I don't think I was used to relationships. But it appears to be that some things come out so naturally when you start doing them that eventually, it seems like you've known that a long time before. It's like swimming or riding a bicycle. Once or twice you may hesitate if you have it in you but then you try and with every right movement grow fond of the idea of learning. So, could we learn for real?
I think the only bad thing about being a writer was looking at the world through the book prism. It's just my March appeared to be a chapter in somebody's story, and as much as I loved books, there is always that thing about them that nothing good lasts long, driven by the fear to make the plot uninteresting and bore the reader. Perhaps, my story meant to be a complicated one no matter how bad I was craving for things to be simply normal. Perhaps, I didn't know what it's like when things are normal.
We spent a whole month alone. Together. I was afraid to pronounce that sentence aloud but couldn't help coming back to it more and more, my mind misted with the idea of the desired happiness and his white cigarette smoke. I felt him mentally, physically, gently, desperately - in every way he allowed me to, and I was trying to catch the moment of us together and put it in the bottle like a delicate ship model for everyone to see but not to touch. Our time could be taken for an exhibition that March, and I was afraid to ruin the unfamiliar and long-awaiting perfection of it.
With Alex my days became different. I loved when he would pick me up after work. We could go to his studio, his home, or anywhere in that city where we felt like going to pass the time like it didn't exist. With Alex somehow, hours, minutes, and seconds were starting to have no meaning, and the night could go without even coming to change the day.
I loved when he teased me.
I loved when the talks were nothing but a prelude. The prelude to us and everything I could so vividly feel in my chest when I would catch him looking at me without any actual thing to say. I loved when he said he needed to go but was always late because he wanted to stay.
I loved when he called me "darling".
I loved, I loved, I loved...
Oh damn...
I loved so many things about him that somebody would actually say that I loved him. Which obviously could've sounded just a little insane if you try to imagine it for real.
But well, what if?
The monotonous sound of my fingers tapping the keys on the typewriter was mercilessly cutting the air of the room. In the furious, habitually fast action the letters were obediently appearing on the paper only to become words and phrases, forming sentences. The action giving me the sort of satisfaction I'd never felt to anything else before. My manuscript was getting its chapters done, and the end wasn't as far as it seemed at the first sight.
Well, it looked like, after all, I could be a writer, couldn't I?
The window was open to my left and the cool April wind was bringing the scent of the cherry blossom somewhere from the outskirts of the city, reminding me of the beautiful season of the year we belonged to. From all the things in the world, most of all I adored spring. And I would think about it for as much as I've wanted to. But how could that be possible when I wasn't alone in the room?
Alex was sitting on the chair on the other side of the bedroom next to the door, writing on the paper and smoking a cigarette. The naughty lock of hair fell on his forehead lazily as he put the cigarette between his teeth to note something with a pencil and let the white smoke get lost somewhere in the air above his head. Alex's legs in blue-washed jeans were laying on another chair next to him, a black simple shirt tugged in the jeans casually, accompanied but the thoughtful expression on his face and the shadows of the evening on his cheekbones. It was so easy to stop typing, observing him, that I almost didn't notice.
Oh Lord, it felt like it was impossible to get used to that picture.
We grew to like doing some routine things in the presence of each other. I was afraid at first it wouldn't have worked. Because all we knew was chasing after one another or going away without spending any time together, playing those games that were nothing close to usual or normal. But somehow there he was.
There he was in the furnishing of my apartment, making all the surroundings feel like the cheap, unimportant decorations and taking my breath away from the single understanding of that fact. I never knew it was possible to adore someone like that but maybe, there was some particular word to describe that adoration. The familiar word that got my chest tighten nervously. The word that I'd heard and seen so many times before but never had an actual chance to feel it.
'I saw you watching me, darling'.
I almost jumped at my seat as I heard the silver sound of his voice appearing in the air only to mix with the lazy movement of the smoke from his cigarette, the smug way too familiar smirk touching Alex's lips as he kept his eyes glued to the paper. Something was in the way he so naturally and carelessly intruded in the atmosphere of my apartment, and I had to suppress a smile coming to my features.
