Chapter 31 No Straight Lines
Xiaoyu
Healing is not linear like nature has no straight lines.
It is in a person’s nature to heal, so when we don't, there is always something lingering preventing it. Whether it’s past trauma, an abusive cycle, or even an innocuous tendency to automatically limit happiness—something is festering inside you that you need to let go.
It is painful, tragic to turn away from what I’ve known all my life—Mother and how she had built me—but I need to be my own person. I need to rip off this now thirty-five-year-old band-aid.
When I’d finally realized the band-aid was gone, I had just been staring at myself in the mirror. For once, I can look at myself freely. I look normal. My hair is healthier. Fuller. I can even have long hair now, as opposed to before that I had to cut it short lest I lose them to extreme hairfall.
I don’t hate looking at myself anymore. I don’t see the little flabs on my belly, but instead, see the faint glitter whenever the light hits it just right. I take comfort in this, knowing my veins are filled with memories. Memories of him. It’s why my skin seems so different in the dark.
When it’s completely black, my veins glow. Phosphorescent. It’s all I need to make certain I had not imagined everything that happened in Esoterra.
I left everything in that city to move to the countryside. I learned I cannot stand the bustling, busy streets. I preferred the slow, quiet life with my garden. I have a teaching job half an hour away, but other than that, I’m in my hut. Self-sustaining and eating homegrown foods.
Every time I touch the soil, it reminds me of his version of soil. Sometimes, his name escapes me like smoke. Today, though, something is different. I remember his name, but not what he looks like.
Datu.
His name bleeds into me, leaving me hungry again. Starving for something food can’t satiate. My jaw flexes before I straighten up to wash my hands. I have to go where people are. If I don’t, I’m gonna end up in my room, crying again.
I haven’t fully recovered from him—I don’t think I ever will. He is embedded into my soul. He is a part of me as much as my flesh, my bones, the guts that I’d neglected.
“Good morning, gloomy ray of sunshine!"
My eyes meet Rhys’. He’s a cute guy with a quirky hobby of clock-making. Unlike me, he’s very talkative and he’s never made it a secret he wants to see where a relationship with us can go. I usually just laugh it off and say I’d just been through a rough breakup. Technically, it’s true.
I don’t not like Rhys. He’s decent enough, but he just doesn’t have that factor. That bite. Also—apart from our zip codes—we don’t have anything in common.
The wind picks up, and the hairs at the back of my neck stand. It feels like a warning.
Xiaoyu
Excusing myself from Rhys, I head to the less remote side of where I live. I swear I hear the air breathe my name. The trees dance, branches sway as I walk down the path to town. Fear zips up my spine when something hisses behind me. I whip around, heart thundering in my chest.
An elderly couple strolls by, engrossed in their own conversation. Hand on my chest, I swallow thickly. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. My steps pick up, and before I know it, I’m racing toward the little café where I buy my tea filter.
“Hey, Rain,” Helen, the barista, greets me. “You okay? You look spooked.”
In this new town, I had introduced myself to them with an easier name. I had always been Xiaoyu—Mother had refused to give me a nickname—and it stuck. Most of the time, people would just completely butcher my name or make up a completely other one. So, why not make it easier for everyone?
I shuffle inside, trying to shake the feeling off me and failing.
“It’s bright out and I feel like I’m being followed.” I chuckle, but she doesn’t think this is funny.
“You want me to call authorities..?”
Shaking my head, I brush it off. “No, no, it’s nothing. Just a little unnerved today.”
“If you say so.” She sets her phone down as the bell rings, signaling another customer. Her eyes find them behind me, greeting, “Hey there. Must be new in town! Haven’t seen you around here.”
I’m fighting to catch my breath before I take a seat. Everything is silent, and the other customer doesn’t respond. However, I hear Helen moving around.
“I got you, please take a seat.”
The chair on the table across mine scrapes against the floor, then a man plops down with easy grace. There’s something magnetic about his presence, I can’t help but look.
Ope. I have made a mistake looking at him because his eyes are on me, too. I just realize I’m uncomfortable under his scrutiny. I thought I was a tough bitch who doesn’t stew in discomfort because confrontation scares her?
“What’re you looking at?” I want to cringe at how shrill my voice is. “Why aren’t you answering me?”
Like I had not just yelled at him, he smiles and it is swoon-worthy. I feel like melting at how intent his gaze is on me. He pats around his pants and takes out a card.
