undersökande journalistik

Despite his answer and the fact that she was unsure what he was referring to, Eleanor doubted that his and her situation could compare. The events of the past had changed her life drastically in every possible way, they had changed her into this person that she was today and that she had never thought she could become. There were days on where she was thankful for this, after all, this had kept her alive and she was now where she was today. There were other days, like the one today, on where she would exchange everything that now she possessed to go back to that day and had the life she once dreamed off, a life that was nothing like the one she had now. A simple life. – Part of her wanted to speak, to let all this out, but he was right. After doing so, the next day she would ask him to forget about everything she had said or act as if they had never had this conversation at all, and if not, what good did it do to speak about it? nothing was going to change, and that thing people said about feeling better after letting things out? that was nothing but bull shit to her. All she did was turn her head to look at him before she tried her best to keep her balance and get back on her feet giving him an answer.

She was tired, physically, and mentally and sleeping seemed like the only (and best) option to quiet the thoughts and put a stop to the images from her past that kept repeating in her head. – Unlike the living room, the room seemed to be in perfect order and not a terrible mess. With the help of the wall, she reached her bed and wasted no time to lie on it. “Do you want to fuck me?” The question came out of nowhere, but unlike the things she had said since he decided to be honest about how he had managed to find her, this one didn’t come from a place of anger. Just like alcohol, sex had become another coping mechanism, a way for her to forget her issues and everything else for that period of time. In silence, she looked at him and extended her arm as an invitation to come to her. “You can stay or leave after, but I would like it if you stay.” Her voice and how her words dragged made it obvious how much she had been drinking and how tired she was, so before she could get an answer, her arm fell back down to her side and her eyes closed almost immediately, being already half asleep.

               blomkvist followed close behind and watched her meander further inside the house, alert and perplexed - and still questioning whether his coming here and knocking on her door had proved wise. on the threshold, he stopped, hesitant, reluctant. his help wasn’t needed. ungainly, she clambered into bed. now, that was his cue. pushing on his right foot, he made to turn and leave her but, surprisingly, her voice cut through the silence and froze him. the question was absurd. the timing was absurd. the entire situation was absurd. she certainly was absurd. right there, in that moment. alcohol-induced words pungent with an obscenity garnering a frown at first. then came a “no.” firm. unequivocal. did she even mean it? not that it mattered or made a difference in the least. he simply, perhaps justly, wondered whether eleanor was genuinely making a drunken pass at him or hurling the first thought that crossed her mind to rile him up -or confuse him, maybe. who knew? who even knew? who ever knew? that she stated so strictly, mind games forgotten, pretenses dropped, her desire for him to stay did very little to alleviate the qualms still nibbling at his mind. sure, now she wanted that. what about the morning when tormented by a hangover and the fragmented memories of the night before, she would strike again?

and isn’t it disappointingly trite? isn’t something they are all pound to say at some point? she isn’t too far off the mark. still he won’t say more, won’t say names or connections or even dates. “what else can you tell me?”

There was silence once again and now she was feeling both physically and mentally drained. Her throat felt irritated, her own scream had made her ears ache as well as her head. Who had been the last person to do so? who had bothered to check on her just to see if she was alright, or like he had said, alive? She couldn’t think of a single one. Those that looked for her only did so because they either wanted or needed something from her, sometimes it was money, sometimes the company that she could offer, but never did they come to her because they had been feeling genuinely concerned about her. It was all part of the world she now lived in and she had never expected any different. It suited her just fine because she didn’t care about them either. — From the corner of her eye, she saw the water bottle and tissue he was offering to her, but instead of taking them she pushed both out of the way and lay on the floor. It was cold and uncomfortable, but after all the alcohol she has been drinking and the sleeping pills she had taken, she couldn’t be bothered with getting up. 