'I'm sorry, I just needed some inspiration' I teased lightly, biting my lip somehow shyly, waiting for his reaction from under my eyelashes. I couldn't explain how it was actually possible after the whole month together to feel that distance between us so strongly, to crave for closing it so impatiently as if we never touched each other. Maybe, the reason was that no matter what I always had the feeling that Alex was coming to my life not to stay. But to leave eventually.
'Then you might get a little more inspiration from coming to sit right here' he answered cunningly, raising his mocking dark glance at me as if trying to trick me and patting his lap lightly. His pencil and paper were put on the table unregretfully as he watched me expectedly to come closer. The only thing except two of us remained was his still burning cigarette.
'Well, I don't mind it' I chuckled softly, standing up from my spot and locking my eyes with his. Our glance exchanges always felt so intimate that I wanted to hide and stare back simultaneously. It was like making steps forward and away all the time, making it feel like a rhythmical dance. Something painfully close to the piledriver waltz.
'Come here' Alex pronounced quietly, meeting me with the gesture of his hand circling my waist and making the last puff of his cigarette. I soon was on his lap as Alex turned my back to him to put both of his hands around my shoulders and slide them along my arms to take my fingers in his. I felt the toned torso pressing to my spine and the hot breath tickled the exposed skin of my neck, raising goosebumps. I leaned back at him mindlessly, closing my eyes to feel his touch vividly.
It felt like the first time when he left a small feathery kiss on my neck.
'You know, I actually wanted to tell you about something' his words come out muffled as he pronounced them in the skin of my shoulder, capturing my attention by the serious tone of his voice.
'Sure' I answered a little warned by the sudden change of mood, making myself comfortable on his chest and letting his chin rest on my shoulder.
'There is this party on the weekend that the music people I know and just some interesting folks throw on and I thought that I would like you to be there' Alex told me somehow simply and casually, avoiding the fact that he'd never invited me to such things like these before. It was only a tight circle I was acquainted with, and this invitation seemed like a whole another step for both of us. 'Matt, Jules, and the guys will be there'.
'I don't see why to refuse' I answered slowly, taking my fingers to play with his, enjoying this reality or more-so an illusion that something like this could last forever.
'You can invite Tina with you too' Alex added in a satin voice as if a matter of fact, taking his fingers from my grip and sending them to my knees, soft hands going up my thighs slowly and smoothly, making the hem of my dress go up tamely. The action taking my concentration away and forcing the small gasp from my lips.
'She has this guy she loved coming back in town a month ago and she doesn't really want to be with Jules in one building before sorting that out' I explained as clearly as I could, even though the foggish sensation in my mind as the reaction to his tender and teasing touch didn't allow me to speak more. Whenever we were alone like that, being in his arms was the only thing I could desire, and if it was completely mutual, then I would've been able to hold the realization of it in my chest. The feeling would've been bigger than me.
'Seems reasonable' he agreed distractingly, placing a hot open-mouthed kiss on my shoulder, making me relax my spine in pleasure, his hands keeping me in place tightly. 'Then come without her'.
'I will...' I barely whispered. Talking seemed to be a much more difficult task than usual.
'I like the way your body responses to my touch'.
He continued in a whispered voice, letting his nose trace the line up to my jaw and make me tighten the grip on his fingers on my thighs from the sensation. Somewhere near the opened window, the curtains were flying in the wind but I couldn't see them as my sight was blurred by his presence.
'Am I the only one who's made you feel like this before?'
Something arrogant was in Alex's tone as he already knew the answer. I never met someone like him and my life just always felt like a prequel to the day we'd met. It was wrong to think that, it was wrong to be so mad about him but how could I fight the feeling? I once admitted him being my worst disease and if that was true then the disease seemed to be chronic.
'You just want to hear me say that aloud, don't you?' I asked him with a challenge, ignoring my rapid heartbeat and the urge of melting in the way he was. In the way he touched me, in the way he kissed me, in the way he talked was just as much of the world for me as it was behind the opened window of my room. The difference was that I always seemed to be drawn more to the one that was in him.
