MANIAC - Hatred & Love (Book 1)

Chapter 4

”What… Now?”, Aidan questioned incredulously. She kept flashing her teeth at him like she was so pleased with herself. Like he was her success and that was all that mattered at the moment. That smile would have lightened his heart a little, if it would have been heavy before.

He decoded her cheerful silence as her way of telling him ’Of course!’ or ’Duh!’ 

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If it’d been anyone else, he wouldn’t have apologized; he wouldn’t have agreed to go to the pub, and he wouldn’t have been here at the pub only mintes later with a drink, accompanying the person just because.Because the world told him so, because nothing told him so and because he shouldn’t, wouldn’t, but he did. Of course, he didn’t know this. In his shaded mind there was no place for anything like that, but what he didn’t know is that things like that didn’t happen in the brain. It didn’t start there, didn’t grow there, nor did it end there. And that was why telling himself ’She’s just a fuck’ didn’t end it. Those words his brain spoke couldn't and wouldn’t end the indefinite new feeling that was yet to grow until he realized it was even there. For now, his own selfishness would be in the way of sensing foreign feelings and instead regard everything with irritation. Like usual.

            She spoke about guys, hair, makeup, and things that he didn’t care about so he didn’t really listen as she chattered on. He moved his hand in a circling motion, swirling the whiskey that was left on the bottom of the glass, round and round. It hypnotized him, had his gaze caught in a never-ending, yellowish tornado. It was a small tornado but it was interesting enough at the moment to keep him from telling her to shut up. He just didn’t have the energy to hurt her, you know? 

”Am I talking to much? I feel like I’m talking to much…”, she said but managed to start yapping about something else in the same swift of that sentence, not bothering to hear Aidan when he sarcastically answered her, apparently, rhetorical question. ”No. No, not at all.”

He sighed as his realized he couldn’t get back to his earlier focus on the fascinating whiskey-tornado in his glass. Damn Alex, he thought to himself and stopped his circling motion to put the glass down. 

”Okay, I’m talking to much, I know it.” 

Aidan laid down his glass on the counter and looked at her for two seconds, waiting patiently for her to start rambling about whatever the hell she always managed to ramble about, again. She regarded his tired, examining eyes with her alert, wondering ones. When he spoke, it didn’t break the eye-contact. ”Yeah. You kinda are”, he said wearily, but a hint of interest could not be mistaken in the glitter of his eyes as they studied each other. Her eyes almost held the same color of the whiskey, and apparently shared the same hypnotizing powers. They were actually pretty, he dared note to himself.

”You have really pretty eyes!”, she chirped, and that broke the staring competition.

Aidan averted his eyes as he was caught red-handed, by himself, of thinking stupid thoughts. It felt as she had caught him doing it too, because she had voiced those exact thoughts. He only hoped the evening would go well. And in his book, well meant: no feelings, no questions asked, no fake-happiness, and ending with sex. But Alex did the opposite of part 2 of that definition. ”What’s your favorite color?”, she asked. So much for no questions asked. He considered banging his head in the table but answered her instead. Both options would give him a headache anyway so he figured he might as well. 

”Black”.

”Because of NOCA?”

”No. Yes. I don’t know”. He sighed. Again. Then his inner self almost rolled his eyes at himself for, completely out of nowhere, asking her the same question, despite him telling himself he didn’t care. ”And you? You haven’t died your hair black. Why? I take it, either your happy self is too good for black, or you just really love your own hair.”