Block
Part 3
And what's your name?
Come on, let's go...
You don't need to worry about that. My friend's in charge of a gallery.
See it? This is yours. You don't need to stay in that dirty room anymore.
Dear Lina, The apartment's yours now. I'm going to be away on a business trip for a long time, maybe a year or so in Europe. Take good care of it. Good bye.
I love you...
I love you...
I love you...
Lina slowly opened her eyes to the golden sunlight streaming into her room and stared at the ceiling, trembling. She curled up into a fetal position, hugging a pillow close to her. Then she noticed she was still dressed in her day clothes and looked around her in confusion.
'This is my room. But why am I still dressed like this? And why do I have such a headache?'
Gripping her head and moaning in suffering, she walked into her living room, Sayuri close to her heels and meowing.
Then she stopped short.
Zelgadiss was sprawled on her couch, still dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, obviously sound asleep from the faint snoring sounds he was making.
'What the hell is he doing in my apartment?' Lina screamed to herself. 'Ok, ok, calm down. What did we do? I remember getting a table, then we drank...a little bit too much.'
'More than a little bit too much. You two practically emptied the entire restaurant of wine,' her brain reminded her.
'Ok, ok, we drank a lot. Then I think we got into my apartment and then I threw up. And then he fell asleep.' She breathed a sigh of relief. 'Thank God we didn't do...anything.'
'Oh yeah, you guys didn't do "anything",' her brain sniggered sarcastically.
'Whhhhhaaaaaattttttt???'
'Hey, just kidding. But if he hadn't thrown up, something might have happened. Too bad you didn't score.'
'What? Hey I wasn't looking to score!'
'Whatever you want to believe...hey, don't you think he looks good asleep?'
'...' She kept on gazing at his peacefully sleeping face, noticing how his hair fell around his face and how perfect his features were, like they were chiseled from marble.
'Fangirl,' Lina's inner voice snorted. 'Hair, it's always the hair...'
At that moment, Zelgadiss stirred from his restful slumber and his eyes flew open to find Lina staring at him.
'Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! Why is she staring at me? Where am I?' he yelled in his head.
'Probably because you two had a nice night together,' his brain snickered.
'Whhhhhaaaaaattttttt???'
It sighed and said, 'Don't worry. You didn't score last night. You fell asleep before anything could happen. Pathetic.'
'What?'
'Oh God, I've got an inarticulate idiot as my passenger. What did I do to deserve this? Look, you're in her apartment because you crashed on the couch when you got too drunk last night to remember anything.'
'Oh...'
'Well, aren't you going to say anything to her?'
'Uh...morning...?'
'Stupid! You say it to her, not me!'
"Uh...morning," Zelgadiss said after he pulled together enough senses to greet Lina, now noticing he had a pounding headache.
"...Morning. Ah...you fell asleep last night and I don't really remember, but you stayed last night."
"Oh...umm...sorry," he apologized.
"No problem," she said. "Do you want any breakfast?"
"I really don't want to impose..."
"It's nothing."
"Okay then."
She smiled and walked to the kitchen, beckoning him to follow her. He stumbled up and followed her, taking in the surrounding and simple, yet elegant and extremely expensive furnishings around him.
"Ah, nice apartment you have," he said.
Lina tried to smile and said, "Thanks."
She opened her fridge and said, "All right, what do you want to eat?"
"What do you have?"
"Let's see...eggs, some sausage, uh...leftover pasta, some veggies, milk, cheese, some tomato sauce, orange juice, iced tea..." Lina ratted off the list of food in her refrigerator. With each item, Zelgadiss' eyes widened a bit more at the amount of edibles or inedibles counting the food that had already grown mold and close to evolving into sentient life forms unknown to man.
"Ah...I think eggs and sausage would be okay."
"Okay, then. What do you want to drink?"
"Coffee, if you have it."
She reached up into another cabinet and withdrew a can of coffee. "How much?"
"Ah...can I just help myself?"
"Okay."
While Lina took out a peculiar assortment of food, Zelgadiss helped himself liberally to the coffee. She noticed the amount of grounds he was spooning into the coffee maker and she raised an eyebrow at the amount of caffeine he was making. Shrugging it off, she cracked an egg into a glass, followed by a sprinkle of white pepper, paprika and sloshes of gin and vodka.
He noticed the bizarre drink and he asked curiously, "What's that?"
She replied, "It's a prairie oyster. It's good for hangovers." With a grimace she downed the entire glass in one gulp, holding her nose in the process. She made a face and a few unpleasant noises, but she looked a bit better than she did a few moments ago. "Do you want one?" she asked.
"Ah...I think I'll stick to coffee," he said.
Lina grinned and said playfully, "Chicken."
He raised an eyebrow and said, "Was that a challenge?"
She said archly, "Maybe. Maybe not." Then she laughed.
Zelgadiss, unable to resist the dare, said, "Okay, make me one."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," he said firmly.
