"Sure, he talks a lot," I tell Ollie. "But he gives great head."

She doesn't laugh. It's strange.

"Mira. It's called a bad case of trade-off," she tells me in a very serious tone.

"No. It's called a dilemma, at worst."

"He's not good for you," she insists.

"Why not? I did not marry him. I slept with him once. And it was nice."

"Nice. Nice is far from good."

"What happened since yesterday, babe?" I ask her. "Yesterday, you were still eager to present me to Pete. Yesterday, all your troubles seemed so far away."

She still doesn't laugh. It's puzzling me. She looks rather bothered while answering.

"Nothing. I just talked to Thelma. And she's very attentive to details. Sees things others don't."

"And? Did she say something scary about Pete?"

"No."

"Then what?" I sigh. "Did the party conclude with a gig of medieval traditional dancers, and you adopted their views on sex? You almost sound like you're frowning upon me."

"The ball concluded with a glass exploding in Mark's hand. For us, anyway. It wasn't nice. There was blood, and, you know, people screaming and freaking out. So we saw him to a doctor."

"We? You mean you, the whole lot?" I ask with my eyes like saucers.

"Yes. He didn't want us to go with him, but we went anyway. He's allergic to lidocaine, you know. They picked all the shattered glass out of his hand without anesthetics."

"Oh, dear." I grin. "I bet he still enjoyed the operation more than ten drunk people worrying for him."

"Well, he wanted to send us away—"

"But you still helped him against his will. Good job."

"You're so heartless, Mira! He was in so much pain, and it's all you have to say?"

"No." I shrug. "There is something else. Karma is a bitch."

"I hate you."

"Don't hate me." I smile at her. "I love you. I just have a basic understanding of privacy. What I'd really hate, on the other hand, is someone torturing me, while a bunch of people cheering around. It sounds almost like public corporal punishment. Are you sure there weren't medieval traditionalists around, to influence you?"

"You know what? You should have been there too. Instead of—"

"Instead of what? Wallowing in sin with Smartass Pete? Ollie, you scare me."

"Oh, okay," she sighs. "I'm sorry. Last night got on my nerves."

"No problem, babe. And don't worry about Pete. It was probably just a one night stand."

I guess wrong. Pete calls me around ten. And takes me out for lunch. For the night, we agree on a date.

He drives me back to the office. On arriving, I notice some documents on my desk. While I was away, Mr. Warren went through the mountain-sized pile of work I finished a few days ago and wants some clarifications on one of them.

"Just one?" I mutter to myself. "You're really out of trim today."

When I go to his office, I realize that on this matter, I guessed perfectly right. He doesn't look good. His spirits are unusually low. The events of yesterday probably were more serious than I thought, and the pain wore him out.

Something I found so funny just a few hours ago. I decide to apologize to Ollie for my insensitivity later.

"You did an outstanding job with these," Mr. Warren tells me, after making me sit down.

"Thank you, Mr. Warren," I answer, trying not to sound leery.

"It probably took me more time to read them than for you to finish them," he adds, in an uncharacteristically blank tone.

I can't hide my puzzlement. I don't need to, either, because he's looking at his bandaged hand, not me.

"And even after reading it three times," he says, pointing at the document in my hand, "I don't even understand what you did here."

It's not me fucking up. It's him not understanding it. The sudden change in the narrative leaves me perplexed.

"I just shortened the way between starting point and conclusion a bit," I explain to him. "A bit too much, as it seems," I add, after taking a look at his lethargic face.

"Okay." He nods, looking even more disheartened. For a strange reason, it makes me feel worried for him.

"It's a frequent mistake of mine," I inform him. "I've been trying to overcome it for the longest time, but I just can't. I'll correct it, thank you for pointing it out."

Finally, he looks at me. His eyes are somewhat cloudy. I suspect he must be in major pain right now, as we speak.

"Can you just explain it?" he asks.

"Sure." I smile, trying to gather my thoughts.

"You have this lopsided little smile when I'm too stupid to follow you," he says abruptly. "Like you find it endearing."