'Well, I just want you to be only mine in every way possible'.
His velvety tone imprinted on my skin, making me catch my breath uneven and almost desperate. Because how in the world he could think that there was anyone else I could belong to? When every thought throughout the day was called by his name. When every corner and every passerby had his image? It was crazy how much I was scared to show the real power of my emotion when he was asking these questions so easily, so carelessly. Those were the moments when I thought that it would've been better for him not to know the truth.
I turned around and sat down straight to see his face perfectly, lips and handsome features just a few inches away from mine. His dark eyes and the reflection from the dimmed yellow light of my room in them were looking at me captivatingly, leaving no chance but to adore the sight. His breath was calm and steady, the complete opposite of mine, and I was afraid to ruin the cozy silence of the room.
Putting my hands on his shoulders gently, I leaned to his ear and whispered lovingly:
'Baby, in every way you want... I'm yours'.
I heard Alex's lips forming a satisfied smirk and his hand pressed on my waist just a little too tightly, another one coming to grip my chin with his fingers. His eyes were the epitome of air in my lungs when he leaned in to finally kiss me.
I felt his lips grazing mine slowly only to turn the movement in hot and brazen, taking everything I could give, everything that I wanted to give, everything I couldn't help but dreamt to give. Whatever move of his body was made, I followed it, I chased it, I craved for it no matter what he planned for the two of us, I never wanted it to end. When his kisses made their way to my neck and collarbones, I never fought the feeling of goosebumps running over my body.
My hands took his T-shirt away, fingers tracing every muscle on his chest with a tender but passionate appreciation, still trying to think clearly with рші hands and lips on my skin and failing miserably.
Because there was something unexplainably pleasant in losing to Alex Turner.
My dress was long gone soon. In the breathtaking mix of feelings, Alex managed to give me, I could feel him in the way I was scared to because the touch couldn't feel so unreal and the kisses couldn't be so intense. In the sound of him whispering my name, I could hear a beautifully disastrous note, and the only thing I wanted to believe was that he felt me just like I felt him. The room became shy at the image of us, and I could only smile softly in between the kisses.
That was one of the evenings we spent in the lit-up window of my apartment, just one of the yellow squares in the rows of the night April city lights, blinking distractingly to the stranger's sight before going off eventually and becoming the part of the darkness just like millions of windows every night. Alex stayed, promising to wake up beside me, and even if he didn't keep the promise, it wouldn't matter. Because what could be better than the absolute conviction that he would've come back?
Oh, I should've known to be more careful.
But that was still somewhere deep inside my mind and a few days later I had nothing to worry about. Matt, Nick, and Jamie gathered at Alex's that Saturday morning to hang out and play some music. I was out to buy some things for my manuscript and was supposed to come over to spend the day with them later. The guys should've been gone at noon and we would've been alone after that. I always appreciated those kinds of days and always wanted to come as fast as possible.
That morning I got especially lucky. Buying some books and the paper for my typewriter, I had a nice conversation with a cashier and smiled at myself going out of the last shop on my journey. It was April in all its unbelievable, breathtaking blossom beauty. People were rushing somewhere in a lively unstoppable rhythm, much an opposite from the picture I'd seen in February, waiting for the green traffic signal for what seemed like ages.
Stopping to let the car pass me by on my way, I thought that being happy, you suddenly find out that every crossroad shows only a green traffic signal. And the feeling of it soon becomes so natural and habitual that you might forget that the traffic light has other colors to it. Nothing can bother you, nothing can make you stop and look around. You just move ahead, just like the cars on the morning road, fast and unapologetic, too busy with your own path, too focused to be distracted. And it seems like no one but destiny can prevent you from reaching the destination.
That April I almost forgot about destiny.
