AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eight
Amethyst
“Good morning,”Davit said the next morning.
“If you say so,” I responded. I was feeling sick and unreasonably annoyed, and I was in no mood to hide it.
His eyes flashed, ever so slightly, but otherwise, he didn’t respond.
But then again, he had the upper hand, and he knew that I knew it, so there was no reason for him to lower himself like I was.
I, on the other hand, sounded petty and bitter. Not qualities I liked, or ever wanted to see expressed in myself, but here we were.
He stared at me, then gave me a slight almost smile. Not an expression I’d ever seen from him. “I shouldn’t bring this up, but you’re already in a bad mood, so why wait?”
I huffed. “I am not in a bad mood.”
After I finished speaking, I became aware of the tension around my mouth, the scowl I knew was on my face. Ordinarily, I would have laughed, but, like he’d said, I was in a bad mood.
So bad that I refused to admit it to Davit. A fact I was sure wasn’t lost on him, especially when he flashed a lightning-quick smile.
“The money from that…motel,” he said.
His disgust was palpable, but I told myself I didn’t care what he thought of my living arrangements. I knew I’d done what I needed to, and I refused to let myself be baited.
“What about it? What happened to it?” I asked, forcing myself to remain calm.
“I saw that your friend received it as a token of my gratitude for his walking away.”
“You mean you gave him something that didn’t belong to you,” I said.
“Would you have preferred that I not?”
I didn’t answer, because he had me, and he knew it.
Whatever had happened, Chris didn’t deserve to be in the middle of it. And if he could benefit, I couldn’t be upset.
That money was exactly what he needed, the kind of break that he had confessed he prayed for. The last several years of his life had been marked by unemployment and unstable housing situations. But he had never lost his faith that things would get better.
And now they had.
I’d been careful with that money, and there was more than enough for Chris to get permanent housing, and, maybe even more importantly, some breathing room. Space to think, stability to go after the dreams he’d talked to me about.
So no, I wasn’t mad that he had gotten the money.
“Do you know who or where it came from?” he asked.
“No,” I responded.
He glared at me, thinned his lips, but again I told myself not to take the bait.
The moments ticked by, intense, in the way that everything always was with us.
“Well,” he said, finally breaking the silence.
Perhaps that showed weakness on his part, but I didn’t think so. What it showed was that I was too timid, or maybe too guilty, to speak my mind.
Something else I knew he knew, so whatever victory might have been attached to him speaking was completely meaningless.
