A Well Deserved Apology [Cadmus & Edita]

Edita couldn’t shake off that annoying headache that had been pestering her ever since her encounter with that man… He had called himself Acheron, a name Edi didn’t recognise one bit. She hadn’t gotten around to ask her father what that business had been about. To be honest, she hadn't seen her father yet since that episode. Why had they taken his money? She couldn’t help but wonder, but even more so: What had he wanted from The Family?

She frowned as yet another attack of her headache flashed through her brain. Maybe she should stop speculating, and just move on with her day. Unfortunately, she had missed the delivery job she had had yesterday, since Idés had, in his own way, ordered her to stay until he felt that she was well enough after the encounter with Acheron. So here she was, on her way through the streets of Erast once again, this time in broad daylight, as that might be safer for her. Because of the weather she didn’t wear a jacket, but instead had opted for a loose pinstripe waitcoat that some people would find fashionable, that hid the holster with her gun from strangers’ eyes. Given her recent experience she wanted to be more careful. She also felt that she owed it to Idés.

A buzz sounded from her bag, notifying her of a received message. She stopped in her tracks and quickly dug through her shoulder bag to find her phone. On the lock screen it read:

Hey Edita, you left quite suddenly last time, is everything alright? Aly said that…

The rest of the message was cut off and she would have to enter the chat to read the rest. She groaned, her thumb hovered over the chat bubble with Thomas’ profile picture. She really didn’t want to explain anything to him, and his concern seemed too invested in her than she liked. She knew that whatever they were, they didn’t agree on where it should be going. She locked the phone instead of reading the rest of the message. It could wait till later, until after she had collected the drugs and delivered them to the client. Hopefully she could smooth-talk the client so that they wouldn’t be too mad at her.

She started walking again while stuffing the phone into her bag again. But she couldn’t stop thinking about Thomas. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but she couldn’t see how she would avoid doing exactly that.

For the inhabitants of Erast, the sweet smell of garbage rotting in the sun, was a sure sign that summer was just around the corner. This late in May, no one could feign surprise when the same breeze that kept the temperatures tolerable, brought with it the nauseating odour of trash. Perhaps it was the weather that had lured people out into the mid-afternoon traffic that Thursday. There was little appeal in spending such a day indoors, even less in spending it in Erast, and at least one group of children exchanged their classroom for rusty bikes at the sound of the schoolbell, making instead for the woods. On Domaware street a young man stepped aside for two women engrossed in conversation, one straining under the weight of grocery bags, the other pushing a baby carriage. The wind had ruffled the young man’s hair, and from time to time, as he continued to walk down the street, he would run a hand through it, eyeing himself half-consciously in a window, to make sure it was, at least, an organised mess. Had this been anywhere but Erast, dressed as he was in trousers and a pale blue shirt – linen by the looks of it – one might have taken him for someone fresh out of a meeting. From work perhaps. Shirt sleeves rolled up. Taking a break before returning to the office.

He might have been – this seemed to the few who paid him closer attention all the more likely – a university student who simply resided in this part of Ilomar. The fading, greenish bruise by one eye lent credit to this theory; a testimony to the folly of youth. From a bar fight, perhaps? But while violence-prone university students from Erast were sure to exist, such a guess would also have been incorrect. Without their knowledge, there was a strong possibility that many, perhaps even most, of the people he passed had read the interview with this man last Saturday. Irene Ford’s controversial article, Conversations with the EFA, had been the talking point of the week. Here walked half the interviewed duo. Surely it would have come as a surprise to those who did not know him; there was nothing about this individual, presently lost in thought, that made one want to seriously entertain the idea that he should be ‘the face of true evil’ –  a wanted criminal and Nachon terrorist.

Yet it was the activities of the aforementioned Nachon extremist group, the EFA, that had Cadmus – that was the name by which the young man went – engulfed in reflections of the past week. Another busy one. There had been his meeting with Gwyn; still had to do some research following that up. Dominic had been down with a migraine, and then May had arrived. At least they would be sorting out the issue with the crowding of the headquarters. The problem of money however… What was left of his savings after last week’s rendezvous with Acheron was far from covering his rent, and as Temple service was his best opportunity for job leads, that too had required his time. Work itself, of course, was draining, emotionally, but the money almost made up for it. At least he had not heard from Acheron. There had been something in the news about a politician’s birthday at the Borcelle Hotel, but nothing suggesting Acheron, or what the man might have been up to. Not that Cadmus cared.

