WATER BATHS

01 ; cigarette street

Darya

I chucked my phone on my bed, muffling the quiet dings as messages lit the screen. I pressed circles on the skin of my pounding temples with firm fingers.

I was pissed.

And my blood only bubbled hotter as each ding grew sharper and sharper in my ears. It wasn't until I thought my skull might split from my hair line that I grabbed my phone again and chucked my jacket on, striding out my bedroom, keys jingling as I locked myself out the flat and down outside into the street after flinging myself down the stairs.

I walked on down the white speckled pavement, the street lights a pale yellow rising above me. Each step heavy, quick, heated.

6:26 pm. The road by the building I stormed out of was quiet.

Warmth flirted in the air. Before anything else, I had already snuck a cigarette between my lips- a flame flickered briefly and I breathed in, red and grey glowing inches from nose. I tucked my lighter away, peeling away the leather flap of my jacket pocket. Hair flying in the warm August air as I let my legs tingle with each draw from the fag before I finally looked at my phone.

Look we have to talk

Darya?

You're being childish. Just answer me.

Darya

Darya??

One more message dinged and I grit my teeth.

Just come home.

My head pounded and my chest swelled almost painfully and my eyebrows crumpled together. How annoying.

My boots slapped the pavement faster, harder.

My left hand curled in a fist, ready to strike something. Anything- hard. Enough to bruise.

My cigarette was placed at the tip of my fingers, between the index and middle finger of my right hand where in my slightly damp palm I held my phone. The corners of my hand stung as it tightened round the edge of it.

It took another drag of nicotine before my scowl snarled itself to life and I made the phone call, blood rushing in my ears. I held the phone to my right ear as I rounded a corner out of the avenue and neared the main street.

One agonising ring.

Another.

More and more of my icy cool turned to frosty anger. Make that royally pissed.

Then finally; "Dar-"

"Don't."

"Look. Just hear them out-"

I cut off the sombre voice, his low note annoying me enough. "Don't text me, don't call me, don't talk to me. You go on yourself. I don't want to see them." My constraint was wobbling in my voice as I seethed through my throat and let each statement come out as a hard steely message. "Don't drag me into this again."

Another puff in my lungs before I tapped away the ash where it floated to the ground behind me.

"Just five minutes Darya," came his calm pressing, pleading voice. It only made me suck my cheeks in, molars biting down on the round flesh that tasted of smoke.

"Piss off."

"Are you at Izra's? Wait there, I can pick you up."

I pulled the phone away from my ear and laughed at the air. Snarky, hollow. "Don't bother. No one's home," I said while I crossed a gravely narrow opening of a lane.