look at me?"

I hesitantly did. "Why?"

She lifted her hands from my shoulder, reaching to graze my lips. "What happened there?"

Underneath her fingers, a faint, transient, ironic smirk fashioned on my brooding face. "What's it to you?" I retorted; hadn't she known that her scumbag of an ex-boyfriend—or whoever the hell he was—had done it? Hadn't she been the one to send him here in the first place?

She sat up on the bed, pulling her fingers away. "You're right."

I uncrossed my legs as an insipid, foreseen silence overcame the room. A penetrating breeze crept through the open window—almost as penetrating as the silence—and bereft of wind, there arose the crunchy noise of leaves falling on their own accord and thereby being crushed by foot.

After that, there wasn't a single whisper, not even from the crickets.

Not even from that you-know-where region.

"So, you like someone, huh," Lotte said, breaking the silence.

I chuckled at her randomness. "Shouldn't you be trying to sleep?"

"The girl outside that Mario was with," she continued bashfully, a blush creeping onto her cheeks. "Do you like her?"

The girl outside that Mario was with—Ann-Kathrin?