Read Online What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell - Free Book Online

raining, and now my throat hurts, I’m starting to get sick. A ne e li vyarno , he said, isn’t that right, challenging me to deny it. He paused to drink, as though bracing himself for a confrontation he knew he couldn’t avoid. I did all that because we’re friends, he said, those are things friends do, it isn’t just sex for me. He stopped then, as if he realized he had gone too far, had leaned too hard on the fiction of our relationship and felt the false surface give way. But we aren’t friends like that, I said as Mitko took another long drink. We both get something from it, I went on, and the bluntness of the language was now the tool I wanted: I get sex, I said, and you get money, that’s all. But now I was the one who had gone too far, and so I softened what I had said, or tried to: I like you, I said, I like being with you, skup si mi , I said, you’re dear to me, you’re beautiful. But Mitko’s expression had hardened. He set down his glass and placed both of his hands on his knees. When have I ever said no to you, he asked, and it was true, though he had delayed and put me off he had always given in when I insisted, he had never truly refused. The trouble with you is you don’t know what you want, he said, you say one thing and then another. I knew he was right, and not just about my relationship with him; always I feel an ambivalence that spurs me first in one direction and then another, a habit that has done much damage. I didn’t deny what he said, I even nodded in agreement, at which his mood only darkened. I’m not like that, he went on, I’m a man of my word, if I say that I’m through with you I’m through, I won’t change my mind, and if I see you again, if we pass each other in the street, at NDK, in Plovdiv, in Varna, it doesn’t matter where, I’ll pretend I don’t know you, he said, I won’t even say hello. Is that what you want, he said, and then, without pausing for me to respond, be careful. There wasn’t anything playful or warm about him now; though he sat naked in front of me he was entirely unavailable. Be sure you tell the truth, he said, be sure you say what you mean. But how could I say what I meant, I thought, when that meaning so entirely escaped me?
    I looked at him without speaking, at the length of him folded in the chair; it was a way of delaying an answer but it was also a valedictory look, I was taking him in with a sense already of regret. He saw me looking as he poured himself another drink, his third or fourth in a short time, the effects of it were beginning to show; and again I had the thought, more troubling now, that he was steeling himself for something to come. Well, he said, which is it, and though I hadn’t come any closer to a decision I felt pressed to meet his tone, a pressure I was grateful for, since it freed me from having to choose. Yes, I said then, yes, I think that’s best, but I didn’t stop there; I’m sorry, I said, I’m sorry, and then, this is sad for me, tuzhno mi e. He looked at me silently, then stood up and began pulling on his clothes, moving purposefully but also unsteadily. Think if I were someone else, he said, and there was tension in his voice, he was speaking more quickly and I had to strain to understand him, think if I were a different person, if I were like that guy who stole from you, have you thought about that? Did you think about that when you took me home with you? He looked different to me now as he stared at me again, he wore a face I hadn’t seen before, a face that grew stranger and unsettled me more as he went on. I could have been anyone, I could have robbed you, I could have taken your camera and your phone, your computer, I could have hurt you. Did you think about that, he asked again, and he paused, he looked at me with his new face, which was capable, it seemed to me, of any of those things, and I wondered whether it was a face he had just discovered or one he had hidden all along.
    I stood up, feeling