I put my hands behind my neck and leaned back, trying to get more comfortable. I moved around a bit to get his attention, but he kept his eyes fixed on the road. The only sign I noticed that broke his tempestuous aura was when he sniffed, on the verge of telling me to stop moving so much.
I decided to stay still and limit myself to looking out the window. A thought occupied my mind: How is Alice doing?
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong with your mother?” It came out of my mouth before I could think twice because, if I did, I wouldn’t say anything. Now that I think about it, I never think twice. A groan escaped my chest when I saw Donovan’s reaction to my question.
“No,” his quick response made me roll my eyes. I clasped my hands together and ran them over my cheek. I turned around to confront him, hoping to get even the slightest bit of his attention.
“Come on, please. I’ll never say anything, and maybe I can help…”
“You can’t, Celina. You can’t help. You live in a different world than mine, and you don’t know what it’s like to deal with someone like…”
Here he goes again.
“Don’t say ‘someone like…’ You say it as if they’re different from us, but they’re not. They’re flesh and blood. They have feelings.”
“They do, but they don’t have the same capacity as us, Celina. Your explanation is childish, but what can I expect from a girl who only lived with pampering and…”
I didn’t think of anything when the words escaped my mouth. I couldn’t let him finish that ignorant sentence. He reminds me of the people who judged me as a lying whore in my old city. Damn, I don’t think I’ve ever been so upset as I am in this moment, and the day has just begun. What can I expect from the rest of it?
“My mom has schizophrenia, and my dad is an alcoholic. I didn’t live in some damn castle, nor was I a princess, nor did I have everything I wanted like you assume. So, before you speak so confidently about other people, you better shut your mouth because you don’t know shit about me, and my parents are not even a fraction of what it took for me to survive all these years.” I took a breath, trying to steady myself after saying all that without breathing. I forced a smile, almost on the verge of tears. I thought I would feel better knowing that I left Donovan speechless in this moment, but I feel even worse. “I want to get off. Stop the car.”
Donovan remained silent for several seconds, and I was already nervous. I needed to get out of the car and run far away from here. What if he tells someone out of revenge? Will he pity me himself?
Ignoring my request, he drove into an alley. His expression was different; it softened quite a bit.
“What are you doing? I want to leave,” I demanded, trying to open the door, but the lock was engaged.
He stopped the car and turned to look at my face, trying to detect at least one lie in everything I said, but instead, I remained unyielding.
“How did you end up with Jessi?” he asked, and I observed him cautiously for the question. I furrowed my brow and shook my head multiple times.
“So, I’m supposed to answer your questions, but you can’t answer mine? I have an answer for you. Drop dead.”
“My mother has Huntington’s disease…” He closed his eyes tightly and continued, “It’s a rare neurological and degenerative disease. It causes memory loss, occasional moments of lucidity. When she’s not medicated, she’s uncontrollable. She doesn’t know I’m her son, she doesn’t recognize me, and she escapes. And I don’t know why or how, but she’s stuck in a period of time when she was a child… Now, how did you end up with Jessi?”
Surprised by his confession, I averted my gaze from his intense stare and looked ahead, closing my eyes and contemplating which parts to reveal and which not to. I can’t tell him about Shawn, that’s for sure; I’ll never do that.
“I… I just needed to escape,” was the only concise answer I could come up with. It summed up everything. I needed to escape from everyone and from myself.
“From your mother?” he asked again, and I was touched by his interest in knowing where I come from. I forced myself to look at him with a defeated expression.
“No, in fact, she was the only person I stayed for. I can’t tell you the whole story, Donovan, and it’s not because of the time it would take to do so, but because you shouldn’t know, nobody should.” My heart was pounding, I could hear it in the silence of the car. It was violent, desperate.
“Because I have too many people to tell,” he said, half mocking my exclusivity about my past.
I took two deep breaths before speaking further. “I’ll just tell you that my mother was taken away from me against my will to receive the ‘necessary’ care for her ‘condition,’ and my father barely knew I existed. That was one of the reasons why I left. I want to study, have a job, and find my mom, and I’ll fight tooth and nail for her… I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Maybe,” I concluded.
“What are the other reasons you left?”
“I can’t talk about them.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“I won’t.”
“Fair enough.” I saw a slight hint of disappointment.
“Anyway, Donovan, I don’t understand you. If I had been rich, why would you degrade me like that?”
“I wasn’t doing it because of your social status, but because of your family.”
“Yes, I know no one can stand Jessi, but you don’t have to judge everyone with the same measuring stick.”
“You’re right about Jessi, and about the other thing, I’m realizing that you’re right too.” I looked at him again, this time more intently. Almost as if it were a crime to look at him. He was doing the same, admitting that he was wrong about me, right? God, why does he have to be so irritating and cute at the same time? Every time I stop to look at him, I want to fix my eyes on every little detail of his face and find some imperfection that would make me say, ‘Ah, I don’t like this guy anymore.’ But I find nothing. The more I look at him, the more I like him, and when his eyes convey different things, I’m thrilled to know what they want to tell me, what he feels, what he thinks.
“We’re in a car without wanting to kill each other; this is new,” I said, breaking the silence between us.
“Who says I still don’t want to kill you?” His smile swelled my heart, and I smiled along with him. This is the moment when I should run, I mean, what happened to the men diet? My damn brain, or well, my damn body, isn’t getting it. “Shall we skip classes today?”
Stunned by his proposition, I looked at him with raised eyebrows and my lips in a straight line. I couldn’t change my expression.
“For what?” “He probably wants me to skip classes for a special reason. He shouldn’t have proposed that just for fun.”
“Well, we can go to a motel if you want,” he replied seriously, and I hit his arm hard enough for him to touch it with his hand.
“Yeah, right.”
“Do you have one?”
“Do you want to find out?”
“Very tempting proposal, but not today.”
We both laughed, and this situation is making me a little unhinged. I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do. We’re not fighting, nor are we in a war where no one wins. We’re acting like two normal people, having a normal conversation, in a place… Well, the place isn’t normal; we’re in a dark alley.
“Listen, I can’t keep skipping classes. It’ll have to be another day.” I swear I regretted saying that as soon as I said it. It would have been interesting to spend a few hours with Donovan; it would have been like an experiment that would most likely blow up.
“Come on, Alicia. A little fun won’t hurt anyone.” He started the engine and reversed. I pressed my bag tighter against my chest, making a difficult decision-whether to do what I should or what I want.
“I’ve had enough excitement with you these past few days; it’s enough for me. Take me to school.” Well, don’t let your feelings get the best of you. Don’t let them, I thought.
“This will be the last time you skip class for me, I’m serious,” he replied, taking a different direction than before we entered this alley. He rolled down his window and casually rested his arm on it. Technically, he’s kidnapping me.
“Why do I have a feeling that you’re deceiving me?” I said, opening my window as well and adjusting myself to let the wind hit my face directly.
I don’t know why I have a feeling that this is the beginning of a disaster.