Wild Bastard by Ella Savitskaya (book suggestions .txt) 📕

"More like a drink. It was a lousy day" I shrug, so as not to give the guy any more reason to think I am interested in him.

I take another sip and wince.

Matthew takes the bottle from me and does the same thing.

"Yeeeah" He sighs, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from somewhere and lights one.

"Give me" I reach for the pack, but he deftly hides it behind him and holds the cigarette out to my mouth.

I meet his misty eyes, which slid across my face in a peculiarly slow way. A familiar but no less sharp shiver overcame my body, making me swallow loudly. Under an inexplicable hypnosis, I open my lips and let myself do what he wants.

I wrap the cigarette and inhale. I let the smoke go up, and I get an approving smile in return.

"Why did you come to the bar?"

"To see you"

"Can I have my scarf back?"

I carefully watch the reaction on the guy's face. Matthew clenches his teeth and turns away, staring into the watery surface of the pool. He takes a deep breath of smoke and noisily blows out a gray cloud.

"How long have you had it?"

"Almost ten years. Why?"

A few seconds of lingering silence. Matvey turns, and then a familiar thing appears in his hands. I hadn't noticed that it was lying next to him.

" It was my older sister's scarf."

This kind of news makes my nerve endings go right up to my skin.

"What makes you think that?"

"My father gave her things to charity about four years after she died."

The hoarse voice breaks on the last word. Wow. Is there such a thing as a coincidence?

"Maybe it's not hers. There are a lot of the same things in the world"

"It's hers. It was custom-made. Our mother gave it to her for her 15th birthday. Evelyn chose the design herself, the fabric. She drew a sketch."

I feel uncomfortable. For so many years I've worn a scarf, connected in the most direct way with Matthew and his family. It's crazy.

"It's very beautiful" I say, watching as he runs his thumb reverently over the thing. "I remember seeing it out of the huge pile of things piled out of boxes. I wasn't even ten yet, but I clung to it, not wanting to give it to anyone. The older girls wanted to shove idiotic pink dresses at me, but I ran back to my room and hid it under my pillow so that no one would take it away from me."

Matt turns his face toward me and smiles sadly.

"You have good taste, Reenah"

I don't know if it's the right time to ask, but I feel like he's more open than ever, so I'll take my chances.

"Lana told me that Evelyn crashed her car..."

"Yeah, that's what it was for everyone."

"For everyone? And in reality?"

The cigarette is back on my lips. I take an obedient drag, then take the bottle again and take a few sips of the scalding liquid. The lines begin to blur slowly, because my body hasn't even had a decent dinner. The burger I ate at eight o'clock has long been digested.

"Are you sure you want to hear the tale of our family, Reenah?"

"Yeah. You may be a jerk, but something tells me you need a companion now more than anyone else"

I don't get the smile I was expecting, and I feel like I've said something stupid.

"Someday I'll bite your tongue, Rie" Matthew says seriously, forcing me to bite my lip against the strange sensation of a simple promise. "But if you want to, listen"

Big gulp of whiskey, deep puff. He sets the scarf aside and with a hiss extinguishes the cigarette on his own palm. This action sent a painful wave through my solar plexus.

"There once was a good girl. Generous. Kind. And she fell in love with an asshole who only saw her as a dowry in the form of a multimillion-dollar company. Marriage, first child. While the newly minted mother spins around her daughter, her husband occupies his wife's company and becomes the CEO. When she wants to go back to work a few years later, he gives her a son. And a couple more years later, a second one. All so that the happy wife would sit at home and not interfere with earning dough, successfully spent on trips around the world with whores. One day, to her misfortune, the unsuspecting woman discovers that her husband is cheating on her. But love is a fucking bitch. She doesn't leave him. She throws tantrums, demands to stop cheating, to which she receives a vow not to do it again. As a result, the naive wife is pregnant again. That's just a nervous breakdown makes itself felt. The woman changes very quickly. She somehow goes through with the baby, gives birth to it, but loses a lot of blood and dies"

Matthew pauses and stares into me with a glassy-eyed stare. It freezes me. I know I need to breathe, but I can't. My hand instinctively reaches for the guy's neck and gently strokes where the short hedge of hair begins. Under my skin, tiny sparks crumble. No, he's not complaining, not waiting for me to start supporting him. He's just sharing the story of his life that made him who he is today.

"What about Evelyn?"

I ask quietly, taking my hand away. I' m not going to let myself get carried away. I just want to do something for Matthew. It's the first time I've seen him like this. Real. Alive. Broken, but alive. My heart aches when he continues, turning away again.

"Evelyn was fifteen when our mother passed away. Our father didn't care about her, just like he didn't care about any of us. After all, we were only a distraction. My sister found an outlet for her emotions in drugs. She got mixed up with some freaks. She was hooked on pills, then coke and heroin, and at seventeen she was unrecognizable" The pain in my chest grows with every word he says.

"She threw tantrums at my father because she was the only one of us who knew the real reason for our mother's death. He beat her and gave her money so she wouldn't embarrass him in public. And one day during another argument Evelyn shouted that she hated him, and my father demanded that she get out of the house. My sister rushed past me, and then she stumbled and fell down the stairs. I remember my father running after her, slapping her on the cheeks, but to no avail. And four years later he gave all her things to charity"