I opened the door to Alex's house with no difficulties. He used to leave it open whenever he had someone over, and it was one of those habits of his that were so annoying that somehow could paint a small smile on your face. I put the bags with some food and snacks for the guys on the floor, hearing the lively discussion in the living room. Something in me felt like making a surprise since apparently, they didn't hear me coming. On my tiptoes, I went down the hall and looked around the corner carefully, trying to guess if it was the right moment to come in.
'God, Alex, make your fucking face look less pompous. Whenever you play that "Do I Wanna Know?" riff, it feels like you turn into a narcissistic asshole'.
I heard Nick's voice speaking in a mocking irritated tone and let out a soundless chuckle as I saw the picture of the room from my hiding place. Matt and Jamie were sitting on the couch, sipping some drinks from cans, all laid back and relaxed, watching Alex on the chair with his acoustic guitar, playing some random sounds. Nick was practically laying on the armchair with his feet on the glass table, eating something from the bag. Some pizza cardboards were laying here and there, setting the lazy atmosphere of the room, and a few cigarettes were going off in the ashtray. Oh yeah, classic.
'You just envy my beautiful pompous face, admit it' Alex chuckled teasingly, answering Nick almost mindlessly, brushing the strings of the guitar lightly. Whenever he was in that playful mood, I admired the sight of him more than ever. If "more" was even a possibility.
'Oh yes, I can't believe I'll be so blessed to see it on tour every day' Nick responded sarcastically, taking a bite of whatever he was eating from his bag and throwing it in his mouth carelessly. I caught myself furrowing my eyebrows in confusion immediately, hearing the word that never came out from Alex's lips in the presence of mine.
On tour?
'I knew you were excited' Alex mocked back without raising his glance at Nick, starting to play some quiet unknown melody. The motive of it bringing to me some unpleasant paranoid feeling.
'By the way, about the excitement. Is Lili about to come?' Matt intervened casually, throwing a glance at Alex and checking his phone for a time on it.
For the month of being together with Alex, I and Matt grew to be close as friends and we would hang out often here and there. For me, he was the voice of sanity I had a habit to lack overwhelmed with my feelings, and in general, just a good guy I was so lucky to meet that February night at the bar.
'Yeah, she's about to be here soon so you'd better shut up about all this tour talk'.
Alex finally raised his glance at Matt with a convincing strong glare, repeating his mindless guitar movements. Something in his voice sounded not so habitually as if he wasn't in the mood to put my name and the word "tour" in one inseparable sentence.
The question was: why?
'Why? Didn't you tell her?' Matt raised his eyebrows in a disapproving manner, adding some judging note to the tone of his voice and repeating my thoughts aloud. I wasn't the one to enjoy eavesdropping but that awful curious something in me pushed me to listen further. It was like waiting for a scary moment in the movie that wasn't supposed to be horror. I still hoped it was some foolish mistake.
'No, I didn't' Alex brushed Matt's question away irritatingly, making it look like he was still unbelievably bothered by his guitar. But something in the lines of his features was telling me something was off with it. For a bit more than a month together, I learned all the variations of his expressions, and at that moment it was nothing but my curse.
'You know that's not right, do you?' Matt continued astonished, sharing glances with Nick and Jamie, probably searching for any reasonable excuse. A part of me wanted to stop listening but the seed was already planted and from now on, I wouldn't have been calm and steady anyway. Alex had secrets from me he wanted to hide and it couldn't be good for us.
'Don't tell me what's right, Matt' Alex answered a bit harshly, stopping his eyes at the cigarette in the ashtray. The lines of his face turned into the thoughtful ones, and I wondered if it was because of me. He must have thought of me at that moment, mustn't he?
And if yes, what exactly?
'You can't be serious, can you? You know that she won't like you hiding it' Jamie spoke in an unpleasant confusion, mirroring Matt's manner. 'And as a matter of fact, why would you? I just don't understand'.
'I'll tell her. There just wasn't the right time for it' Alex snorted annoyed at Jamie, and I saw him suppressing something behind that snort. Something that made a bad feeling in my chest wake up unwittingly. I didn't want to feel hesitant again. God, I hated it. It was so hard to learn to trust him that a single mention of his lie was making me go back to that harmful sensation. Maybe, I was just being stupid, but why wouldn't he just tell? What was so bad about the news of him going on tour?
