Super Philosophy continued

Sunday's Snippet

Part 3/4. Refer to post from 05July and 12July for the earlier parts of this short story.

Super Philosophy

“This used to be fun. Now I’m bored.”

“Bored of what? Sey’chas? Right now? Let’s go out.” He’s always looking for a reason to go out. Dima used to be mysterious; interesting; everything that Maggie wanted. But now the chase is over.

“I don’t mean tonight, Dima. I mean this. Us.” He reaches for her, thinking Maggie is being playful and spills tea on her thigh.

“Damn it,” Maggie mutters, wincing at the pain. She gets up to look for a towel.

“Kotko, I’m sorry. Here let me help you.” Dima offers.

“Never mind, I got it.” Heading toward her dresser, Maggie refuses to give purchase to her emotions. Passionate piles of sheets and pillows line the floor, making her bedroom look more like a Moroccan tent than a Section 8 converted row house. Digging in her drawer for boy shorts and a tank top, Dima’s right to see her naked has been taken away. She’d planned to tell him to just fuck off; now she’s going to have to explain herself, putting a flashlight on all of the sticky feelings she pretends she doesn’t have. “You’re leaving soon,” she says, her voice catching on the conflict that’s been coiling inside of her.

            “Da, very soon. Two weeks and back in the mountains. When you visit, there’s so much to show you,” Dima says, unaware of Maggie’s tension.

            “I don’t want to see the Urals.”

            He shrugs his shoulders, the scar from a bullet wound that stars his chest catching in the candlelight. “Okay, to Moscow then. Or my family dacha. Wherever you want to go.” Dima blows on his tea cup and takes a loud sip.

            “No. You don’t get it. I’m not sobiryayetsya posetit.” Not coming for a visit. Not coming to see you. Not speaking English either, she realizes. “I … can’t. I don’t. I mean. This. Blyad. ” Maggie stops, the speech she’d been rehearsing now sounding flat and weak. “I need to be just a name on your list, like you’re going to be on mine,” she manages to blurt.

“A list, like a police list? Kotenko, what are you saying?”

Taking a deep breath, Maggie knows emotions come like meteors – slow on the approach and then catastrophic on descent. “You’re not in my plan. This isn’t the next step. You. This. Us.” Street sounds stopped silent; this is the moment of impact. Dima flicks his lighter and takes a sharp inhale of the French cigarettes he smokes, squinting and assessing her. Maggie makes her face impassive. She feels like a window and not a door – completely see through, no longer impenetrable.

Gesturing with his cigarette like a classroom pointer, Dima asks Maggie, “Have you seen the film Good Will Hunting?” She rolls her eyes in response. “So you remember, yes, the scene in the office with the therapist and janitor?” Dima ashes his cigarette cum pointer into Maggie’s tea cup on the floor and then recognizes what he’s done. It’s the same way she felt weeks ago when she realized that there could easily be a future with him.