THIRTY

THIRTY

I pretty much had it with all of this. It was borderline insane how Link was always there when I never wanted him there - and he somehow managed to get pasted a locked door.

"How did you get in?" I asked him, peering my eyes at him.

He slowly lifted his hand and showed me the single key dangling from a strap. "I've always had a key to my aunts place."

I snapped my head back to Palmer. "Had he?" I asked her. She replied silently with a nod.

"Okay," I drew out along with a long sigh. It was dead in the night and I was as best as one could be during the middle of the night. I knew exactly what Link wanted to do right now, and I was not going to grant any of his desires. I didn't have it in my right now.

"Come on, let's talk downstairs and leave Palmer to sleep." Link said from behind me. I knew what was going to happen next.

I slowly pivoted around, trying my hardest to hold a straight face so he knew I was serious about this. "I think you should go home." I said carefully.

At my straight forward response, Link's eyes skimmed across my face, as though trying to catch any form of a blip. I slowly clenched my fist, transferring all the rush I had building up from before in the force. I was going to remain calm  until Link removed himself from this house and this street, until I was rested in my bed, with everything locked and far away from all of this. And then, I could finally let go.

The whole idea seemed pleasing to my heart, as it tried to slowly down but it was far too soon. Link wasn't moving.

"Lets just talk first." Link tried again.

"I don't think I want to," I fired back.

"It's not going to take long," Link pressed on, somewhat anticipating a slight budge to come from me.

"I really don't think so." I said back. This was getting immature to a point where I knew if we didn't stop, a form of tug-of-war would prevail.

"Ori, hear him out." Palmer said from behind. I flicked my head over my shoulder and saw Palmer still standing there, her tired eyes trained on my face. I knew Palmer, and I knew with that look drawn all over her face that if she didn't get her way, she'd be standing there relentlessly. Which then meant that she'd get too tired and end up working herself over to a capacity she wasn't able to handle just yet.

For her sake, and to my complete resentment, I turned back around to Link and gave him a small jerk of my head, indicating for him to move along. He slowly turned around and walked down the stairs, his head turned over his shoulder to make sure that I was right behind him. My feet dragged my whole body down the hallway, up until they came to the stairs where my head had to intervene, as I directed them both down the stairs carefully. One foot up, then down, the other go up and then down.

The way down the stairs seemed to take a millennium, before my feet touched down the ground. Link walked straight to the front door and out of it, his key lingering in his hands. I was briefly unaware of what he wanted me to do, considering I wasn't wearing enough clothing to step outside and brace the small chill in the air. I fleetingly lingered by the front door, poking my head out and caught Link disappear to the back garden.

"I'm not following you there," I said to him in a low voice, knowing well enough that he couldn't hear me as he completely was out my line of vision. My ears, on the other hand, we're working perfectly and could hear everything since nothing else was moving and awake. I heard Link move around a few things, scraping it along the pathway of the garden. I knew he was messing around with the spare furniture that was pressed against the wall, out of sight from Palmer so it didn't agitate her whenever she spotted it since she had no use for it.

Link appeared once again, this time juggling two chairs in his arms. I raised my eyebrows at him in question when he caught me looking at him. "I think we should sit outside," he provided me with his excellent thought.

I shook my head at him. "Out in the cold?" I asked him, making his suggestion sound stupid.

"It's not that cold," Link said, turning his head upwards as he glanced at the sky. I followed his gaze and saw the clear night sky, illuminated by the discrete moon glow and the diffused stars. "Put on something on and you should be fine."

I had the right frame of mine to retort back at him but sitting under the stars, possibly discussing how fucked we both are somehow seemed appealing, soothing even. As I walked back into the house and put on the right clothing to step outside, I contemplated my feelings and decided that I was officially gone with the wind if I thought sitting outside to discuss everything with Link was close to a delight.

Walking back out, and closing the door behind me, I saw that Link has arranged the chairs so they were close to each other and facing the street. He seated himself down, his legs sprawled out in front of him. I slowly etched myself towards the chair and dropped down, spreading the awareness that I wasn't feeling happy about this to him through a long exaggerated sigh. Although my feelings before were telling me otherwise, I decided to make sure that Link knew I wasn't happy about this.

"Why did you lie and say you were alright?" Link asked out loud, catching me off guard by how straight forward he was. It didn't go past me that Link and I tend to speak in codes and always avoided to just state the obvious and talk without all the riddles. But now, seeing Link just being straight forward without that barrier nearly freaked me out, borderline sent me running.

Because funnily enough, I couldn't handle it. Give me riddles and I could possibly dance around the truth.

Knowing that Link potentially heard my outburst moments ago, I went against my usual antics and told him the truth. "I wasn't going to stand there and just act like everything you do bothers me."