'I don't like it, man. You can't make us all your sidekicks' Nick added, turning his head to the sides to prove the words.
'Don't be my sidekicks, just shut up. I don't want to discuss it. Besides, she'll be here soon'.
Alex sighed somehow tiredly, and I didn't know where it came from. I felt a nervous feeling in my stomach as if I was guilty of something I accidentally missed. At times like that, it's so easy to make it all your fault cause if it is your fault, then you can do something to fix it, don't you?
But if the reason has nothing to do with you, and those little moments of destiny are something that life consists of, then does it even make any sense? Does it make any sense when things start turning in the wrong direction again when you did everything right and there was nothing to blame you for? Looking at Alex's posture on the chair in the middle of the room I knew too well now, I suppressed the bitter suspicious feeling the hardest way I knew.
'I'll just play something' Alex added when nobody said anything, making an attempt to vanish the topic. And I wished I came later.
'Let's do "Love is a Laserquest"' Jamie suggested almost mindlessly as if he didn't mean to keep arguing with Alex but had no enjoyment in the scene either. I probably felt the same. Maybe, just a little bit more concerned.
'No, I want him to play "Dance Little Liar"'Matt snorted wryly and something daring became prominent in his tone, making Alex turn his head at him again in slight disbelief. The phrase seemed to be picked on purpose, and the energy just wasn't good.
'You think you know everything, don't you?' Alex let out a chuckle that lacked any fun, voice firm but still cashmere, his dark eyes concentrating on Matt with something unreadable, and I swallowed a lump in my throat. I was ignoring all of it, I was giving him a chance for the future to explain all of it. But was I right about it?
'Just play the fucking song, Alex' Matt pronounced somehow despisingly, and that was something I didn't expect from him.
'Your girlfriend will be here soon'.
At that moment, Alex's eyes were sparkless and maybe, that was the only problem I could distinguish perfectly. His glance was focused on Matt for a second, thoughtful and almost numb, but then he lowered it to his guitar, dismissing the pause. The melody started playing, and all the other problems were nothing but my hesitations. I refused to believe that something went wrong in that perfect bubble where we existed.
'I heard that truth was built to bend...'
His voice filled the room with its soft velvety sound, and I leaned my back at the wall, losing the picture of him. Now I was supposed to come out as if nothing happened, but I knew that it would've been a hard thing to do.
'A mechanism to suspend the guilt is what you will require
And still, you've got to dance little liar...'
It's just I wasn't used to relationships. Hell, I was scared of the lies so much that almost lost Alex a little while before. But what did I have to do? It was so tempting to explain everything with something absolutely unbelievable.
Because it happens that being in love you often get fond of creating excuses.
'Just like those fibs to pop and fizz
And you'll be forced to take that awful quiz
And you're bound to trip
And she'll detect the fiction on your lips and dig a contradiction up...'
I guess I just didn't know that things in life are often pretty simple. There is a lot of shades between black and white but eventually, it all leads to these cliche opposites. The hesitation turns into a fact and it's an either happy or unhappy outcome.
Everything in between, to speak truthfully, is still a hesitation.
'And the clean coming will hurt
And you can never get it spotless
When there's dirt beneath the dirt...'
But I was in love. And I adored excuses. Picking up the bags from the floor before claiming my presence, I heard but didn't remember:
'The liar takes a lot less time...'
Hi, I missed you🥺 Well, I'd rather not bore you with the explanation of my disappearance. After all, I'm here to say thank you. Thank you for reading and supporting so much, despite I was gone for too long💕
The last time I was updating this fic, it was nowhere near with the attention it gets now and I have no idea how it happened. But I'm forever grateful. No promises this time but I hope to finish what I started.
Anyway, please, let me know what you think about the chapter by leaving a like or comment. I'd really appreciate that. Much love for every and each one of you!❤️