Lina, laughing silently to herself, cracked another egg in another glass, sprinkled the pepper and paprika and splashed a generous amount of vodka and gin. "Here you go. Enjoy," she said with a mischievous smile.
With a weak and slightly sarcastic smile, Zel accepted it and eyed it doubtfully. Then he raised it to his lips and poured it down his throat, holding his nose like Lina.
"Well...?"
He didn't reply and his face contorted into bizarre expressions of disgust, which Lina found enormously amusing. She began laughing and Zelgadiss tried to speak, but the taste of the prairie oyster prevented him.
Luckily, the coffee maker decided to announce that the coffee was done and Zelgadiss grabbed it urgently, searching for a mug. Unable to find one, he resorted to pouring coffee into the glass that had contained the prairie oyster.
Unfortunately, some traces of the egg had remained in the glass and when the steaming hot coffee hit the glass, most of it cooked and strings of egg floated around in the glass. Disregarding that, he gulped it down, the bitterness of the coffee washing away the hideous taste of the drink.
"God, that's horrible," he choked out. Lina kept on laughing and then when she calmed down she took out two mugs, sugar and cream.
"Want to drink it without the egg?"
"God, yes!" he said gratefully. He accepted the cup of coffee and flashed an appreciative grin to Lina.
'My, my, that smile was certainly dazzling. Are you sure you didn't want to score last night?" her brain piped in.
'...'
It laughed and said, 'Close your mouth, you're looking like a love-struck idiot. Let's not forget last time...'
I love you...
Lina's smile hardened and she gripped her mug of coffee with whitened knuckles. She stared into space, unaware that Zelgadiss was looking at her strangely.
"Lina?" His concerned voice broke her out of her reverie.
"Huh?"
"Are you all right?"
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine," she said hastily. Then she said with false brightness, "Let's get on with breakfast."
"Sure..." he said. He had seen the look in her eyes, an expression of festering pain and frustration and it confused him.
'You know better than to ask her about something like that,' his brain advised him before he did anything rash.
"Zel?"
"Hm?"
"How many eggs do you want?"
"Oh, uh two."
She bent to the task of cooking breakfast and he noticed how her hair framed her face like an untamable, fiery aureole and the bewitchingly delicate movements of her hands.
'Too bad...too bad...' his brain murmured with regretful bemusement.
'Too bad what?' he asked absently.
"Zel? Your eggs and sausage are ready."
"Huh, oh thanks," he said.
She said, "No problem," with a smile that nearly melted him into bliss.
'Don't fall too deeply...or you'll never find your way back...' his brain said enigmatically.
"What?"
It chuckled and fell silent.
A Few Months Later...
Zelgadiss contemplated.
He pondered.
He cogitated.
And came up with nothing.
Muttering curses to himself, he spun around in his chair and faced Lina. "God, I can't write anything," he groaned.
Lina, curled up on the dark blue couch, reading a book, encouraged absently, "I'm sure you can."
"I can't..." he complained.
She rolled her eyes and, putting aside her novel, padded over on bare feet to his computer. Reading what he wrote quickly, she made little noises of approval or disagreement, while completely engrossed in the manuscript, which Zelgadiss found absolutely adorable for some reason.
"It's good, what are you talking about?"
He made a self-disparaging sound and said, "It's bad. This is not what I call high-quality work."
Then he added, "Especially from me."
Lina measured the situation for one second, then lightly rapped Zelgadiss on the head. "You're too self-critical. Lighten up," she tossed over her shoulder as she walked over to the couch and curled up with her book again.
He turned back to his manuscript and grimaced.
"Ridiculous! This is so stupid!"
Sighing, he turned back to face Lina, occupied with her book, making her usual derisive comments. "Could you say that to yourself?"
Lina looked up and smiled sweetly. "I'm simply learning, you know. My teachers always said to argue points of view when I disagreed with them."
"Yes, but do you have to do it out loud?"
"If you don't like it, don't listen."
He sighed in frustration and turned back to the computer. Suddenly, something struck him, the little comment that Lina made and his mind began weaving a plot, so intricate and astounding, it almost escaped before he though it out completely. Scribbling down a few illegible notes on paper, he began to sketch an outline of the plot and his fingers began to fly over the keyboard, fervent with the need to write, spin a story from his own mind and sink himself into a surreal sea of words.
Another Few Months Later...
Ding!
"Coming!"
Ding!
"Coming!"
Ding!
"I'm goddamn coming, so stop ringing the bell!" Lina screamed in the general direction of the door. "God, why can't he just wait? It's not like the first time I've been late!"
Grumbling while she pulled on her clothing, she ran to the door in her bare feet. While she opened the door, she said exasperatedly, "Zel, why can't you just wait? I'm still-" She stopped short when she saw who it was.
"Hello Lina. Long time no see," a familiar voice said.
"Oh God..." Lina gasped, her hand automatically going to her mouth in a gesture of complete shock.
He smiled back in response, the smirk all together too familiar for Lina's tastes. "Is that all you can say after I've been away for so long, lover?"