A Song Named Alice

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Loki wakes up. While stretching his back, he raises his arms up and yawns. Sluggishly, Loki takes a few glances around the room before getting up. As he is about to open his closet, he hears a woman's voice yelling to him from the front door.

Loki yells back to the woman, "Give me a second!" and turns from his closet to the drawers by the window.

Rushing, Loki runs to get dressed, grabbing whatever is on top. When he looks down at himself to see the shirt he put on, he notices a few large, day-old stains on it. He frowns and tugs at the shirt with one hand while trying to while wipe the stain off with his other. Grabbing a thin jacket off a hanger, Loki slides it on to cover his shirt. There's no stains on it when he checks. However, both his pants and jacket are dark. He sulks over it. Great. Looks like I'm doing laundry when I get home.

Loki hears the woman yell at him again. Loki shouts back, louder. "I hear you, Alice!"

Running into the bathroom on the other side of the room, Loki flattens his bedhead and checks to see if his teeth need to be brushed. He skims his tongue over his teeth and attempts to grab his toothbrush, but as he glances up at the clock hanging up near the door of the bathroom, he realizes that he doesn't have time. Then Loki scans the room, with an edge, forgetful feeling in his gut.

He observes over into the other room, trying to cure the weird feeling. He finds nothing, but Loki remembers when he checks himself. Ah, my belt, that's it. Where did I put it?

He hunts through the room, searching in his drawers, under his bed, in his closet, everywhere. Finally, he finds his only belt in the bathroom, and Loki rapidly buckles it through and goes over to the door. Taking a deep breath and gulping down the fearful knot in his throat, he readies himself for Alice's reaction, and opens the door. As soon as he sees her, Loki masks a smile.

Alice, who is about twenty, same as Loki, crosses her arms. Her somewhat light brunette hair hangs not much farther than her shoulder. It has signs of being played with. She slips her black sunglasses from her eyes to the top of her head and unzips her long, black winter coat on. Alice moves her hands to her hips, inside the coat, while giving him a perturbed glare. She voices her frustration, "What took you so long? Wait, let me guess, you just woke up and hadn't gotten dressed at all... as usual."

Loki laughs uncertainly. "No, I was already..." He averts his gaze from Alice's heartless stare, but his worry gets the best of him and forces the truth from his lips. "Yes Alice, I forgot. I'm so sorry. I'm trying to wake up earlier, but I had to work late again." Loki anticipates a disagreement.

However, Alice doesn't push back. Instead, she sighs and her face softens. Loki feels her mercy rising and his heart beat slows to a steady beat. Then he hears Alice mumbling to herself and his anticipation rises again.

After her mumble, she changes her glare straight to Loki's eyes. "You really need to stop taking on these extra projects; you have your own work to do," Alice points a finger at Loki. "And all it is doing is keeping you up late and making you exhausted."

It's not an attack. He breaths easy again. The relief nearly makes his knees collapse. The head rush of it all throbs at him. As Loki rubs his head, he says, "I know, and I'm not doing that much anymore, but Alice, this time it was the boss. He wanted me to finish up the project I was working on that day, so I had work overtime to finish it."

"You say that, but do you really mean it?"

"Don't you trust me, Alice? I always mean it." Loki says.

Alice flies her hair out from inside her hood as she turns her head away. "I trust you just fine, but you're the one who's easy to give in and believe. You believe anyone of anything they say. You're gullible! Not only that, but you leave me to clean the mess up."