I raise an eyebrow. “Is something the matter? You can take the couch, if you prefer.”
“No that’s alright, I just...I know this is going to sound dumb, but being alone and in the dark so much today has me kind of on edge. I don’t know if I can — I mean, I’d feel better if—” she stammers, biting her lip before looking back up to me with those warm brown eyes, and my heart fills with pity, having forgotten what it’s like to be so small and vulnerable. “Do you think you could sleep in the same room with me?” she finally asks with a sheepish smile. “I know it’s childish, I just — I don’t want to wake up and forget I’m somewhere safe.”
I have to admit, she has a remarkable presence of mind for someone who’s just gone through the hell she has. I give her a reassuring smile and nod, moving from the wall and stepping towards the hallway as she rises to her feet and follows me. “Of course, Liv. You don’t need to feel ashamed about something like that. Come, I’ll show you in.”
I flick the lights on and illuminate the simple room I call my own. It’s a modest place with few furnishings: a platform bed with light gray sheets and a black comforter over it, a small nightstand with a lamp and a Kindle on it, and a closet bearing the simple, tight-fitting clothes I wear on a daily basis.
“This is really nice,” she says, and I give a laugh at the remark. “No, I mean it! I thought Maggie and I were tidy, and we’d only just moved in.”
“A simple upbringing gives you simple tastes,” I say, making my way over to the pillows and fluffing them a bit and smoothing the covers. I feel somewhat guilty for not being entirely honest with the room’s presentation, however. There are some things I don’t want even Liv to see. Not yet.
The room is not so much ‘simple’ as it is ‘subtle.’ Under the bed, there is a hidden compartment full of the weapons and other tools I used in my past life, the life that seems to be coming back to haunt me more with every passing hour. It weighs on me that I will be putting Liv to bed to sleep peacefully over a bed of the grisly weapons I used to take lives before even knowing her. But the poor girl has enough on her mind for now.
Briefly, I wonder if it would make her feel safer, or if it’d send her out on the streets, wondering what type of monster I really am. Then I have to wonder why I care so much. It’s not even just about her being my student, or my seeing potential in her. There’s something more, some way I’m drawn to her that I’ve never experienced before.
It’s been years since I’d even done so much as gone on a date with a woman, so maybe that’s why I don’t recognize these feelings. The desire to help her isn’t just motivated by pure intentions. There’s something deeper at work.
“Where are you going to sleep?” she asks, moving over to the bed and testing the sheets out thoughtfully, pulling them out and testing the mattress.
“I have some thick spare sheets in the closet — I’ll sleep on the floor beside you.”
“What?!” she says, suddenly looking more guilty than I feel. “You can’t-”
“Liv,” I stop her gently, holding up a hand, “if you knew what I was used to, you’d know that even a slightly springy hardwood floor would be comfortable by my standards. And I’m not the one who’s been through the trauma today. Take the bed,” I say, and the firmness of my voice puts to rest any debate over the matter. She does respond remarkably well to commands, and that sends a little jolt of excitement through me. I add with a smile, “Just try not to trip over me if you get up in the night.”
“Thanks, Monsieur Pavlenko.” I turn my back as she climbs into bed, stripping off her socks and getting comfortable under the sheets with the kind of deep sigh only very tired limbs can afford you.
“Liv, please,” I say as I pull the spare blankets from the closet, folding them into a makeshift bed on the floor, “call me Max. I think we’re well over that threshold.”
“That might take some getting used to,” she says, but there’s a lighthearted tone to her words, “but I think that suits you a little better. ‘Night, Max.”
“Sleep well, Liv,” I say, clicking the lamp on to give us dim light for the night before I hit the main light and darken the room. Heading into the bathroom with a pair of sleeping pants, I strip my clothes off and replace them with the pants, heading back out. I cast a quick glance over to Liv, her slow breaths making her chest rise and fall as she already starts to doze peacefully into sleep. I feel a small smile forming on my lips before I turn and lie down onto my temporary bed, turning over into a cocoon in my covers and closing my eyes.