Blue Glass

Reproach

"Again?! You went to see him again?"

I instinctively cowered like she was going to cross the room and strike me across the face. My eyes remained pinned on Svetlana as she gave me her back and began to pace angrily.

"He's dishonored you, jilted you, totally destroyed you, and in the end you go crawling back to him like a common whore."

I flinched at that. "I'm not a whore."

"You're not?" She whirled to face me again, fury sparking in her blue eyes. "Who would have thought otherwise? Your actions are no different from those of a whore."

I slowly peeled myself away from the door, smoothing my clammy palms down the front of my skirt. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of myself in the huge mirror on one side of the room.

I looked horrendous. My skin was deathly pale and covered with pink blotches that stood out painfully clear on my face, and my hair looked like two marmots had crawled into it and fucked each other to death. My eyes were bloodshot and ringed with dark circles not unlike those of a raccoon. If there were ever to be an official visual aid for the word "unkempt", it ought to be my picture. 

"You've got it all wrong," I said through clenched teeth, desperately grasping at straws. Now that the magic of the moment had worn off, I was already furious at myself for letting myself fall for Manfred a second time. The last thing I needed was for my best friend to be angry with me. "I didn't intend to sleep with him."

"So what did you intend to do, then?" Svetlana slapped her palms down flat on the wooden night table. "Have a tea party with him?"

"That's exactly what my intentions were." My first half truth of the moment.

Svetlana blinked at me. "You went to the chateau he and his comrades were staying in to talk to him?"

"I would tell you if you would at least let me make myself at home," I said tightly, my chest tightening with the onset of white-hot fury, fury I didn't know why I was feeling at the moment. "I've had to literally run across half an airfield and countless dirt roads, you know."

I wasn't angry at her. She was essentially the only voice of reason in my life at the moment. So who was I so angry at? Manfred, for being so out of my reach? Myself, for pining for someone who was so unattainable? The world, for putting this distance between us? All three of those things? 

Svetlana backed out of my path as I stomped over to the mirror mounted on the small table on the other side of the room. The chair rocked back precariously on its back legs as I yanked it out with such force I was surprised it didn't topple over onto the floor. The pins in my hair dragged stray strands of it with them as I yanked them out one by one, wincing at the tiny pinpricks against my scalp with each tug. 

"Here, let me help." Svetlana rushed over, boar-bristled hairbrush at the ready, but I held out my hand when she was within reaching distance of me, motioning for her to give me the brush. 

"I can manage." 

From my view of her in the mirror, I could see her face fall ever so slightly before rearranging itself in a mask of indifference as she let the handle of the brush slip from her fingers to drop onto the palm of my hand. I began to swipe it aggressively through section after section of my hair, my eyes watering as knot after knot snapped and gave way beneath the bristles. Pinpricks of pain danced along my scalp, but they only seemed to enrage me further. 

"I don't even know why I bother sometimes." Svetlana's voice brought me out of my enraged assault on my hair. "You'll do whatever you want to do in the end. Regardless of the consequences."