Bird Hits Glass by Beate Triantafilidis

Author:Beate Triantafilidis
Format: epub

In the early evening, I lie in bed, listening to the piano music from next door. My mind replays the conversations with Matt in the garden, searching for signs that he wants out. He just left now, claiming he needed to sleep at his own place to recover from last night. Relieved, I kissed him goodbye; I have expended way more energy than I had saved up. I will need to repay my depleted body with several days of nothingness.

Lifting my heavy arm, I grab Hector’s old phone from the nightstand, an ancient thing Ellie found in a drawer. Even with a new SIM card, it feels like an organ donation, strangely intimate. I text Jas.

‘Do you still believe jealousy can be a good thing?’

Keeping the phone in my hand, I wait for her reply. On her first date with Sergio, he openly declared over dessert that he was a jealous guy. He was working on it, he said, but it had caused problems in the past, so he wanted to flag it upfront. When Jas relayed his confessions, I pulled a face, but Jas laughed and said she didn’t mind the jealousy; she found it flattering, a sign of devotion.

Even on weekends, Jas’s phone is a bionic limb, but no reply comes. After staring at the screen for too long, I hide it in the nightstand, but I can still feel the phone’s presence. Thinking I hear it vibrate, I open the drawer again, but I have no new texts. I close the drawer, lie down, then give up and extract the phone.

‘Stop ignoring me.’

I don’t know whether demanding a reply makes me look assertive or anxious, but it works:

‘Who’s jealous? You or him?’ Jas says.

‘What would he have to be jealous of?’

‘Come on, just stop chasing him. Let him chase you.’

‘I’m stationary – I can’t be chased. And we have been together for too long to play games.’

‘You should never stop playing games.’

I want to ask if that’s what she’s doing with me, when she doesn’t reply as quickly as she used to.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.