“No, you shouldn’t have come.” He shouldn’t have been here to witness this side of her, the one that was a mess, the one that had nothing under control and hid always behind a perfect face of makeup and an expensive dress. So what now, was he going to pity her? tell her that she needed help? she already knew that, but she didn’t want to deal with things, it was better to ignore them and drown them in her memories with a bottle of alcohol. Not all the nights were this bad. “I’m more than this, Mikael,“ she said, calling him by his name for the first time. "So do not judge me or feel sorry for me.” She was still upset at what he had done and without a doubt, this conversation was one that was going to continue the next day or the day after, once she had put her emotions back in order and she was back to her ‘regular’ self. "But do you know what’s having everything, truly everything one day and nothing the next?”

              no, perhaps he shouldn’t have come. perhaps he should have waited until the next day. he kneeled, the cold floorboards a sharp bite through the denim of his trousers, and stretched out a hand to collect the pack of tissues and the bottle she had no interest in. with much less elegance than her, blomkvist maneuvered himself to sit on the floor, back pressing against the wall and legs pulled up to rest his arms. “i don’t.” judge her. felt some sort of pity for her. what he experienced then, what he thought of her veered too close to disappointment and regrets than anything else - even anger. his expression didn’t register any of it, though he very much doubted she was in any state to decipher anything or that her vantage granted her much of his face. it was surprise which briefly flickered across his features. surprise at hearing her voice rise again. surprise at what she was spilling out. wasn’t she stubbornly private? the liquor, no doubt, was now laying claim to her most tenacious inhibitions.

“I can take perfect care of myself and I won’t die until I let it happen. Despite being on my own for so long, am I not still here?” It was strange to hear someone talk the way he did. She hadn’t known him for long, but believed he was telling the truth, after all, he had done nothing but help her since the day they met, and yet, there was that part of her that was trying to convince her that he was only lying, that he wanted to keep this thing they had for longer because it was a good distraction and gave him a taste of a world different than the one he lived in. Eleanor was used to hearing lies and telling them all while making them sound like the only truth. – She didn’t move away from him when he got closer to her, in fact, she never could. Whatever made her crave being closer to him at any given point, it was something she hated, but she didn’t fight it.

“Let’s assume you’re right, Herr Blomkvist, let’s imagine that, in fact, it’s not too late. I get my things, I leave this place with you, and then what happens next? are we suppose to do the regular things your everyday couple would do?” A couple? had she taken it too far by using that word? perhaps, but it was too late to take it back, so she waited a second to see his reaction before continuing letting him know any more of the things that were going through her head. “I have a life and you have your own, and they’re completely different from each other. Do you really think things could go smoothly for us? how long it will take you for you to look back to this day and regret what you’re telling me today. I’m a mess, even I can’t ignore this.” And yet, if he insisted on the same, Eleanor wouldn’t try to make him change his mind. This was only a warning. She was selfish and she wanted him, why would she push him away now even if she might regret it later? “You already witnessed how bad things can get and there are far more nights like that.” She leaned closer to him and brushed his lips with her own. “You will hate me.”

               “the regular things?” half a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, blomkvist tried his best not to laugh. the sound, for some reason, would have been jarring and that wasn’t his intention. so that was the crux of it, wasnt it? normalcy. mundanity. it didn’t so much repulse her as it frightened her. the reasons still remained unknown and more than likely found roots in a past he hadn’t unearthed - and still believed himself unsuited to do so. it belonged to her. perhaps one day, she would fill in the blanks. “this,” he said, patting the pillow, “this is a regular thing. i don’t think, in spite of the circumstances, we’ve ever done anything that wasn’t a regular thing.” a regular thing that regular couples did without thinking of it as a regular thing. how far removed from the world was she? growing serious, he listened, he observed. the smile lingered but lost its lightheartedness. “i’m not proposing. i’m not even suggesting moving in together.” could he ever go back to that? “opposites aren’t necessarily doomed for failures,” he pointed out. “no more than people who want the same things are destined to succeed and thrive in their marriage.” it wasn’t that easy, that simple.

ask meme / growling suggestion edition  //  @zhestokiiy

          he’s heard that before. put less bluntly of course but the sentiment remained the same. far from blomkvist to expect let alone hope that the people filling to the brim the circles he’s wont to navigate for the sake of his job to be altruistic but it still gets to him. that raw human need for dominance. isn’t it what power is all about? money aside, of course.

