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Axel
My head was going to explode.
It had been hours since the sun had come out when I got out of bed and left my room for a coffee as if I needed it to survive. I rifled through the drawers in the small kitchen looking for an aspirin or something that would quiet the fucking drum pounding in my head that kept me from thinking clearly.
Although perhaps better…
I took a pill and sucked in a breath, remembering slightly disjointed events from the night before. I had gone to Cavvanbah, had drunk with some friends until I’d forgotten my worries, then had fucked Madison between the bar and the back room. I think she asked me if I wanted her to take me home, and I said no, I preferred to go walking.
Then, well, the whole thing got out of hand.
I gathered my courage later and knocked at her door.
Leah jerked it open and looked at me as if I were a stranger and she was waiting for me to introduce myself. When she realized I wasn’t going to say anything, she turned around and went on packing her suitcase, the way she did every Sunday at the end of the month. When she finished, she zipped it up.
“Can you move? I need to go.”
I stepped aside, a little confused, and Leah dragged her wheeled suitcase over to the front door. “About last night…”
“You don’t need to explain it to me.” She cut me off.
“I wasn’t going to.” Shit. Shit shit shit. “I just…”
“You know what? Sometimes it’s better if you don’t say anything.”
There was a knock at the door, and before I could respond, Leah opened up anxiously, as if she wanted to get away. That irritated me, but I covered it up, smiling at Oliver, who hugged his sister before saying hi to me.
“How’s it going, dude?” He clapped me on the back.
“Same as always. Want a beer?”
“Sure. You got a Victoria Bitter?”
“No. Will a Carlton Draught work?”
“Sure. How’s work?”
“Wait, Oliver,” Leah called to her brother, not meeting my eyes. “I told Blair I’d try to stop by her house soon…”
“Sure, we can go now.” He grabbed Leah’s suitcase. “Axel, I’ll take a rain check on that beer. Tomorrow?”
“I’ll be here.” I held the door while they walked out.
Leah was wearing a dress with a blue floral print. Very short. I looked away from her legs and shut the door quickly before going out the back and grabbing my surfboard.
Only when I got back an hour later, tired and a little calmer, did I notice the painting that was still in the middle of the dining area. I shook off my wet hair and stood there in front of it.
The dark lines formed two silhouettes. In the foreground was a girl looking at herself in the mirror. Her reflection had on a dress of straight gray lines that seemed to hug her body. The other, the real figure, was in a kind of raincoat that hung to her knees.
Her two faces. Past and present looking each other in the eye.
53
_________
Axel
It was a complicated week.
