Heart In A Cage

39

Isabella

Sheepishly, I sit cross-legged in the passenger's seat, hand on my bouncing knee and key chain looped into one of my fingers

I've been cooped up in here for a slow half hour, so I've had enough time to fidget with the leather of the car seat and concentrate on the conclusion that I'm too fretful to even open the windows and invite in some fresh air. To distract myself, I decide to do what I've stalled and finally call my parents.

I get an answer on the first ring, the howl of fierce winds greeting me from through the line.

"Hey, mum." I press the phone to my ear and frantically tap at my thighs.

"Bella! Sweetie, how have you been?" The cheerful sentiment of that voice keeps me from blundering. I haven't heard it in ages, and we've only contacted a few times after I'd moved from my hometown to complete my studies here, back during my initial stages with Jasper and when I'd lived with my cousins.

"Yeah, I'm doing alright. Tell me about―"

"Isaac! Get over here. Your daughter might have some news on that boyfriend of hers."

My arms tense. "Um, actually, we―"

"Has he mentioned marriage?"

I grit my teeth.

How am I meant to tell her that I've cemented myself into a confusing and corrupted game of Boyfriend-Girlfriend with a sexy man that's left me in a car with not a word of what he's doing? I peer out the tinted windows with the hope that he's the person walking through those automatic slide doors. He's not.

"Sweetheart, you're here?" Another nostalgic voice. My father.

"Yes...yes. I'm here. How are you?"

"I'm doing lovely. We just got the garden landscaped and it's looking gorgeous." He inhales through that irritatingly blusterous air that's whacking through the phone line. "And last week the home was renovated. But I want to talk about you. It's been too long since I've heard my daughter. How's work coming along?"

Jasper opposed the idea of me working.

"Awesome, awesome," I exclaim with false joy. "I'm, uh...researching the use of human embryos at a laboratory near my place. It's to advance cloning technologies. I've been doing it for months now." Words extracted from an unfulfilled dream where I'd fled from Jasper immediately after getting my degree, busted out his appalling house with a job application in hand, then slapped the papers before the secretary of an ideal workplace.

"That's amazing. What does your boyfriend think of it?"

"And again," my mum adds, "his mentions on marriage."

Andreas trudges through the carpark, a large amount of paper bags hanging over his arms. Each of them are bloated, stuffed with whatever's inside.

"Um, actually, I need to go now because--"

He opens the car's back door and throws the bags inside.

I hang up and twist around to observe the herd of purchases as he flumps onto the driver's seat. "What is all that?" I ask.

He ignites the car. "Bikinis."

I unfold my legs at full speed and grip the sides of my seat. "All of it?"

"Half of it."

"Andreas!"

"What?" He steers the driving wheel, leading us out the parking lot. I glimpse the litter of bags once more, and a few topple over, landing onto the floor.