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2127 Words
I had slept very badly. In the street, the incessant comings and goings of revelling students had lasted until at least four in the morning. I had to take this annoyance patiently and wait until the exhaustion was too abysmal to resist anymore. On purpose, I hadn’t thought to set my alarm, the bell rang at seven in the morning like any day of the week.
With tousled hair, bags under the eyes, I got up and walked to the kitchen.
“Hi!” Tarja said in a jovial voice. “I made toast!”
“Thank you,” I muttered, taking a seat at the table.
“Slept badly, eh?”
“Mm...”
I wasn’t in the mood for long conversations.
I quickly gulped down half a slice of toast and a mug of tea before dragging myself to the shower. This helped me feel better. When my eyes fell on the pile of books stacked in my room, I was stunned.
I dressed in a comfortable tracksuit, a pair of socks. I had a daunting job for the day. No less than three summaries of historical works that I had already read, as well as an introductory study on the peasants of medieval Europe. All to be returned on Monday.
Since my brain hadn’t yet made the connection to my motivation, I took the time to make my bed and turn on my laptop to check my emails. My parents had written to me.
I typed a few reassuring words, saying that I was eating well, that I had settled in, that the lessons were interesting, and of course, the essential... that I missed them all very much…
I finally opened a blank page of my word processor, titled it Medieval St Andrews and began to summarize my first book for Mr Jefferson.
Around six o’clock I wasn’t quite finished. I nevertheless decided to prepare myself. Elgin was coming soon.
I pulled on a green turtleneck sweater, black stretch pants, my black boots that I didn’t bother to hide under my pants and I was ready. The doorbell rang just two minutes later.
I opened onto a radiant Elgin.
“Come in!” I said cheerfully.
“Isn’t your roommate here?” he worried, raising a suspicious eyebrow.
“No, she’s out.”
I unhooked my jacket from the coat rack and put it on.
“I’m ready!”
Elgin stared at me, visibly puzzled.
“Uh... do you want to go out like that?”
“Is something wrong?” I asked, looking down to see if by any chance I was still in socks or something.
“You have a... pencil stuck in your hair,” he pointed out, gesturing above his head.
I suppressed a burst of laughter.
“I couldn’t find my hair clip.”
“Okay. Is that a French habit?”
“No,” I replied, amused, while loosening my curls, “but it’s very practical.”
He eyed me again for a moment and invited me to follow him outside.
Elgin suggested that I go see a movie, which I welcomed with joy. It had been ages since I’d done that.
We walked hand in hand down the cobbled high street of St Andrews. The pubs were already teeming with people and the restaurants were gradually filling up.
There’s only one cinema in St Andrews, located in one of the main thoroughfares in the city centre, on North Street. Already a long line of people had formed.
“What would you like to see?” Elgin asked.
“Something that’s not scary.”
“What do you mean, no werewolf movie?”
Amused, I stuck my tongue out at him.
In the screening room, I counted seats for about two hundred people, almost all of them occupied. Elgin found two seats for us at the top of the room, against the wall.
I sank into the softness of the seat, intending to fully savour this evening.
A boy, a girl, a movie theatre... If only the past two months could have been as normal as this night... The face of Phillip, the werewolf who attacked me last summer, came back to me. I swept it aside, shaking my head. It was all behind us now. I rested my cheek against Elgin’s shoulder, who hugged me and focused on the screen.
The film, Free Guy, lasted about two hours. I must have fallen asleep for more than half of it. When I woke up, Elgin smirked.
“You should have told me if you preferred that we go to bed.”
Blushing, I followed him without answering towards the exit.
Outside, the cold froze me instantly. An icy wind had risen, mixed with this drizzle which made the reputation of the North Sea coast. I pulled up my hood and hugged my collar against my neck.
“Are you hungry?” Elgin asked.
My stomach responded for me.
“Shall we go to my place?”
“Your place?” I repeated, surprised.
I couldn’t hide my embarrassment. I had never set foot in Elgin’s home since we’d been in St Andrews.
“I live a stone’s throw from here.”
I made sure to cover up my emotion and nodded with a shy smile.
The huge period building where he lived was indeed only one street from the cinema, further south. It was newer than the one I lived in, but just as charming and more modernized, with an elevator. This was the same type as those found in Paris’ Haussmann buildings—archaic but functional. And so much the better, because I had no desire to go up the five floors on foot.
Elgin opened the door to his apartment before switching on the light in the entrance hall.
“My roommate is at his parents for the weekend,” he clarified in a conversational tone.
My temples began to throb without my being able to do anything about it. I walked delicately, like on eggshells.
This apartment was beautiful. The interior decoration was very similar to that of the Sutherland house, as I liked to call it. On an imposing sideboard, I spotted a series of photos of Elgin’s parents, young.