The bruise by then was green, turning yellow. It would probably take another week for it to go away, but Cadmus, whenever he thought about the punch, was amazed at how little damage had actually been done. Stubbornness, or perhaps idiocy, had made him turn down Dominic’s offer of ice. This he had regretted as soon as the adrenaline died down. The swelling had hurt, and after the incident in the living room that resulted in Gwyn storming out of one door, and Dominic the other, he had retreated to his room with a bag of frozen peas, and a towel. Eventually it had stopped hurting, and since his vision was fine, he trusted that everything would go back to normal. The only long term hurt being a blow to his pride.

From Domaware street Cadmus turned a corner, and for a brief moment he reconsidered if his head had not after all been damaged: there, further up on the same pavement facing his direction, was Edita – the woman who had twice shown up at the EFA headquarters uninvited – looking down at her phone. He halted. This was the first time he had seen her outside of the apartment. She looked tired, discontent? Something on her phone most likely. There was something… for lack of a better word – wrong about her? Her spirit was muffled. He frowned; not wanting to probe, since he already knew far more about her than he felt he had any right to, what privacy she had left, he wanted to respect. Apart from that, she looked good; put together, wearing a loose waistcoat he felt sure was hiding a shoulder holster, like the one she had been wearing when he had first seen her. What was he supposed to do? Cross to the other pavement? Walk past her and hope she did not notice him? Greet her? Before he could decide on anything, Edita had started walking again and was resolutely putting away her phone. That made Cadmus move too. He had not figured out a way to avoid her, and since part of him wanted to talk to her, he stopped again, pocketing his hands and took a step to the side before she could walk into him. “Edita?” He greeted her, with a smile that was meant to convey that he did not hate her, but he could understand if she did not want to speak to him. How well it all came across was a different matter. “I think, you deserve an apology,” he began, trusting she knew what he was referring to, “I'm sorry about last Saturday. Especially Dominic, he–”  Cadmus shook his head “I mean, how he acted – that was not okay. He is not usually like that – I am sure he regrets his behaviour.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t like Thomas - he was arguably a very sweet young man, who was very kind to her, and honestly everyone around him - it’s just that she couldn’t make herself like-like him. Aly had always said that he would be a very good boyfriend to her if Edita would let him. She shook her head at the thought - this was an emotional mess that was too difficult for her to solve right now.

Engrossed in her own thoughts, she did not recognise the man at the sidewalk, before he spoke her name. Startled, she looked up at him, stopping in her tracks, surprised to see this man here out on the streets of Erast. He looked relaxed aswell; the sleeves of his blue linen shirt casually rolled up to expose his forearms, his hair tossled by the breeze in an unkempt and yet flattering manner, one hand in his pant pocket and a soft smile on his lips while he stood there on the sidewalk with a certain demeanour that Edita didn’t know how to describe. If it wasn’t for the bruised eye, he would have been a picture perfect holiday advertisement. ”Hi.” Was all she managed to get past her lips, despite her brain fluttering with questions.

It wasn’t that she assumed the EFA stayed indoors all day.

She maybe just hadn’t thought much about them in their everyday lives, and in her mind they might have been on ‘pause’ while she wasn’t there…

”Oh!” She said, surprised at the apology for his friend’s behaviour towards her last saturday. She had not anticipated that at all. She brushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear and shifted the weight on her feet. ”Well… Thank you, I guess.”

She looked down at the sidewalk beneath their feet for a moment, nodding to his words. Dominic sure as hell didn’t used to act like that. ”You know, I get him,” She said, crossing her arms and looking back up at the handsome man, a faint apologetic smile on her lips. ”If I had tried to disappear from a past life to save others, I wouldn’t act calmly if someone showed up and put that in danger.” And that was the difference between her and Dominic: He at least tried.

She shook her head, trying to get onto better thoughts. ”How- ehm.. How are things? You know, back home?” She didn’t know how else to ask that question. Her presence had caused quite a stir, and she had read the atrocious article, so the tension must have been… Just crazy. She couldn’t imagine living in that. Especially as a refugee. She remembered all the faces of them. Frightened. They probably weren’t frightened just because Dominic was shouting at her and Gwyn. And Gwyn… She hadn’t seen her since last Saturday. She was curious as to how she was doing, but didn’t dare ask directly.

