Page 72 of No Safe Place

Saturday | Afternoon

Andy

He jumped at the knock on the door.

The journey over to it cost him a great effort. Dragging each foot, hearing the scrape of his socks against the threadbare carpet. It made his heart pound, the friction of it making the roof of his mouth itch. He could feel the noise in the soles of his feet.

The scrape of the metal key in the lock was a momentary relief from the memory of the carpet sound.

He pulled the door back. Wood noises he liked.

He shouldn’t be paying this much attention. Hadn’t, for a long time. It was the solitude. The quiet of the room. It was toying with him.

Andy watched the woman’s mouth move but couldn’t make out what she was saying.

This was bad. He could hear the floor, so why couldn’t he hear words?

‘Sorry,’ he croaked. ‘Could you say that again? Please?’

This time he caught something about towels, and he could almost hear the muscles in her forehead contracting, bringing the soft skin of her face into deep, concerned wrinkles.

‘I’m okay,’ he said. He tried to smile but it felt strange, and he was worried he was doing a horrible leer. ‘Thank you.’

Her eyes shot to his bandaged arm.

Fuck. He hadn’t put a jumper on. Beetroot stains were spreading along the neat white package.

The veins in his arm throbbed extra hard, like they were calling out to the woman, shouting look, look, look at what happened.

Andy took a step back, his foot rasping against the floor again. He needed to shut the door.

Her mouth was moving, the deep lines in her head moving with her eyebrows, up with wide eyes and then crashing back down. He shook his head again. It was hard to breathe. Air was coming in with no oxygen in it, nothing reaching his brain, anyway. His lungs were burning.

‘Thank you,’ he said again, but he couldn’t hear it. Maybe he’d said something else; his ears weren’t working. He might have said something obscene, and how would he know?

The door shut with a resounding echo that shook the walls of the room. They fluttered like sheets on a washing line, and then settled back down with the silence.

Andy slid down the door, an avalanche down a mountain that came to rest on the scratchy, Velcro-sounding carpet, and stayed there.