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The groomed man with glasses shakes his head at the other one. No words are spoken as he stares at me, then at the hint of Anastasia behind me. I don’t know why I feel the need to hide her from their watchful gaze.
It’s an instinctive feeling that I have no control over, but it turns my whole body rigid. If they want a fight, that’s exactly what they’ll will get.
But the man adjusts his glasses, turns, and leaves.
“Consider yourself lucky.” The leaner man tells me before he follows the other one. His jacket flies behind him and I catch a glimpse of something metallic tucked in his pants.
A gun.
I narrow my eyes on their backs as they disappear down the hall. There’s something about them. What, I don’t know.
Anastasia must’ve felt it, too, when she was cornered by them, because even now that they’re gone, her fingers are digging into my jacket and she’s still behind me, trembling uncontrollably.
I turn around and the scene that greets me makes me pause.
Tears stream down her cheeks, fogging her glasses, and she appears so helpless, so scared and small that I want to find those two men and shoot them with their own guns.
“They’re gone,” I say in a cool voice, trying to make her feel at ease.
She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. Only moisture cascades silently down her cheeks as she stands there like a statue.
“Anastasia…”
“Don’t…don’t…please…please don’t call me that, please, I’m begging you…I’ll do anything…just…just…”
“Hey, relax. It’s fine.”
She stares up at me then, her tears sliding to her chin and neck with the motion. “It’s not…it will not be. Nothing is fine. They’re watching me…that lady from the restaurant was watching me and now, they’re here and it’s never going to be fine.”
A few passers-by watch us questioningly and though I’m not sure if she’s focused on them, I can tell that she’s well and truly on the path of having a breakdown. Otherwise, she wouldn’t let people see her in this state.
So I grab her by the arm and drag her behind me. She doesn’t protest as I guide her out through the restaurant’s back exit and release her against the wall.
We’re in a small alleyway that’s hidden from sight. It’s not so bright and there aren’t people watching her every move.
But she’s still crying silently, her body stiff.
I reach out for her glasses and remove them. She tries to fight me, to keep them in place, because they’re her camouflage from the world. Something she can hide behind and hope no one will see her.
“Give them back,” she whispers.
“So you can return to your bubble?”
She glares at me. “What’s wrong with bubbles? They’re safe and no one hurts you when you’re in them.”
“They’re a delusion that will disappear sooner or later. All you’ll be left with is more suffering.”
“I’ll deal with that when it happens.”
“Or you can deal with it now instead of hiding.”
“I’m not hiding. I’m fine.”
I retrieve my phone, open the camera, then place it in front of her face. “Does that look like someone who’s fine?”
Her lips part and tremble and a fresh wave of tears gather in her fake eyes. I hate that she changed the color, that I can barely see a glimpse of the ethereal blue I stared into that first time I met her.
The blue that tells a mystic story without her having to say a word.
