Stay With Me

    

 

~~ I can dish it out, but I can’t take it
    Limousine, Brand New



Lee Nai

    The smell of her perfume was fuel. Lee Nai did his best to ignore it, but you know how things like this go. Don’t you?

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

She held up the bag. “I brought you soup.”

Lee Nai felt his fist clench underneath the desk. “I see you still have a key, then.”

Emily looked hurt. “For emergencies.”

What fucking emergencies? “You can leave that here from now on. And you can take the soup with you.”

She put the bag on the bench next to the stovetop and Lee Nai noticed her ears twitch back in annoyance. “Are you even going to get up?” she asked.

He kept himself still and quiet, despite the blood dripping down his arm.

Emily looked around the apartment as if she had never lived there. “I like the painting,” she said, nodding to a small piece Lee Nai had picked out at the weekend markets.

He bristled. “I said you can leave.”

The painting was oil — white, black, grey. A man’s face. Sometimes Lee Nai saw that face in his dreams. It matched the quiet of the house, now that Emily was gone.

But there she stood; unmoved. “You’re going to play it like this?” She wasn’t gone at all.  

“I don’t play anything.”

“Untrue.”

The blood had cooled and was sticking his arm to his pants under the desk. Lee Nai didn’t dare let her see. “If you’re trying to piss me off you’re going the right direction.”

“I’m not trying to do anything.”

Bullshit.

Lee Nai’s cellphone vibrated on the desk. Saved by the bell. “I have to take this.”

Emily clicked her tongue. “I’m sure you do.”


~~~


The cuts weren’t deep but they refused to stop oozing blood. Lee Nai took a shower and patched them up as best he could. The towel was ruined, but wasn’t everything ruined?

He would have laughed at that thought had he been that type of person.

Lee Nai buttoned his pyjamas despite the fact that they would be blood-soaked by morning. The bed was cold but comfortable. He wished Emily out of his mind. All he wanted was to be left alone.


~~~


“Why are you here?”

“I’m not here.”

Lee Nai shut his eyes as tight as he could. “Then why do I see you?”

She laughed, just once. “You see what you want to see.”

“Why the fuck would I want to see you?”

Her indignation was almost tangible. “Are you asking the question of yourself?”

This time Lee Nai opened his eyes. “You’re not here.”

“I’m not here.”

“No.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“No.”


~~~


The morning came as soon as the night left. Lee Nai woke to blood soaking his bed sheet and a persistent buzzing on his phone.

“Yah?”

“Why did you call me last night?” she asked.

“What?”

Emily sounded tense. “There were like, ten missed calls from you. You couldn’t even look at me the other day.”

Lee Nai was reeling, trying to remember. “I didn’t call you.”

“My phone offers a different story.”

Fuck. “I don’t know. I don’t remember calling you. Sorry.”

“Did you need something?” She was being condescending now.

Lee Nai closed his eyes. “I apologise. It must have been a mistake.”

He could hear her angry smile. “And now?”

“Now what?”


~~~


Emily

 

 

The night was young but the air held heavy and warm above her. Emily cleared her throat.

Seth flinched at the sound. “You’re home.”

“I certainly am.”

“You went to see him?”

Emily scrubbed a hand through her dark hair. “What does it matter?”

She watched his lack of reply. Seth was dirty. This motherfucker was ready to chew on her scraps of pain, even with the smell of blood still fresh on her fingers.

“Well, did you?”

“I did what I had to do.”

The look on Seth’s face said more than it had to. He closed his eyes. “Did you bring dinner?”

Emily blinked, thinking of the soup. “No. Did you?”


~~~


Seth


A car pulled into the driveway next to the house. Seth rolled in his sleep and pulled the blankets off. Who the fuck?…

Emily must have left for work because her side of the bed was cold.

He could hear the car still running.

Seth opened the side door and…

SMASH!

It hit him right in the cheek. The pain was exquisite and didn’t last a second before the next. Must have been a punch to the mouth but he couldn’t be sure. Perhaps a slap. That metallic pain.

There were fingers in his mouth, and then a voice — your blood tastes so sweet.

Seth coughed. “You’re testing me?”

“I don’t test anyone.”

A hand around his throat and Seth had lost most of his words. “Just take what you want.”

The silence was awful. It lasted an eternity.

“I don’t want anything that belongs to you.”

Seth coughed again. “I don’t want to play games.”

“There aren’t anymore games to play.”


~~~


Lee Nai


Lee Nai was small — a buck fifty, if that. He kept to himself. There was no point in dicking about.

But tonight…

Tonight was the night to dick about.

The house was dark and there was only one car in the drive. It wasn’t hers. Lee Nai took a breath and parked on the street. It was an easy thirty steps to the door. The hedgers were lying right there. 

~~~