Scorching Hot
大暑 [11] / [13]
"Will you?"
she asked again.
"Yes, I'm going to. I just needed some time to calm myself down and prepare. Actually, I thought you might come back when you learned what happened to me after we broke up. But now I know, since you told me so firmly. I give up. I'll forget you. I won't bother you ever again."
Her attitude was humble, quiet and weirdly even sincere. Alexander just looked at her. The girl with many scars.
"You will find your own happiness."
"I want to drink with you for one last time. Just give me that. I won't ask anything more than this."
He never heard her talk like this. No matter how awful their break up was, even though he didn't love her anymore, she once meant something to him, and that fact hadn't changed. She would leave him for good voluntarily. He decided to follow her only desire.
Violet kept pouring him wine and he just drank almost ceaselessly. She poured more into his glass without a word. She seemed to be observing him. After the bottle was finished, she said.
"Did you love me when we were together?"
He grabbed the glass, and looked her in the face. He loved her, yes. Yet the extent of her cheating remained deeply injurious to him.
"What do you want to know?"
Alexander answered, trying not to reveal his thoughts to her.
"I was lonely. You seemed to forget about me entirely, sometimes. I know, you were too busy with work,"
she smiled.
"It's very difficult even to count down those nights I slept while waiting for you."
And they remained silent.
"You were the first decent adult I met back then. You were the only man I ever felt comfortable around. I bet I would be safe with you,"
she said. Her eyes shined with sadness.
"It was my fault that I punished you for your absence with other men,"
she poured whiskey in her glass, and in Alexander's.
"I did my best. At least before I felt like I was being left out of your life.”
Alexander said nothing. Alcohol swept his brain, simultaneously his heart and memory were roused. He couldn't help it. He neglected Violet many times without realizing it. He had just hated her without considering himself. She stood up, switched her seat to the one next to Alexander. He tried to look at her straight, but it was as if alcohol enveloped his eyes with drowsiness.
"Look at me, Alex."
