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Maybe I should just grab her and force the answer out of her? What she had said so far was already going in the right direction, but I hated the fact that she kept putting me on the rack and making me wait.
"Spit it out already,micina."
"Beautiful. It's a frontal view of a cat skull surrounded by dark leaves. Pazzo said you'd get a kick out of it once you saw it, because it fits with the rest. And I share that opinion, by the way." Gia seemed almost nervous when she told me her choice, but it made me grin even more than the choice of motif itself did.
Amused, I looked at her, tilting my head a little. "A cat, then, is it?"
She nodded, which almost seemed a little arrogant. "Now you'll never get rid of me. At least not in memory."
I commented on her statement with a shake of my head. "Who said anything about getting rid of you?"
15
Gia
With shaky fingers, I plugged the connecting cable from the electric guitar into the amplifier. It had been months since I had even held the thing in my hand, and yet it felt like I had never put it down. It wasn't the only instrument I had mastered, but I couldn't afford the others, and the matte black gem had also been more of a lucky find I'd made at a flea market.
I wiped the dust off the electric guitar, which had been waiting in the basement all this time for me to return to my former passion, and even dared to put the strap on.
With a grin, I turned up the volume and started playing the first chords. However, it didn't keep me in the mood for long, so instead, I coupled my smartphone with the amplifier and played the first metal song that was on my playlist.
Within a brief time, I felt as if I were at a concert instead of within my four walls. I moved light-footed throughout the apartment, leaving the efforts of the morning behind me.
Once again, I had one of those unsuccessful job interviews. They invited me, only to be told in the end that I didn't fit in with the company. I couldn't even succeed at getting a job at a supermarket. My mood had gone downhill by noon, and the only thing that seemed to help was listening to the music at full volume and screaming my head off.
I only took a breath when I couldn't scream loud enough, and only stopped when the song was about to skip to another to set the repeat function.
So it was one of those days when you felt most comfortable jumping around the apartment in your underwear and shirt, giving vent to your anger at half the world by screaming it from your heart.
Even as my throat ached, the walls spinning around me, and I ran out of breath, I didn't stop.
Temporarily, I toyed with the idea of adding some alcohol to my personal party, but remembered that I only had disgusting vodka in the fridge, and it would turn the party from pure fun to a funeral.
It took me a while to realize that the knocking that kept reaching my ears was not part of the music itself– I had mistaken it for a special percussion interlude– but someone pounding on my door.
Shaking my head, I turned off the song and walked to the apartment door.
Had one neighbor come to life and felt bothered by the noise? My mood sank back to the low point it had been at before I had played the music at full volume.
With a curse on my tongue, I yanked open the door and for a split second I stood rooted to the spot.
Part of my brain still expected Dario, if it wasn't the neighbor. But not
I slammed the door shut again posthaste, bracing myself against it.
This time, for wholly different reasons, my heart was beating so hard against my ribcage that it hurt.
While someone applied pressure against the door from the other side and the hinges cracked in protest, I opened the chat with Dario with trembling fingers.
I typed exactly one word before my smartphone fell out of my hand and they threw me across the room. I slammed into my dresser.
The room spun around me, but I struggled back to my feet.
"Vai al diavolo," I cursed. "You bastard!"
My next cry was for help, even though I knew it was useless. I would not let him get me down without fighting back. Certainly not.
With that in mind, I grabbed the first object that came to my hand and threw it in the intruder's direction, who was now stomping across the room in my direction. Much too determined.
