How to Start a Fire

CH12 [Realizations]

He stopped when I came closer because he heard me. "NELLY!" He said, turning around towards me and jumping back against the fridge. "Why are you up so early?"

I looked at him and it was quite obvious that he hadn't slept all day, or at least most of it.

"What's up?" I asked carefully, trying my best to sound nice.

"Nothing, I just... I... I couldn't sleep very well I've been quite disturbed because of last night, you have to admit... quite a lot happened..." He chuckled awkwardly and shifted a little.

"Something's wrong, even I notice that." I said and leaned against the kitchen counter, staring at him.

He sighed loudly as he took a deep breath. "Nothing is wrong, Nelly. Everything's okay." He smiled at me as he always did and walked over to the kitchen table to grab his empty cereal bowl. "Don't be so worried all the time!"

I bit my lower lip. "Stop doing that." I said calmly, making fists so I wouldn't shake as badly.

"Doing what?" He smiled again and put the bowl into the sink before walking over to me and grab my hands. "You're just paranoid."

"Stop lying to me. Please." I said, trying to get my hands out of his. "You always did that, right? You always, like... did that smile and hugged me and told me everything would be fine and you would be fine but actually you are just way better at staying calm and playing pretend than me."

He let go of my hands again after a bit of a fight, finally.

"So, why were you down here? And why were you counting?" I asked, crossing my arms.

He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. I could see in his face that he really didn't want to talk about this but I was worried and I just wanted him to be real to me. "This is not about you." He said, after a moment of silence. "This is only about me and my bullshit and I know how to deal with it, I don't need anyone's help."

"Yeah, that's why you stayed up all day doing whatever you were up to, counting in front of the fridge or whatever." I said with an angry tone of voice. He frustrated me.

"All I want you to do is leave me alone! Go and see Selem or whatever or do something nice but PLEASE stop! I deal with this by myself, without anyone's help. Okay?" Now he sounded frustrated and maybe even a little mad, it made me shake worse again and I tried to take deeper breaths to calm down, but I was already too messed up to think straight.

"Trying to say you don't deserve any?" I said without thinking. "Just like last night when I tried to-"

"Listen up." He said with a clear and deep voice getting closer again. "I didn't care for you and build you up all the time so you can overstep personal boundaries, okay?! If I tell you I won't talk about it, I won't. We could have kept this calm but you are practically ASKING to be torn apart. We could have settled this nicely. With a smile. With a dumb everyday gesture. This is not about you." He moved back, glaring at me a little but after only a few seconds the anger melted off his face a little and he looked more like he wanted to cry. I just stood there, staring at him, waiting for him to do something else... his behavior just now was unexpected and scared me a lot, I was still somehow shocked.

After another moment of silence he reached out to the fridge, opened it with dash and grabbed a full bottle of blood before slamming it shut again. Then he grabbed a bunch of sweets from the bowl on the kitchen table, stuffed them all into his pocket while hissing "fuck..." under his breath and stomped out of the room.

I remained by the kitchen counter for a little while longer. Probably he was right. Probably I did overstep boundaries. He didn't lie to me because he was a bad person or because he hated me, he lied to me so I wouldn't ask. It was his private life, just because I had found out that it was better to talk to somebody when I felt bad it didn't mean that he wanted to talk, too. I felt like I had cornered him and... pressured him for no reason...