Bear
The new prisoner his father brought was rather chatty, Bear decided after he heard the third knock on the wall on the second day of his exile.
“Bear?” came the little voice, soft and curious, as always. He’d come to realize that despite himself he actually found her voice rather tolerable. It was a drift from the normal silence that consumed him whenever his father would send him on one of these exiles.
He’d grown so used to the silence his father’s punishments often left him with that he never thought that he’d appreciate the sound of another person’s voice. Yet here he was, lying against the cold wall, listening to the sound of her timid knocks and hesitant words, almost as if she was afraid he wouldn’t answer.
And he almost didn’t.
“Bear, I know you’re in there. The least you can do is tell me you don’t want to speak to me instead of avoiding me”
She had him there.
“Mozhesh’ li ty byt’ gromche?” he muttered, his voice slightly hoarse.
(Can you be any louder)
“I knew you were still there” He could hear the excitement in her voice. He let out a strangled sigh as he turned to adjust himself against the wall.
“oh no, you’ve got me” ” he said, but his voice sounded as enthusiastic as a corpse’s last breath.
“Now that you know my secret could you possibly stop talking, I honestly find your voice rather aggravating”
“What does aggravating mean?”
“It means annoying, Solnyshko”
“Oh…” She sounded hurt and he immediately wished he could take his words back. “Well then, I think you’re grumpy”
He snorted. He’d been called a lot of things in his life, some so ugly he refused to keep them in mind, but for some reason, being called grumpy by a seven-year-old was the most amusing.
“Grumpy?” he echoed, his voice lancing with slight annoyance. He moved himself upright.
Ava hummed, “Mhmmm. You never smile, you never talk first and you won’t tell me your name”
And there it was. The real reason for her sudden need for conversation. During their last conversation, she’d tried and failed to get him to say his name. He was pretty sure that not knowing his name was eating her alive which was why she once again decided to strike up a conversation with him. But he wasn’t going to let her win because, apparently, the best form of torture for a seven-year-old is the ability to withhold information.
“How do you know I never smile, Solnyshko? You haven’t even seen me”
“Have you ever heard yourself speak? I don’t need to see you to know that you never smile. I can hear it in the way you talk to me. You sound angry half the time.”
They’ve only spoken a few times since they discovered one another and yet she sounded so condescending. It made him want to roll his eyes. The little thing had an attitude, he’d give her that.
Bear exhaled, rubbing a hand over his face. He had no idea why he was still entertaining this conversation. Maybe it was because she was the only company he’d had in, well… ever, or maybe it was because, despite his best efforts, deep down, way deep down, he didn’t entirely hate talking to her.
His lips thinned “Listen, Solnyshko,” he said, leaning his head back against the cold stone wall. “I’m not in the mood for your games, either tell me something meaningful or be quiet”
“What does that word mean?”
“Huh”
“Sol-nish-ka. You’ve called me that three times already.”
Shit. He hadn’t meant to call her that. The nickname was something that had slipped out a few times in his mind during their conversation. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, and now that she’d caught on to it, she wasn’t going to let it go.
“It’s Solnyshko,” he corrected, dragging the word out. “And It’s nothing”
“It can’t be nothing if you’ve called me that three times already”
Bear screwed his eyes shut. The kid was relentless.
“It’s just a word,” He said dismissively
“That means something” She insisted.
Bear exhaled, “You’re not going to drop this are you?”
He imagined her shaking her head, “Nope” ” she replied, popping the p.
Sighing, he rubbed a hand down his face, stopping on his jaw. He could ignore her, leave her to speculate what he meant by the word but he had no doubt that even if he ignored her, she’d just keep knocking until he caved.
“It means sunshine”
A beat of silence followed after his admission and then, very softly, an “Oh.” falls through.
At that moment, he understood what she meant when she said that she didn’t need to see him to determine his emotions because he could hear the smile in her voice.
“You think I’m like the sun?”
She was finding this more endearing than she ought to. Yes, he thought she resembled the big fiery globe in the sky in more ways than one; for instance, they both seemed to bring warmth wherever they went, and they both didn’t know when their brightness wasn’t wanted.
“I think you’re persistent. You don’t know when to stop.”
She reminded him of a younger version of his brother because, much like his brother, she had no idea when someone was being serious.
Ava giggled, and he could already picture the triumphant look on her face.
“You like me,” she teased.
“I tolerate you at best. There’s a difference”
“No there isn’t. You can’t tolerate someone you hate”
She spoke as though he lacked the basic comprehension to distinguish between the emotions.
“Hey bear?”
He exhaled, “What?”
“Do you think we’re friends?”
He scoffed. He didn’t do friends.
“Nyet (No)” he said flatly.
Ava hummed, not deterred in the slightest.
“Why not?”
Bear ran a hand through his hair, irritation prickling at the edges of his already frayed patience. “Because I don’t do friends.”
“But you gave me a nickname”
He pinched the bridge of his nose tightly. He was already regretting letting the nickname slip.
