Alexi regards me for a long moment, so much so I look up at him to see if he even heard me and catch those calm grey eyes locked on me. He looks thoughtful and strangely sobering.
‘When Gino and I were around nine years old we looked after a stray dog we called Benny …’ He frowns at me, an air of cute boy crossing his face as though locked onto a happy memory of a pet he once loved. A tiny little hint of dimple as something in his mind’s eye makes him smile just a fraction. I quieten myself down and listen intently, immediately drawn to the hints of genuine in him and captured by it.
‘This one day, after school, we took a bone down to the street where we knew he liked to hang around during the day, and we found his body in the gutter … car had hit him and he had died quickly from his injuries when we weren’t there.’ Alexi frowns harder and that softness pales out to a far more sinister look that I am more familiar with; the look of a calculating mind focusing on heinous acts, no doubt. I frown too, tears filling my eyes for him in sympathy for a loss I am able to understand. Another pang of pain at what he is saying as I imagine two little boys finding their beloved Benny how I just found Feral and it strikes a low ache in my gut as I grip myself tighter and try to shake it away.
‘Did you cry over him?’ I ask softly out of curiosity, wondering if that’s why he is telling me this. If maybe feeling more for an animal than any human before is normal for screwed up people like us—More compassion for something defenceless.
‘Gino did … for hours. He ended up keeping my mom up all night with how bad he was about it, hysterical crying. Nothing could console him.’ Alexi stops staring at me and looks at his hands instead, then to the floor; almost as though he’s uncomfortable remembering that about his brother.
‘You didn’t cry though?’ I probe gently, knowing it’s unlikely, he doesn’t seem the type and Alexi shrugs and brings that light-coloured gaze back to mine hauntingly—Nothing there except good old deadpan and emotionless. He would have said both of them, had he cried too.
‘No. I didn’t. I set about finding out who hit him instead … kids saw what happened; some asshole with a flashy red Ferrari a block away, left him to die.’ The coldness in that familiar tone makes me shiver.
‘What did you do when you found him? Tell your father? … report it?’ I question, distracted from my own sorrow and invested in the story of little Alexi instead. Trying to imagine what he looked like as a tiny nine-year-old boy, big grey eyes and broken over his little dog. It gets me right in the heart in excruciating ways.
‘I went to his house and waited for him to come home. Then I hammered nails into his tyres and covered his paintwork in battery acid while he was inside, as payback … He killed something I loved, so I killed something he loved. I guess I was never someone who showed emotion in a healthy way, even that young. I carry the Carrero curse that Gino seemed to bypass.’ Alexi smirks, but it’s in a sad way at the last statement, almost as though cursing his own flaws. The darkness moving into that face I know well and even though it should put another shiver down my spine—it doesn’t. I just conjure up an angry little boy who didn’t know how to express his emotions in the right way. He cared; he showed he did in a way that not many would understand. He exacted revenge for someone hurting something he loved and I wonder if he still has the same flaw now.
‘Sounds very much like an Alexi reaction.’ I smile softly too; less distraught as good old emptiness becomes my dominant emotion and wipe another tear away from my now drying eyes. Somehow understanding that little kid and his violent outburst when he was in pain; that wild little boy who grew up to be a wild six-foot man who still handles emotions badly.
‘I don’t think it was the healthiest way to grieve, but I didn’t know any different.’ He hits me with the little half smirk and dimple again, this time it is self-mockery and genuine and it makes me smile too—A strange atmosphere developing between us.
‘Well who got over the loss faster … You or Gino?’ I ask, wondering if he is telling me I should man up and find another way to feel sad over the loss of Feral. If that is what the moral of this story is. To find an outlet in another way and not be weak like his brother was.
‘I doubt my brother is telling anyone about that dog over twenty years later …’ Alexi locks those eyes on me and I get it—his message is a contradiction to my presumption. In an instant; I was wrong about what he was saying.
He’s telling me that I am not dumb to cry and that maybe it’s what I need to do to move on. He’s telling me that I’m not an idiot for caring about some stray I barely knew … because he did too, a long time ago. He didn’t cry, but he cared, and he showed it in weird ways.
Maybe, in the same way, instead of telling me he cared, he brought me back and gave me half his club. Who knows? I don’t even want to dissect why he does the things he does. Or why I feel like he’s slowly trying to give me glimpses that there’s someone more inside of him.
Unexpected sympathy from a man I never thought would ever give any. He gets why I’m hurt, and he’s telling me it’s okay to be so. Somehow it makes me feel a little better, that it’s okay to not be okay.
I never knew I needed anyone to say that to me before, but I do. I am so tired of being strong and alone. I never thought that message would come from him of all people.
When the door opens on the apartment floor he pulls me into him by the arm and drapes his about my shoulders to lead me. He guides me to the door and I don’t argue about it, glad to have someone else take control for a while. I feel shaken and surreal, and right now his touch is giving me something I need—for once it’s okay to let him touch me. His unexpected empathy and gentleness is feeding the empty hole that’s forming in my chest and staving off the chill that’s trying to consume me.
I know it’s stupid to let him, but there’s a need in me to feel some sort of contact from him while my heart is breaking.
When we get inside he lets me go with a gentle push towards the couch, urging me to go sit while he banks left to the kitchen and pulls out two glasses and his favourite brand of gin. I move to the couch and slide down watching him, pulling my shoes off and curling my legs under me as I yank a throw cushion into my lap and cuddle it close. I focus on his strong back as he moves and fixes us drinks with ice, and sit silently mesmerised, like I don’t know how else to behave. I feel like this is all now some kind of dream and I am not really here.
He walks back to me carrying both of them as ice clinks merrily in the liquid. I just watch him silently, feeling out of my head somehow; An alternate reality where Alexi is my friend and caregiver and I forget how much I despise him. A reality where I need his company to help me feel okay.
‘Here. Best thing for you right now.’ He hands me a glass and sits beside me, dropping an arm behind me along the couch to cage me in, even though he doesn’t physically touch me, and without hesitation I fall in against his side and rest my head on his shoulder sighing heavily, sinking in and letting myself fall weightless. I sip on the warm liquid he gave to me, burning my throat as it goes down, yet it’s soothing in a way, warming my insides and just stare ahead at the flat TV screen even though it’s not on. My head instantly swimming so that I feel dizzy.