Cold Skin (Letters to Dan - Part II)

Part 1; Chapter 4

I was sitting on the couch trying to fill in paperwork, when Astrid came running up to me, yelling.

"Astrid, shh, I'm doing something," I told her without looking up.

"I wanna play!" she demanded loudly.

"Give me a little longer and I'll play. Why don't you watch cartoons?"

I reached for the remote, but she grabbed it before I could.

"No. I want to play now," she said, crossing her arms and pouting at me.

I ran my hands over my face. God grant me patience. I did not have the time for this right now.

"Astrid, honey, if you give me a little bit of time, we'll go to the park. Ok? I just need to finish this."

She glared at me, then stormed out of the room, remote in hand. I sighed, thankful for the quiet, and started on the papers again. Something about the new album I was producing. Boring. It was the only part of this job that I didn't like. The sheer amount of office stuff I had to do - scanning and photocopying, emailing, signing stuff. Previously, my producer had done all this, but now it was my turn. I was just getting into the swing of things when Astrid came back, noisier than ever. I tried to pretend I didn't see her, but this only wound her up more. She kept banging around, begging me to play. When she tugged on the paper I was writing on and it ripped, I lost my cool.

"Astrid, stop!" I shouted.

Immediately, her face crumbled and her mouth opened up into a gaping hole of red. I figured I had about two seconds before she started screaming. So much for getting work done. I really should have hired a nanny. Astrid started bawling then, so I slid onto the ground and crouched in front of her.

"Hey baby, don't cry. I'm sorry. Let's go to the park. We can get ice cream."

At the mention of ice cream, she stopped crying straight away and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Chocolate?"

I nodded. "Go get your shoes on, I'll be right back."

***

So, yeah, working was hard when Astrid was constantly bugging me and I had no one to help me with her. Sometimes, when I had a lot of work, I'd take her to mum's and then go work in a nearby coffee shop, but more often than not I ended up working late into the night after she'd gone to bed. The lack of sleep took its toll, because Astrid was often up before 7, and if I didn't get up with her, she would destroy the kitchen and the living room and well, basically everything in sight. She was a pretty destructive kid, like a hurricane that wreaked havoc wherever it went.

By this point, I'd been dating Anna for almost three months. Despite having a wonderful time with her and enjoying her company greatly, I couldn't help but feel that something was off. But then, she was the first serious relationship, no, first relationship, period, I'd had since Beth. I figured maybe I was just being paranoid, constantly comparing the two of them to each other. Beth liked green apples, Anna likes red. Beth liked sleeping late, Anna got up early (though maybe this has something to do with her job, I don't know). Beth went a mile a minute while Anna liked to take things slow. And I think that maybe this was the problem. I think maybe I was bored.

Still, I decided to play it by ear, not make any rash decisions. And that's how we wound up in Paris, of all places, for a romantic weekend away from home. Because not making rash decisions involved impulse buying two gold class tickets to Paris.

I left Astrid with my parents and together with Anna we zoomed across the ocean to the most beautiful city I've ever seen, to this day. It was peak season, and because our booking was so short notice, the only place available was a small apartment on the third floor of a dingy building. The apartment itself was wonderful - a kitchen, small bedroom and a living room with a window that opened up to reveal the blue and grey rooftops of the city. It was perfect, with only one flaw - the bathroom smelt like it had never been cleaned. Ever. But that was okay, because we'd only be in the apartment to sleep for one night.