Page 53 of Teach Me How To Fly

More for me to know.

For fuck’s sake. I wasn’t even able to bear everything that I found out just now, and she wanted to tell me even more than that.

“I can’t do this right now. I need time to process, but thanks for your attempt of honesty. Let’s go.”

I turned on my heels and took Maksen’s hand in mine. We moved out of the house, and the moment I opened the doors, my glance fell on the car we’d come here with.

Maksen opened the door for me and I hopped in on the back seat, then I waited for him to do the same. The driver turned on the engine, and I gave him the little piece of paper I had from Aunt Lydia.

“Take us there.”

He nodded and immediately entered the coordinates in the car’s integrated GPS.

Maksen and I held onto silence throughout the entire journey, yet our hearts talked with each other. I remained uncertain of whether he felt it as well, but the rhythm of myheart made me realize it was a language spoken solely by our unique form of love.

Was it love, or merely the need to escape loneliness in this unforgiving world we lived in?

18

MAKSEN

As soon as the car stopped in front of the cabin, I opened the door and waited for Annalise to come out. She looked at me first, then she jumped out of it and turned around to check the surroundings.

I closed the door, then I put my hand on hers and tilted my head so I could see the place we arrived at.

It was a beautiful cabin on the outside, surrounded by tall old trees. The fresh air of the forest was a true pleasure for my lungs. I inhaled deeply, enjoying the feeling of relaxation that hit me after it.

“Is it really abandoned? It looks way too good,” I said as we started walking towards the entrance door.

“Let’s see if it looks as good on the inside as it does on the outside,” she replied, and took out the key from her pocket.

With a quick movement, she unlocked the door and a spiderweb fell from the door’s frame. She tumbled over it and coughed, trying to remove it from her hair.

“Do I have any spiders on me?” she yelled, terrified of the entire situation.

I couldn’t do anything but laugh at the sight of her. She was so scared that I just couldn’t take her seriously.

“Maksen! Please!” she exclaimed again, and I tried to cover the smile on my face as I ran my fingers through her hair strands to check if she had anything between them.

“You’re safe, but you just lost the chance to become the first Spider Woman,” I replied with a grin on my face.

She glanced at me confused, but her lips stretched into a soft smile.

“It must be something in the air here,” she said without breaking our eye contact.

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you say that you’re not a man who makes jokes? Well, look who’s joking now,” she explained and let out a soft laugh.

I rolled my eyes and pinched her arm, making her laugh even harder. I loved seeing her laughing, smiling, and being the Annalise I was used to. My heart couldn’t bear another second of seeing her cry.

We looked at each other once again, then moved along the hallway. The smell inside the cabin wasn’t as awful as I expected it to be, but it was a combination between dry old wood and a light perfume of pine which probably came from the fir trees outside.

The old furniture was covered by layers of old dust, and it almost made me sneeze when I ran my fingers over the surface of a cupboard.

Annalise was analyzing every detail of the cabin, and she stopped when we turned right and reached the living room. It had a big copper-colored sofa, in front of which was a round wood table with an oil lamp on it, but that wasn’t what caught my attention.

The cobbled fireplace in front of it stretched almost along the entire wall, and the stuffed head of a deer watched us intently like it was waiting for some visitors.

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