Link turned his head to me and I felt his gaze burn into the side of my head. I avoided looking at him, keeping my own gaze fixed ahead of me even though I wasn't looking at anything particular. "Does it bother you?" He asked me slowly.

I shook my head quickly, the lie obvious. I exhaled loudly and changed my answer. "To some extent, it does bother me because I'm somehow tangled in things you do." I voiced.

"How?"

I lifted my shoulders close to my neck. "Somehow I always get affected and things happens afterwards."

"Like what things?"

I shrugged again. "Things that are just crazy and things that hurt my head." I tapped my head to show where it hurt exactly.

Link was still looking at me. "And I'm the one causing all of it?"

He was. Ever since he came back to town, I left my own house, my boyfriend cheated on me, my parents don't communicate with me anymore, someone trashed my room and nightmares have rested in my head. I wasn't safe anymore, not even in my own head where I usually escaped to.

"No." I breathed out, this time looking at him. His eyes were fixed on me, unwavering and filled with unsaid words.

"Liar." His lips moved over that word slowly, his voice deep and low and ringing loudly in my ears.

"I think I'm done with lying to myself... And to you." I told him.

His eyebrow arched upwards slightly, and if was I wasn't looking at his face so closely, I won't have missed the short look of surprise that passed across his face. "But you're still lying?"

I didn't answer him. It seemed as though everything coming out my mouth was just digging the hole further into the ground. I wasn't saying anything that would somehow resolve this ongoing conflict.

"Where were you?" I opted the easy way out, directing the spotlight on him now.

He leaned backwards, this time it was him who was taken by surprise at the bluntness. For a while, he seemed to be mulling over his words again, trying to come up with the right thing to say.

"Someone stopped me and I couldn't get away." He said carefully. It didn't go past me that what he said was the cheap remix of what he told me earlier.

"Explains the red lipstick mark on your shirt," I pointed out, motioning at the stain with a jolt of my chin.

Link glanced down and finally saw what I meant. I heard him curse under his breath.

"Yeah," I said slowly. "I mean, I'm not stopping you from whatever but it's kind of rude, you know?" I told him.

"You asked a girl out and go get necked and stand her up." I said over a few humourless laughs. Nothing about this situation was funny, and the hard expression on Link's face made it all too clear.

"It isn't what you think." Link started to say. "Far from it actually."

I laughed again, sounding very fake to my own ears. "Oh yeah?" I scoffed out.

"Yeah," Link drew out. "And I think you should believe me when I say it wasn't what you think."

Both my eyebrows shot up my forehead. Link was playing me a fool and I was getting tired of it. I wasn't blind and I wasn't stupid to just nod, believe him, and go off on my merry ride. "Then tell me what exactly it is." I shot back at him.

Link dropped his head low. His hands appeared on his knee and I saw him clench them tightly, the outline of his veins popping out. "I can't do that." He said after a few seconds of silence.

"Why not?" I countered. I wasn't going to let him get away with this. As silly or as needy as I seemed, I wanted to know the exact truth with no details spared. A part of me wanted to know everything, and another wanted me to just avoid it all.

Link exhaled loudly. He turned to look at me again, this time a small scowl appearing on his face. He was getting agitated, and soon enough, he would be frustrated and then leave. "Why can't you just believe me and not be so hostile?" He growled lowly.

His anger once upon a time would have sent me running in the other direction but somehow, along the ride, I've developed my own ice cold persona and created this defensive mechanism that worked perfect on Link. "Oh, I'm sorry if I can't believe a guy who is pretty much set out to get me." I scoffed at him, fuelling his anger further. I saw the lines of his face change, slowly morphing themselves so it formed another face all together. But then Link miraculously pulled himself together, his face softening visibly.

I couldn't lie this time and say the way the calmness washed over him didn't freak me out. In fact, it freaked me out more than anything.

"What happened to our truce?" He said carefully, each word said slowly so they reached my ears separately and registered well in my head.

"What truce?" I spat out, hiding behind my brave words. "That fake ass bullshit you came up with so it would lead to my guard getting dropped?"

Link didn't reply to that so I carried out. "Well it did happen and I'll be damned to let it happen again."

"Why?" Link nearly shouted, his voice so loud it actually made me jump. "Why can't you just leave everything that happened behind us and start over?"

I didn't let that waver me. I didn't back down and threw in my own hand in this game. "Because that's fucked up Link, can't you see that? We can't just call out a truce and expect everything to fall in place?"

He was fuming now. I could tell this wasn't going as Link planned and everything was spiralling out of control. Soon enough, we'd be fighting for real and someone would have to come step in. "Why the fuck not? Why have you got to be so fucking complicated?" His voice boomed loudly in my ears.

"Because I fucking killed your sister!" I screamed back at him.

I was visibly shaking right now, my breathing turned laboured and I saw how we ended up face to face, closer than I anticipated.

Link froze, every part of his face turning hard at M words. "That you did."

****

> didn't take me a month