Page 99 of Now and Forever

“Please, God, give me patience!”

It’s cold, very cold, and I try to open the door, but he’s locked it from the inside. I urgently knock on the door.

“Flyn, open up right now, please.”

The little devil looks at me through the glass. He smiles an evil smile, turns around, and, after throwing down the books I placed on the shelf and stomping on several CDs, he leaves the room.

“Fuck!”

I walk over to the next glass door while my wet tennis shoes sink into the snow. God, it’s so cold! I’m just outside the room where he does his homework, and I see him walk in. I knock on the glass.

“Flyn, please open the door.”

He doesn’t even look at me.

I shiver. It’s horribly cold, and I try to get him to open the door. But nothing. He takes no pity on me. Ten minutes later, when my teeth are chattering, my wet hair is a helmet on my head, and I feel little icicles under my nose, I scream as if I were possessed while banging on the door.

“Goddamn it, Flyn! Open the damned door!”

The kid finally looks at me. I think he’s going to take pity on me. He stands up, walks to the glass door, and swish! He draws the curtains. Flabbergasted, I keep banging while yelling at him in Spanish.

It’s snowing. I’m dressed in my skimpy cotton clothes and tennis shoes. I’m cold. Horribly cold. I rub my hands together and think of what to do. I run toward the kitchen door. Locked. I remember Simona’s not here. I try to get in through the living room door. Locked. The front door. Locked. Eric’s office door. Locked. The bathroom window. Locked.

I shiver. I’m freezing more and more with every second, and my wet, rigid hair is making me sneeze. I’m going to catch quite a case of pneumonia. I go back to Flyn behind the curtains. I feel like murdering him. I look up. One of the bedroom balconies. Without stopping to consider the danger, I climb onto a stone bench to try to reach the balcony, but I’m so frozen and the bench is so slippery that I fall straight to the ground. I stand up and try again. I sit on a frozen wall, stand up, and before I can reach the balcony, smash! My shoes slip and I’m back down on the ground, but I smash against the wall first. The fall was horrible, and my chin hurts like crazy. I’m aching, lying on the snow, and when I get up, my face is smeared with ice.

“Open the damned door! I’m freezing,” I scream.

Flyn opens the curtains, but his face doesn’t look like it did before. He says something. I can’t hear him.

“You’re bleeding!” he says as he opens the door.

“Where am I bleeding?”

But now I don’t need him to tell me. When I look at the ground, I see the red snow at my feet. My gray T-shirt is red. When I touch my chin, I feel the wound, and my hands are covered in blood. Flyn looks at me, scared. He doesn’t know what to do.

“Get me a towel or something, quick!” I shout at him as I step back in his room.

He goes running and returns with a towel, but the floor is already bloodstained. I hold it up to my chin and try to calm down. I feel the metallic taste in my mouth. I’ve bitten my lip too. I’m alone with Flyn. Simona and Norbert aren’t home, and I urgently need to go to a hospital.

“Do you know where the closest hospital is?” I ask a bewildered Flyn.

The boy nods.

“C’mon, put on your coat and hat.”

We run to the door and grab our coats. Drops of blood fall to the floor, but I don’t have time to clean them up. When I’m about to put on my coat, I pull the towel away from my chin; my blood is dripping nonstop. I’m scared, and Flyn seems to be too. I put the towel back, wet with water and blood.

“Will you help me put my coat on?” I ask him.

He quickly comes to my assistance. Once we’re both in our coats, we hustle to the garage. I get the Mitsubishi, and, when the garage door opens, Flyn holds the towel against my chin so I can drive. He tells me where to go. My hands and knees are shaking, but I try to keep calm while I’m behind the wheel.

The hospital isn’t far away, and when we get there and they see the state I’m in, they’re quick to take care of me. Flyn doesn’t leave my side. He tells one of the doctors his aunt is Marta Grujer and asks them to please call her house to tell her to come to the hospital. I’m surprised by the little troll’s skill at giving orders, but I’m in so much pain, I don’t care what he says.

They take us to another room. When the doctor sees my wound, he tells me the cut on my lip will heal by itself, but they need to give me five stitches on the chin. I feel like crying. Stitches scare me. Once, when I was a little girl, they gave me five on my knee, and I remember the experience as traumatic. I look at Flyn. He’s white as snow. He’s going through a horrible fright too. When they give me a shot of anesthesia on the chin, I can’t help it, and a tear falls from my eye. Flyn sees it.

He stands up, and his hand takes mine and squeezes it. The doctor orders him to sit down again, but the boy refuses.

“You’re just like your uncle,” the doctor says.

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