Ava continued, “People only give nicknames to people they care about or want to be friends with.”
He let out a humourless chuckle, “Trust me, we are not friends, Ava.”
“But we could be”
“You don’t know me, Solnyshko.”
“I know enough,” she countered easily. “You’re grumpy, you’re stuck in a dark cell, like me and you don’t know how to talk to people without being mean.”
His jaw clenched. “That’s not knowing someone, that’s called making an observation.”
“Then let’s get to know each other.” She offered “We’re already stuck together, the least we can do is try to get to know each other a bit”
Except they weren’t ‘stuck together’ as she so kindly put it. She was his father’s bait. A temporary incentive to a permanent problem. She was sent here in hopes of luring out the person his father wanted out of all this while he was sent here because his father had seen his actions as an embarrassment.
He could hear her shifting on the other side of the wall, probably getting into a more comfortable position to probe him further. He hated how easily she could fill the silence, how her presence-no matter how annoying-was starting to feel somewhat familiar to him.
Bear exhaled through his nose, staring up at the damp ceiling of his confinement. He knew he was about to give in to her request before the words left his lips.
“Fine”
“Really?”
He rolled his shoulders, feeling the stiffness set into his muscles from being confined in one spot for too long. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”
Ava hummed excitedly, and he could almost picture her tiny, satisfied smile.
“You can ask me any question you want”
Maybe it was the hunger finally dulling his senses, or maybe it was the exhaustion creeping in after days of being locked up with nothing but his thoughts. Either way, he’d just handed the little pest an opportunity to annoy him even further and he didn’t need anything to tell him that he was going to regret it.
Ava wasted no time. “Okay,” she started, voice filled with determination amongst other things. “What’s the colour of your hair?”
The corner of his mouth tipped up slightly. Of all the things he expected her to ask, this one hadn’t made the list.
“Black” He answered without wasting much time.
“And your eyes? Are they green, blue or brown like mine?”
She had brown eyes. He hadn’t meant to tuck that little detail away but he did.
“Their green. Emerald green”
His eyes were the one feature he’d inherited from his mother. Much like hers, his eyes were an unnatural shade of green-vivid, piercing, and impossible to ignore.
They were also one of the many things about him his father despised. He often felt like his eyes were the reason his father so often sought to punish him. They were probably a constant reminder of all the ways his mother had ruined him and how he’d ruined her in return.
The memories he’d locked away behind the shroud of guilt threatened to resurface, but he quickly muffled them before they could pierce through.
“What about your hair?” he asked before he could stop himself. He wasn’t curious about her, he tried to convince himself. He really wasn’t.
Ava giggled like she had just won the lottery, and maybe she had. His attention.
“Brown, but not just any boring brown,” she clarified. “It’s like chocolate when it melts in the sun. Mama used to say it looks like the colour of autumn leaves.”
“Your mama sounds poetic.”
He wondered for only a moment if all mothers sounded like that or if his mother and hers were the only exceptions.
Growing up, his mother often gushed about how his eyes were green like the ocean and even though he had no idea what that meant he always found her compliments endearing. She’d do the same with his brother. She often said that Mikhail reminded her of the first snowfall of the year-soft, pure, and innocent, full of quiet wonder, the kind that made people want to be near it.
“She was. She was the best mama in the world”
He supposed that at the age Ava was, every parent seemed like the best parent in the world to their child. After all, he’d once believed that his father could do no wrong, but that was before he caught him fucking one of his whores while his mother was away visiting family. It wasn’t long after that that the beatings started. But then again, if he were to really think about it, he supposed they never ‘started’. At least not in the traditional sense.
Ava sighed wistfully, breaking his train of thought. “Mama used to tell me stories about the autumn fairies. She said their hair were the color of my own, and that they danced in the wind with leaves swirling around them.”
Bear hummed, tilting his head against the wall. “Sounds like a stupid fairytale.”
“It’s not stupid”
For the first time since they met, or rather talked, Ava sounded visibly upset with his choice of words.
“You miss her?” He hadn’t meant for it to come out as a question. It was more of an observation. He could tell that from the way she spoke about her mama Ava wasn’t like him. She loved her mother and her mother loved her.
Ava was quiet for a moment before answering, “Yeah… I do.” A pause, “Do you miss your mama, too?”
Did he?
He shook his head. He hadn’t really considered letting himself feel something more than what he was supposed to feel when it came to his mother. He was supposed to feel grateful to her for bringing him into this world so he did. His mother had been nice enough to him for him to care about her to an extent but even then, he couldn’t deny that her death had made him numb. He didn’t feel anything more than what he was supposed to feel because he didn’t know what he else to feel.
“No,” he said finally, voice devoid of any emotion. “I don’t.” His fingers curled into his palm, a sharp exhale leaving his lips. It was the truth but yet it felt like a lie.
He expected her to call him out on his answer. Maybe push for more answers like she always did.
But for once, Ava, was silent.