“Does the apartment belong to your father?”
“No. It’s mine. It belonged to my mother, I inherited it when she died.”
Without another word, I followed him into the living room.
I was almost ashamed. Everything was impeccable, nothing was lying around unlike at home. No matter how hard I searched for the smallest mote of dust, I couldn’t find it. This fact was as surprising as it was foolish. Two boys living together under the same roof and knowing how to keep their interior perfectly. Unbelievable!
“It’s very big.”
“Yes, rather,” Elgin admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “There are three bedrooms which all have an adjoining bathroom. It’s too much for me alone, sharing is a good option.”
“Your mother was from St Andrews?” I asked as he stepped into the kitchen. (Beautiful, modern and fully equipped)
“No, but not very far. (He raised his eyebrows with a sigh.) My maternal grandparents had a sense of excess. When my mother came to study here, they offered her this apartment.”
“Whoa!” I exclaimed. “As you say. But they had the means.”
“Are they still alive?”
“No, they both died in a car accident. My mother was barely twenty years old.”
“Did she have any siblings?”
“No, she was an only child.”
I stayed silent. It meant that Elgin had certainly inherited everything. Then I realized how much I had underestimated his financial comfort. I felt a certain unease that I didn’t want to show.
“Before you came to study here, who lived here?”
“No one. After my mother died, we used to come there from time to time with my father. But he didn’t really like being here. Too many memories I think.”
“I understand.”
“This is where they lived with my mother at the beginning. After their studies, they moved to Wick.”
While we were talking, he had started to boil a large pot of water and toss in various herbs for cooking pasta. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing. I was once again amazed. I didn’t know he liked to cook.
When he had finished preparing the dish, he set the table and invited me to sit down.
I was so hungry that I ate twice as much as he did. Eyes wide, he watched me swallow every last bite of my three plentifully served plates of pasta.
“Sorry... I was so hungry.”
“Oh, no, don’t apologize! For once a girl doesn’t give me the: just a salad leaf and a r****h, please!”
I paled visibly as he gave me a smile that was bigger than a soccer field. He had just implied that in matters of seduction, he wasn’t a novice. I had never thought of it until now and obviously, it would have been better if I didn’t know. I wasn’t taking it well at all.
He immediately noticed that something was wrong.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
He raised an eyebrow, puzzled.
“I got up to clear the plates and began to run water in the sink.
“Scarlett?”
I turned my head towards him for a fraction of a second, long enough to read the undisguised frustration on his face. He didn’t seem to understand what had stung me. Without answering, I put a little washing up liquid on a sponge and began to clean the cutlery vigorously.
“Leave it, there’s a dishwasher,” he said irritably, pulling my hands out of the water to wipe them dry. “Scarlett, can I find out what exactly is wrong with you?”
“Nothing at all,” I lied.
“Okay. Come on over here.”
He pulled me into the living room without my resistance and made me sit on the sofa with him next to me.
“So? Tell me what’s wrong.”
“It’s a silly thing.”
“You look so sad, all of a sudden. Talk to me.”
I don’t know why exactly, maybe because I’m a girl, I felt the tears sting my eyes and gush out before I could even hold them back.
Elgin was upset, the situation was getting out of hand.
“Scarlett...” he said in a softer voice, his face haunted. “Did I hurt you? If so, I sincerely ask your forgiveness, but explain to me, please. It’s unbearable.”
I took a deep breath and let go.
“It’s... it’s just what you said about the meal.”
“About the meal? Because I pointed out to you that you had eaten a lot?” he asked, confused.
“No.”
“So, what?”
“Because of the r****h and the salad.”
“The r****h and the salad? God damn, Scarlett, I don’t understand a word you say!”
“You said: For once a girl doesn’t give me the ‘just a salad leaf and a r****h, please!’.”
He searched my eyes, before realizing the deeper meaning of his sentence. So, I asked him in a low voice:
“Did you have a lot of girlfriends?”
Eyebrows furrowed, he stared at me darkly.
“A few. Should I apologize for this?”
“No, of course not. It’s just that I never thought about it.”
“And that’s why you put yourself in this state? How important is this now?”
“I don’t know. It feels weird.”
“Weird to imagine that I had a life before you?”
“You sound like you’re already thirty!”
“You understand what I mean. And you, have you never had other boyfriends?”
“No.”
He looked surprised.
“It hurts me to think that there were others.”
“Scarlett, it’s you that I love.”
He ran a hand through his hair, annoyed.
“It’s crazy...,” he went on. “You’re my soul mate.”
“Yes,” I whispered, nodding my head. “I’m... a little jealous.”
“That, I understand,” he said, smiling.
I smiled back and snuggled up to him.
Without another word, I let myself go into Elgin’s arms and close my eyes. If at one time or another he spoke to me, I don’t remember...
- Writer