           “you got a thing for beards?”it was trendy, wasn’t it. the manicured, cared for, facial hair; and ellie was young, that type of comments never failed to remind him of it. young and infatuated. blomkvist rarely lied to himself when it came to relationships - or whatever they had could be called. he like her. he liked her a lot.“i grew one once,” he remembered. in another time, another place. dark ones. if he looked back at them with fondness, it was only because of his friendship with lisbeth; and yet her memory is tinged with its own share of bitterness. “i looked scruffy and unkempt and it was terribly itchy.”

“Five minutes? that’s more than enough, I can fix it in two but I’ll make it last four and leave you with a minute to get on the plane. Good enough?” She didn’t have a chance to finish her coffee, nor her biscotti, but this last one she put in a napkin and put it in her bag (she would eat it on her way home). – Ellie held his hand in return, them sitting to have some coffee had helped her forget during those few minutes that he was about to get on a plane and who knew when she was going to see him again.

“I’ll call, I promise. I’ll also text, write emails, send letters, fax you and swipe right on your tinder profile if one of these days I happen to find you there. Does that cover it all? am I leaving anything out?” She laughed, she needed to laugh in order to delay the feelings that were going to come back the moment he left. As they got closer to the security checkpoint, Ellie stopped and let go of his hand to put her arms around him instead. “I’m going to miss you.” She had promised him a kiss, so she wasted no time on pressing her lips against his the first chance she got. A kiss she made sure lasted a tad longer than her usual ones.

          “YOU’RE THE social media expert,” Blomkvist scoffed. “I’ll stick to emails and phone calls.” Hearing her own laugh did very little to alleviate the dread churning in the pit of his stomach. It seemed like she was attempting to fend off what feelings their imminent separation was unleashing and he wondered how selfish he had been by agreeing for her to dive all the way to the airport. Sparing her would have been better.

       he’s gotten the wrong end of the stick, arya thinks, from the way he nods. maybe it’s her english – something unclear in how she meant she still pays rent at her current place, that she can’t just drop out on a lease, even if it is a shithole and worse things have likely happened – and she makes a mental note to bring her swedish back up to something passable, but they can talk about it later.

      ( she follows, and looks around the guest room not unlike getting used to the size, layout, of a cell. the hold of her spine says she’s waiting for terms. conditions. some code, justified or not, that’ll turn her out on her ear if she breaks it. if she’s the wrong fit or makes herself unwanted. remain if you will, but know that we shall require your obedience. at all times and in all things. if you cannot obey, you must depart –

      – but blomkvist’s different. isn’t he? he has to be, only –

      nothing good ever comes without condition, and something in her will have to remain apart from him until she knows what. )

      arya’s picking up, and pocketing, the key’s all she can offer him, for the moment, and – her face feels hot, when she answers, when she remembers her thrice-damned courtesies.

                 ‘ – … thank you. ’

          “IT’S NO problem.” There’s a smile, small but genuine, offered alongside his answer. As promised, he leaves to come back with a couple of pillows in clean pillow cases, and a couple of towels which he stacks up on the small desk where an old computer sits. “It’s ancient,” he points at the monitor. “But it works if you want to use it.”

Wary of scaring her away or of invading her personal space - something he can relate to - Blomkvist takes a few steps, reaches the threshold, turns around. “I won’t always be here because of work so there’s a spare key for you in the drawer under the microwave in the kitchen. Help yourself to whatever you need in the fridge and cupboard.” He pauses, cautious and all too aware of what his offer must sound like to someone as independent as Arya. “But if you want to buy your own stuff, that’s fine too.”

His eyes scrutinise the bedroom, thoughts trying to find something he might have forgotten to cover. Necessities. Food. Keys.