Buzzed Hearts

28: questions questions

HE SITS, PERCHED ON a kitchen stool that Camila brought for him. She's playing a fugue and from the black, polished surface of her piano, she sees his reflection.

    She stops midway, suddenly nervous.

    "Why stop?" he whispers. His eyes are opaque and he's never looked as serious as he does now.

    "I'm scared," she murmurs back.

    "Of me?"

    The way his voice travels sends a bolt down her spine and she sits even straighter on her chair.

    "Do you not trust me?" His voice goes even lower.

    It takes them a while before his face breaks out in a grin and he laughs, presumably at her. Camila sulks and shuts the lid to her piano.

    "Aw, don't do that. I was just kidding, Mila."

    "You're right. I don't trust you."

    "Yet you claim you love me. Doesn't work that way, Mila. Love and trust are two principles that are almost always dependent on each other."

    "My mom seems to trust you," she brings it up.

    Her parents are outside, taking Cameron on a stroll and they didn't avoid the awkward talk with Laurent.

    "Of course she would. Look at my face," Laurent gloats. He bends down to pick up Vanilla and strokes her fur. Vanilla wriggles a bit before burrowing under his hoodie. Oh how Camila wishes her hand was there as well.

    "My dad likes you too." Camila swivels around on the chair so that they face each other. "Probably because you play soccer."

    Laurent's time is occupied by Vanilla. He scoops her up and sets her on the floor to sit down and play with her there. "Where do you want to visit the most?"

    "Musée du quai Branly."

    "What what what?"

    "It's in Paris and they have a great exhibit for things from Côte d'Ivoire. I mean, I'd go to the actual place but I've already been."

    "And you want to go because?"

    "Beauty for my culture. I don't...I don't feel a lot of it here."

    A silence encompasses them and Camila shifts, feeling studied by his gaze. He breaks it, with a cough.

    "I guess that's what happens. I don't relate in the same way but I think identity is something you figure out for yourself. For you, it's going to muse-do-Kuwait-brandy and ah, I don't know where I'm going with this. I just don't think I have a home, really."

    "First of all..."

    Camila dissolves in a fit of laughter.

    "What?"

    "You slaughtered the name."

    Laurent gives her a dead stare and keeps it until she stops.

    "Okay." She calms herself down. "Where would you like to go?"

    "Nowhere."

    "That's not fair."

    "You think that by asking you the question, I had an answer?"

    "Yes?"

    "You need to ask better questions instead of repeating mine," he tells her.

    Camila's heart spikes—out of frustration or love, she doesn't know. So she tries to ask him good, thought provoking questions until Laurent has to leave. She never really breaks the surface though, which exasperates her even more.