Ten fifteen. A Saturday night. And the tap drips under the strip light. And I'm sitting in the kitchen sink. I get up and turn the music off. Sarah said that listening to sad music when you are sad helps, but I guess it is just another thing she was wrong about. This hits home too close. I am sitting in the kitchen and the water does drip and I am waiting for the telephone to ring.
"It is always the same, Robert Smith," I say agreeably as I take the CD out and search for the correct case to put it back in. My eyes scan the shelf where piles of CDs are stacked in no particular order. I search for the pink cover. I finally find it. I open the case, put the CD neatly back in, and close the case. The picture on the cover is a weird photography of an old lamp, a small fridge and a hoover. I look around the crappy apartment and ponder. Isn't this exactly what my life has been reduced to? We even have the same lamp. Disgusted, I throw the CD back on the shelf, but I miss and it falls down on the hardwood floor. I leave it there.
At ten twenty-five I decide that maybe I'm tired enough now to fall asleep. Getting up off the black leather couch I notice yet another spot where the leather is peeling off. The place is a bit dark and only the lamp from the cover art of the The Cure album is turned on. I have lived here for five months now, since July, so I don't care if it is dark. I know this place as good as my own hand. I hit my hip bone against the foosball table.
"Shit that hurts," I cry. I wobble into our bedroom as I press the place of impact with my both hands. I collapse on the bed. Not willing to move my body, I crane my neck to almost inhuman angle to see the alarm clock on the nightstand. Ten thirty-four. I reach for my phone and check the display. I purposely kept it in a different room so I wouldn't look at it every 30 seconds. No missed calls. No messages. It is official. I am living a sad life of a sad person. I let out a deep sigh. It makes me think of Pepper, a dog we had when we were kids. On a lazy summer afternoons he would sometimes sigh like that. As if his life was hard. As if he had problems at work and a mortgage to pay. Maybe I should get a dog.
I hear a noise out in the hallway behind the apartment door. I perk up. Is it my boyfriend? Is it a burglar? Whoever you are, by all means come on in. I really need some company. I hear the sound of the key in the lock. The door opens. It is my boyfriend!
I jump out of the bed, forgetting my pain. I run across the living room slash kitchen slash dining room. For a brief moment I consider if I don't seem too pathetic and maybe I should stop, but the kinetic energy makes the decision for me and jump, wrapping my arms around his neck. He catches me and for a moment my feet dangle in the air. He is so tall, my boyfriend. He smells like beer and salt and cigarette smoke and I know I should be repulsed but I'm far from that. My handsome, strong, and athletic boyfriend. My boyfriend with a fresh slash across the eyebrow over his right eye, I notice.
"That is going to leave a scar," I say, pressing my index finger on the wound as I say the word 'that'. He frowns and lets go off me.
"Well now it is." He walks into the kitchen and opens the cupboard over the stove. I sit myself at the breakfast bar and watch him. I don't see any bloodstains on his sweatshirt, but the sweatshirt is grey and it is dark in here.
"Are you okay?" I ask as he closes and opens a different cupboard.
"Yeah, I'm great. Had a couple of beers and couple of gins. A fun night. Bovver went home with Dave's sister, which is hilarious if you ask me."
"Ew." I really did not want to think of nasty Bovver having sex with anyone. I shake my head in an attempt to get rid of the image that my lovely, always helpful brain made up. "That's not what I meant though. I'm asking if you're injured, Pete."
"Of course not, love." He replies lightly. He also keeps looking through the cupboards.
"Pete." I say calmly.
"I have moved all the medicine stuff to bathroom. There is a new box in the cabinet under the sink."
He openes another cupboard and takes a bag of tea out. He puts the kettle on. But he doesn't say anything. He looks at me, and the look is trying to convey the "why on Earth would I need a first aid kit" message, I suppose. I wait for him to say something. He makes tea. We are both trying not to see that his light grey sweatshirt is slowly turning dark in the stomach area. I look down at my own shirt. It is red with blood. His blood.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
His hand turned into fist gently thumps on the kitchen counter, as if he is buying himself time, finding courage. We are silent and still, but for his moving hand and I don't know what to do. He is hurt and I really wanted to help, but I know that was the last thing he wants me to do. I feel a lump in my throat and I have to blink a few times to stop the tears before they run down my face.
I decide that it is not worth the fight. I get off the chair and walk into the bedroom. Not looking back, I close the door. Let him play pretend that everything's fine. Everything's normal. Business as usual. I curl on my side of bed. I hear his hurried footsteps as he walks past my door into the bathroom. The cabinet door creaks a bit. I hear the sound of plastic being torn, I hear him spraying the antiseptic, I hear him wince. The walls here really are paper thin.
When he comes to bed minutes later I pretend to be asleep. He normally wears just boxers to bed but he has a black cotton vest on. To cover the wound so I don't freak out, I presume. He gets in bed and presses his chest against my back. His arm reaches around me and I feel his warm breath on my neck. Like a little puppy that has done something wrong he hides his faces in my pillow.
"I'm sorry." He says, almost inaudible. I decide that will suffice. This time.