Where Foxes Hunt with Wolves - K.A. Merikan Page 0,14
and you only came because she’s with her parents over Christmas!”
“The hell is this guilt-tripping about? Can’t we have one normal conversation? Why do you even want me here for Christmas if you hate me so much?” Radek started chugging water from the jug because his throat had gone dry from arguing.
“We could have a normal conversation if you actually bothered to talk to me! And even when we sit in the same room, you’re always on your phone! Who are you chatting to?”
Radek itched to tell her that he was on Grindr, rating dicks, but that wouldn’t pass his lips in her presence. “My girlfriend of course. Since you know everything about my life.” He rolled his eyes to make a point of how much that wasn’t the case.
“Why are you here then? Go spend Christmas with her!” She tried to stand but fell back, and it infuriated Radek that the move was surely just a way to guilt him further. He would not give into this shit.
“Fine! Don’t know why I even bother! I’m going back to Cracow! Merry fucking Christmas!”
He stormed out of the room, straight into Mrs. Irena, who stared back at him from behind a basket of folded laundry. She was in her forties but appeared older—tired, with silver roots where she hadn’t colored her hair a bright red. But then again, who wouldn’t be tired having to deal with Mom every single day?
“Morning,” he said, passing through, and scowled when she answered ‘afternoon’. Clearly, there wasn’t a single thing he could get right today.
He stormed up the elaborate staircase with cast iron railings and walked down the corridor, past paintings in golden frames Mom and Dad had gotten to fit the genteel style of their home. Like the imitation antiques, those were modern pictures pretending to have been painted in the nineteenth century, of people in costumes, still life, and the long gone family dog, Rufus, posing on an old-fashioned settee with Radek in a sailor uniform, of all things. He’d been ten at the time that picture had been painted and still had had short, tidy hair.
The family portrait, however, hung in a niche close to a little bench by the window, depicting them all in modern clothes, and had been done in hideous pastel shades. The painter had tried to tickle their egos, because Mom looked younger than she used to be back then, Dad—slimmer, and Radek’s fifteen-year-old depiction had few freckles, when in reality his skin was equally red as it was beige.
He hated that painting as much as the oppressive need to conform and show off it represented. Dad had forced him to cut his hair for it, and since then, Radek had only trimmed it on occasion to keep it fresh. By now, the ginger mane he was so proud of reached his buttocks and Dad would have hated it. But Radek didn’t live for other peoples’ approval.
And that was exactly why he wouldn’t be spending Christmas with his witch of a mother. Enough was enough. She could rant about him to Mrs. Irena all she wanted, but at least he wouldn’t hear any of it.
He grabbed the backpack he’d left in his room yesterday but hadn’t even opened, and rushed back down the stairs as his throat pulsed to the frantic rhythm of his heart.
“I’m leaving!” he shouted on his way down the stairs. Mrs. Irena stood within sight, clutching a blanket to her chest. It seemed she wanted to say something, but he was first. “Merry Christmas.”
And with that, he was out of the door, back in the cold, back where the sun hurt his eyes. But at least he still had enough time to reach the forest cabin and hop into Jan’s car before he too went home.
He tried to call him, but there was hardly any connection in this goddamn village, so he trudged through the snow on foot again, glad to get a breather after the argument with Mom.
Most of his friends had already left by the time he’d arrived, but Jan was still there, enjoying a joint on the narrow balcony sandwiched between the two slopes of the roof. He waved at Radek from up high, clearly happy with himself. He was wearing the black fur-trimmed jacket Radek had given him as an early Christmas present, and sweatpants.
Radek was about to tell him what had happened and ask him for a ride to Cracow, but then he remembered last night and the need