I wake up feeling super groggy. I hate mornings with a passion. Maybe one day I will be one of those people who wake up feeling fresh and with a smile on their face. Not today, I guess.
"Shut up!" I yell at the alarm clock that I don't remember setting and slam it with my pillow for a good measure. It falls from the nightstand and continues beeping underneath the bed. I get down on my knees and try to reach it, but it's fallen too far. Resigned, I lie on my back on the dusty floor and stare. Half of the ceiling is inclined and made of glass, which is a terrible material for thermal isolation. I'm cold. It is almost nine o'clock, but it seems that the sun is not up yet. And probably won't be today at all. Raindrops are running down the glass and I shiver.
I hear the bedroom door open and see a pair of bare feet approach me.
"She is up! A Sunday miracle. Awake before noon." He gets down to my level, placing his knees beside my hips and carefully, trying not to spill anything, he places a cup of hot cocoa next to my head. "Good morning, sunshine," he says, with a gentle kiss.
With his arms stretched he hovers over my head and grins.
"What are you doing?"
"Yoga." I say, defiantly. He rolls over to lie by my side. I prop myself up with my elbow and pick the cup up. On this miserable morning I would prefer a cup of coffee but I appreciate the gesture. I take a sip.
"Mmm. Is this cocoffee?" I ask as I take another sip.
"Yes," he answers.
"Mmmm. It's good. Thank you." I say and I kiss him, leaving a brown mark of chocolate and coffee mixture on his lips.
"You have something here." I point to his mouth and he tries to bite my finger. I laugh. He laughs. He licks his lips clean. I want to kiss them again. But I don't. How can I expect him to remember that I am mad at him, when I also keep forgetting?
"How's your wound?" I ask as I take the cup to my mouth for yet another sip.
"Don't," he says sternly with a frown. I look at him intently. Is that all he is going to say? Well now I'm getting really mad.
"Don't what?" I ask.
"Just don't, Nina. Don't start." He says, irritated, and gets up. I finish the cup and place it on the nightstand. Then I think better of it and take the dirty cup to the kitchen and place it in the sink.
"I think you started when you came home and bled all over my top. That is not cool, Pete. Internal injuries are not cool. I just want to know if you are alright. I don't want to find you dead in morning without at least trying to discuss this. I would feel like such an idiot in front of the police. So Madam, your boyfriend came home with a stab wound and you both ignored it and then you found him dead a day later, is that your official statement? Madam, please follow me to the police station. You are under arrest. Is that what you want? Do you want me to go to prison?"
He rolls his eyes.
"You are not going to prison," he says, but not to me. He says it to the wall on his right side. Or maybe he is talking to the Frank Lampard poster.
"You are really pissing me off, you know that?" I throw a kitchen towel at him and try to march out of the kitchen but he stops me.
"Alright, alright, keep your Alans on. Look, everything's under control, yeah?" He lifts his shirt up and tears the bandage off. "It's just a flesh wood. A scratch." He laughs. I look at the wound, then at his laughing face, then at his wound, then at his face and I wonder if I'm dating a crazy person. The scratch, as he would call it, was 5 inches long across his abdomen and there was no telling in how deep the wound originally was as it appeared to be glued shut. His laugh slowly vanishes from his face upon seeing my reaction.
"Seriously, it nothing." He tries to persuade me. I'm at loss for words.
"Come on, babe. Say something." He half hugs me, half tries to shake a reassurance out of me that everything's fine.
"Have you used superglue to seal it?" I ask incredulously.
"Yeah," he chuckles. "Liquiband! Works like magic."
I punch him in the chest. "Can you stop laughing? There is nothing funny here! How do you know that it was just a surface wound? Why wouldn't you go see a doctor? And how the hell did it even happen? With a knife? A bottle? An axe?!"
He creeps towards me so we are standing body to body with no inch of air left. He looks me in the eye and says:
"I have the Red Cross First Aid Certificate. I know how to distinguish a surface wound from a serious injury. I stuck my finger inside to see how deep the wound is. It was very shallow and it bled like a motherfucker. I am very sorry that I ruined your tank top. It was a very lovely tank and I will buy you a new one. But you jumped at me without a warning and the sudden movement caused that fresh blood guzzled out. If I get seriously injured I promise I will go to see a doctor immediately. But I won't get seriously injured. I'm Pete Dunham, not some bleeding tart. Now let's take a shower, then we get dressed and I will buy you the best breakfast you ever had in your whole life. Come on." He kisses my forehead, turns around and heads for the bathroom, taking his clothes off and throwing them all over the living room.
"I'm waiting!" he bellows.
"You do look like a bleeding tart right now," I mutter as a last sign of protest, but who am I kidding. I take my pajamas off and hop in the shower. This is just a pause, I tell myself, not the end of discussion.