I stare at him in disbelief. It's not just he cut the pleasantries again, but also the way he said it. Without even being angry. That's why it scares me. And because I know for a fact that I tend to do this. He's not the first to mention it. It's another habit I tried to kick without success, as it seems.

"It's okay," he goes on, almost making my heart stop. "You probably put a lot of effort into being able to find people endearing instead of annoying when they can't follow you."

My eyes bulge with astonishment. I try to force my mouth into a straight line to prevent it from looking lopsided, but it just refuses to cooperate. Goes open and stays like that.

Then I act on instinct. Again. I think I just lost count of the habits I tried to kick and failed with it.

"Is it that obvious?" I ask outright. "Why?"

"Because I'm not a fucking kitty picture on Facebook."

"No, you're not. And, believe me, I find you anything but endearing. Like, look at you. You could break me in two. Like literally, probably. But..."

My eyes wander to his bandaged hand mid-sentence. There's a little blood soaking through. A small red dot on a snow-white fabric. It makes me slow down in an instant. I take a deep breath and go on.

"Okay. I'm about to say something very serious. Something I'm honest about. I don't expect people to be more intelligent than me. It's simply not an issue for me. Also, I never think ill of people based on this. Like, never. It's a choice I made very long ago. It was a decision, which sounded like this to me: do I want to spend my life letting it go, or completely alone? And it's not a decision anymore. It's in my blood. So..."

"So?"

"So? It goes for everyone."

"I see." He shrugs. "But still, I'm sure you enjoy more the company of the people who are as smart as you."

I pause for a moment. Then I look deep in his gloomy eyes.

"Okay. It's time to tell me. What do you have against Pete? Ollie, you, everyone. See, you might not want to worry about if you can follow me, but about the fact I can follow you, want it or not. So what's wrong with him? Is he a cheater? A drunk? Is he going to break my innocent little heart in two? Did he murder a previous girlfriend? Or more? Or what?"

He averts his eyes while answering.

"Nothing. He's a really good guy."

"Then why is everyone freaked out, all of a sudden?"

"They are just being too protective."

"Of me?" I ask incredulously.

He doesn't answer. Just sits there, looking uncomfortable, cradling his bandaged hands. The lonely red dot has been joined by some very similar peers by now.

"You're bleeding," I tell him.

He doesn't seem fazed by it at all.

"Did the doctor give you some spare bandages?" I inquire.

"Yes."

"Do you want me to change them? I mean, it's no big deal, but everyone else would faint here, as far as I know them."

"But you've seen worse, right?" he asks. "And you learned how to do it."

"I had no choice."

While I proceed with it, he doesn't even flinch. He just sits there, all relaxed, as if he was feeling much better than before, while we were talking. He's not watching what I'm doing, he's watching my face.

"You have some pain threshold," I say appreciatively.

"I've been allergic since childhood, I had enough time to develop it." He shrugs. "I had no choice."

We sit a few moments in silence, just looking at each other.

Just before the silence becomes awkward, he smiles faintly.

"I also gave more occasions to it than it was wise. Many more."

I almost ask him about it. About his past injuries, and his proficiency in hitting without giving a warning. And mostly about the connection between these two. But I refrain from it. We already strayed very far from the safe binary communication again.

Yet, when I leave his office, it's probably the first time when I don't want to kill him.

And the day is not over yet. When I arrive home, another surprise greets me.

The municipal electricity works are there, laying cables. The whole neighborhood is turned upside down, everyone's on the streets, everyone's talking, everyone's perplexed.

"Nothing like this happened here in the last twenty years," Ms. Okoro states.

"What, infrastructure improvements?" I ask her. "The way the houses look, make it thirty."

"Well, now it's happening," bellows Mr. Hudson. "The electricity guys told me that someone had bought the whole block."

"I don't care," Ms. Okoro tells him, "if my fridge doesn't go out of power three times a week, I'm ready to kiss that person's shoes."

"And what about the rent?" asks Mr. Hudson. "If they raise the rent, I swear—"

"Shut up, Hudson," Ms. Okoro shouts. "Don't swear in vain, son!"

Then she turns to me.

"You, Mira? What do you think about it, girl?"

"Good things come to those who wait," I tell her, and waltz into my shabby little apartment.

A place where I can write finally.