1.10
1704 Words
“You made me feel like a child in there.”
Jonas had been expecting Francesca to find something to criticize him for. He had hoped she would at least wait until they were more than a couple of steps outside of Elizabeth’s room.
He wanted to tell her that if she felt like a child it was because she had been acting like one.
He chose not to vocalize it, but he made no attempt to disguise what he was thinking and she clearly knew.
When they reached her room he stood awkwardly as she opened the door. She leaned against it and looked back at him.
“I take it you are not going to be spending the night with me.”
“I told you that I’m tired, Francesca. I'm sorry.”
“I didn’t agree to mate an old man. And I am not stupid; you haven’t touched me since the night I took over here.”
“It has only been a week. And for the first three of those days, you had asked me not to - a decision we both made before you did that.”
“Are you afraid of me?”
“Francesca…”
“…because if what I am really like is too much for you, you should just leave. I don’t care where you go - go back to Sweden for all I care. I can’t risk anything making me weaker, or distracting me from the things that are really important. I was so close to killing my brother over this, and I am not going to let anyone else get in my way. If you are intimidated by me you need to get over it or leave. And if you really have aged this much in a week you are only going to get in the way. I don’t want to watch you die, but I won’t jump in to defend you in a fight if you cannot keep up with me.”
“I’m not afraid of you. I’m not intimidated by you. I don’t feel inferior. And before you ask, I am still in love with you. I disagree with a lot of your decisions at the moment - it’s tiring to be around someone who you disagree with all the time. Does that make me a liability?”
Francesca looked down at the floor. When she looked back up at him she looked more vulnerable than she had done in weeks. It was reminiscent of how she had looked as she was examining the tattoos covering her scars in the mirror.
He was not sure if it was an act. He had caught her looking at the tattoos, and she had been furious that he had seen her in that moment of weakness. But he knew she would have taken note of his reaction to seeing her like that, and found a way to use it to her advantage.
This could have been her attempt to show him she needed him without having to ask, but she could just of easily have been trying to manipulate him.
“I’m not going anywhere. If you change your mind you know where to find me. I won’t bother you in the meantime.”
“It’s not that I don’t want you.”
“OK.”
She finally went into her room, and the door shut behind her.
He was left standing in the hallway alone and weighed down by the guilt he was feeling about everything.
He had intended to go back to his room and r******w he felt like he should at least sit and read in the same room as the woman he claimed to love.
He went back to his room and picked up the book. It was in Swedish - one of the few things he had brought with him when he moved. It wasn’t a particularly interesting or inspiring book. It was some sci-fi type thing that he actually found rather dull. But he hadn’t had a chance to go and pick up anything new recently, and he had found the book as he was packing up his things to move into the main house.
He felt awkward about going back, but if she really had been as upset as she seemed he didn’t want to leave her like that.
He pushed her bedroom door open softly, but he couldn’t see her in the room.
“Francesca?”
She didn’t seem to be in the room, but it was difficult to tell with her. If she wanted to hide from him, she could.
He sat down on her couch and opened the book.
“You are the one who told me to come back if I changed my mind.”
He still wasn’t sure if she was there somewhere or not. It’s not like she could turn invisible, but he didn’t trust that she wasn’t hiding somewhere as ridiculous as the wardrobe to avoid him.
He started to read the book. Page after page of boring nonsense which made him question his own youthful taste. He wished that Francesca could read it so that they could laugh about it together. He wanted to do something casual and stupid like that, he didn’t want to talk about dark secrets and imminent danger.
She sat down on the couch beside him and set two glasses on the angular metal coffee table in front of them. So, she hadn't been hiding.
“I needed a drink.”
“And you knew I would give in and come back?”
“Perhaps. Or maybe I thought it was better to bring two glasses back and look like I knew you would come back than to bring one and let you think you surprised me. It’s up to you what you want to believe.”
She leaned forward to pour the drinks. He didn’t particularly care what it was, but when he realized it was whiskey he closed his book and set it down on the table.
“Is it wrong of me to read too much into this?”
He picked up one of the glasses, swirling the deep amber liquid around the bottom of the glass as he looked over at her.
She swallowed her own drink in one go, then put the empty glass back on the table and refilled it.
This time she picked it up and held it casually.
“Dad used to drink this. That is what you are referring to, isn't it?”
Dad. He had never in all the years he had known her heard her refer to Tobias as ‘dad’. He was always either Tobias or ‘my father’.
“Tobias wasn't the only one who liked that stuff; it's what your brother drinks.”
“Yeah...it was a father-son thing. He’d sit and talk to Nathan like an actual person, but I was never included. They would sit by the fire with whiskey and as awkward and stilted as the conversation was…”
Francesca trailed off, and Jonas leaned forward and put his own drink back down on the table without taking a sip.
“He didn’t deserve a daughter like you.”
Francesca sighed and downed her second glass.
“I didn’t deserve a father like him, either. Unfortunately, we don’t get to choose our family. I certainly would not have chosen to be born into this one if I had the choice.”
“What would you have chosen for yourself?”
Francesca was looking at the book he had placed on the table. She reached for it and looked it over in her hands.
The cover was a tacky depiction of a spacecraft on an alien planet. It made the book look like a relic from another time - it was so clearly an attempt at something modern and exciting, but the artwork meant it was obviously printed in the 1980s.
It had originally belonged to his older brother. That was the real reason he had brought it with him when he moved- it was just a book, but it reminded him of his family and of a time he was not committed unwillingly to a new life in another country with a girl he had never met.
“Thinking about that is illogical and pointless.”
“Not everything has to be logical.”
Francesca was still holding the book in her hands. She put it back down on the table and poured herself another drink.
“I can’t think like that, Jonas. That’s just not how I work. I won’t sit here and make up nonsense like that. It serves no purpose.”
“Entertainment. Distraction. Something to help you relax for a while and forget about whatever the hell is going on.”
“I can do all three of those things in a multitude of other ways.”
She picked up the glass, and Jonas leaned over and kissed her before she could bring it to her lips.
“Put it down. You’re going to end up drunk if you keep knocking those back like that. If things are as dangerous as you keep saying they are you can’t get yourself incapacitated like that.”
A clink against the table confirmed that she had done what he asked.
She kissed him again and wrapped her arms around him as she felt him respond to her.
"Please stay here with me tonight."
He realized that the glimpse of vulnerability she had shown as she stood at the door was genuine and that she needed his support.
He just wished she would open up to him about what she was so scared of.
- Writer