Edita had given a startled Hi, as surprised to see him, as he had been to see her. When Cadmus had gone on to apologise, she had let him, although she appeared to find the apology itself just as unexpected. He could see the irony. Nachon terrorist organisation apologises for screaming at people. Apart from existing, that really seemed to be Dominic’s biggest offence, anger.

A strand of dark hair had gotten loose and Edita brushed it aside before replying. Thanking him for the apology. He did not quite feel he deserved any thanks, but he smiled and shrugged, as if it was the least he could do. It was. He should have spoken up Saturday, and he hadn’t. At least Edita did not latch on to that. Instead, this time to his surprise, she said: You know, I get him. Looking up at him with crossed arms, almost defensively – it took him a second to understand that she was apologising too. Well, you didn’t do any harm, he wanted to say, but that was not entirely true. Both Dominic and Gwyn had had to recover. Although emotional distress was not the sort of danger Edita spoke of.

While he was impressed with how reflected she was in her assessment of Dominic, wishing the same sort of clarity on both Dominic and Gwyn, he had to cast a quick look around to make sure no one had heard her. A group of kids on skateboards was rounding a corner on the other side of the road, both too busy chatting and too far away to care about disappearing from a past life. So was the dogwalker further down the street, humming along to the tune playing from a car radio. Cadmus shook his head, turning his attention back to Edita. ”That is still no excuse. There were better ways to have handled the situation.” His words were followed by a brief moment of awkwardness concluding the apology. While Edita began asking about how things were back home, Cadmus realised, somewhat foolishly, that he had never given her his name. It felt rather awkward to remind her that while he knew the better part of who she was, she did not even have that. He was someone with a friend who had kicked her out of his apartment when she was trying to help them out.

Even now he thought her interest was genuine. And so he began: ”We have properly all seen better days.” It was the truth, but his tone was light. She knew how the article had been received. He did not want to remind her that she had been the one to convince them to do it. ”But,” he continued, shifting his weight, ”we’ll manage.” He did not tell her about May, or the plans to get the refugees out. While he did not generally share Dominic’s distrust in her, here was a reason for caution. Not that he thought she cared much about that,  adding instead what he felt was the answer she really wanted, ”So will Gwyn. You were not the only one deserving of an apology.” And she was not the only one to have gotten one. Only something told Cadmus, Dominic had regretted his behaviour towards Gwyn far more. He paused for a moment, considering. She would appreciate hearing from you. I think she feels bad about what happened too, and she could use a friend.

She didn’t like the tone of that. Better ways will always be, but humans rarely do what is the best. People are always influenced by their emotions and rarely see the best, the correct words, or that they have other options than the one that is seemingly instinctively for them. But she let his words be. He was after all apologizing, and she should let him.

She nodded to his words on how it went back home.

She bit her lip as she did notice how he kept her at a distance in that reply. We’ll manage. Even though she did not really know him, or even the rest of the EFA. She had honestly no deep friendships with any of them. Her talk with Gwyn had been really fun, and they had really clicked from the very beginning. But she did not know her. And she had hurt her too. So she understood the distance that this man took from her. And how much he let her know. It stung a little still.

But he did mention Gwyn.

She could use a friend.

She did not know if she could be that friend.

Her eyes must have lit up a little when he mentioned her, because she felt her heart skip a beat. She did want to be that friend. She liked Gwyn. If Gwyn needed her, she would be there for her. She shuffled her feet a little, distributing her weight differently than before. She put her hand in her pockets, since she had no bag on her today, and thankfully found a receipt and a pen. This would do.

“Could you give my number to her? We never got around to exchange contact info…” She asked him, though not looking, as she tried to scribble her phone number on the backside of the receipt. She looked up at him, when she was done, extending the crumpled paper with her messy handwriting upon it to him. ”It would mean alot to me if you did.”

She looked at the paper in her hand, then up again at him. Realising. This was probably the first time in her life that she gave her number to a man whose name she didn’t know. Her eyebrow jumped at the realization. ”I don’t think I ever got your name…?”