Pyromania Transylvania
LMNOP. I traced my fingers along the curves, endless looping oooooooooos, characters dancing across the wall behind her headboard like renegade figures from her dreams.
Louisa sat cross legged on the trunk at the base of the wooden bed. Her hands rested her chin, cupped in dainty fingers, nails painted jelly-bean teal with flecks of white like a robin’s egg. She started transfixed, her eyebrows furrowed in exaggerated confusion. She shut her eyes quickly, “Anna, I’m going to read your mind.”
Eyes still closed, she massaged her temples. One hand moved to ruffle her hair while the other darted into her coat pocket, procuring a silver-slicked lighter. The flames danced dangerously close to her fringe, teasing the straight ends of her curls into submission, the heat twisting them into tight, irregular coils. Unnatural, like webs made by spiders’ thirst, quenched by water laced with cocaine.
“Ellem!” Her eyes flashed open, flickering surprise when confronted with the proximity of the flames. “My god, if you’re a pyro please tell me now. I can’t take any more of your surprises!”
She tossed the lighter into my lap, hot metal singing the skin on my inner thigh. She rolled her neck, lips slack, eyes prompting. Her gestures a question, Don’t you get it?
“I’m not the dangerous one, Anna.”
I sucked in air as if she’d slapped me.
“Don’t be daft! God you’re adorable, I mean you’re the one to watch.” She tumbled off the trunk and on to the faux oriental carpet on the floor, hitting the wood instead. “Bollocks!” She rolled onto her haunches, picking at a splinter buried in her knee. “And by that I mean,” she threw her head back, digging absent mindedly at the cut, “the way you were looking at Tom today—I wouldn’t have expected that from you.”