My name is Mako. I am mute.
I cover my face in humiliation. “Fuck. I’m so sorry. Please, let me pay for your drink for being so fucking rude.”
He grins wider and coaxes me over, tapping his oddly-shaped nails to his table. I’m terribly restless if I don’t do what he says, so I let go of my pride and smile meekly, taking a seat across from him.
There’s a charm to his smile, a sparkle in his eyes that spoke more than words ever can. He lifts his finger for me to wait as he jots something down on a piece of paper. In the generation of technology, this is refreshing.
He pushes the paper toward me.
I will forgive you if you let me buy you a drink.
This makes me blush for some reason. I can’t determine if he’s either too handsome that I feel unworthy to look, or his face is fuzzy. Hyperfixating on his long, sharp nails, cold sweat trickles down my neck.
“A drink?” It’s a rhetorical question so he cocks his head to the side.
Helen serves us the tea. My heart drops as I look back up at him. Gesturing toward the drink, he takes a sip of his. This can’t be laced, right? This just came from Helen, the bar on the other side. He hasn’t even touched my cup.
Why am I so paranoid?
Realizing I’m thinking too much about it, I take the cup and clink his cup with mine.
“Cheers!” This is a ridiculous situation, but stranger things have happened. When I drink, it’s a smooth trip down my throat. For a few seconds, I wait…
His eyes are too focused on me as if he expects me to grow another head.
Nothing happens and, finally, I admit out loud, “My socialization skills are a little rusty. You’ll have to forgive me.”
He sighs and points at himself as if dryly saying “My social skills are rusty, too.”
Unexpectedly, I burst out laughing. It’s weird how I can easily communicate with him.
“A man who can make fun of himself is a desirable man.” The words leave my lips before I can stop them.
Tilting his head down, he watches me, heavy-lidded, smoldering like I’m prey. He pushes another piece of paper toward me.
Plans tonight?
My belly flutters. “No…no plans. No kids, no boyfriend. I live alone…” Good fucking grief, why did I say that? I look suspiciously at the tea.
He writes on his paper again and shows me.
You need someone to take care of you. Meet me tonight. I can almost feel the caress in his words. I see it too late, but his hands, neck—they are covered in ink. Tattoos of symbols I know nothing of.
My eyes drop to the table, to my normal fingernails. So different from his. “I don’t know. We just met, I don’t feel safe.”
He purses his lips. You will be safe with me.
The words just came at me, unprompted. Hastily, I take my keys from the table and scramble away.
“I’m sorry, I need to go.”
The next day after class, I receive a text.
You look lovely, my sweet.
To someone else, this seems innocent—even intimate. But to me and from an unknown number? It leaves me unsettled. I swallow hard, watching the sky darken. New moon tonight. Which means complete darkness in my hut.
During my short commute home, I always put my earphones in. My tastes varied from the ASMR sounds of nature, to synth-techno music, to horror podcasts. Tonight, it’s the podcast that lulls me half to sleep. My mind drifts away from the random message, body heavy with exhaustion.
My forehead on the glass window, I watch as the train leaves the neon lights of the town. We’re in a tunnel now, and the darkness outside empties my vision. Zooming through the subway, something catches my attention. At the corner of my eye, two luminous violet eyes stare at me.
The sounds of the train fade, only to become a deep, seductive purr I feel in my bones. It’s the sound of a lion’s growl with slowed down tempo, lowered pitch.
I touch the glass where the eyes are. It doesn’t disappear like I first thought it would. Instead, the eyes narrow, a wide sharp-toothed smile forming below them. It blinks, the violet turning to blue, then to pink.
Those eyes are like daggers, my sweet.
My lethargic body’s heart races, and I whip my head around. There’s no one behind me, just a few passengers minding their own business.
I run my hands over my face. For a hopeful second, I think it’s my friend. The thing that keeps me company in my dreams. I don’t know if seeing and hearing it is a good or bad thing if that’s the case. Maybe I’m just so lonely that I’m seeing things that aren’t there.
As soon as I step outside the walls of the station, the wind wraps around me like a cold embrace. It’s fall season, and I need to hurry if I want to keep warm. The sound of my boots crunching on the ground is all I hear until the purring begins again. I know it’s not my belly…
Walking faster, I arrive at the last stretch of my walk, and I never saw this until now. With the only light illuminating the way, the trees before the path to my hut are shaped like snarling branches coming together like an archway of sharp teeth.
The wind blows my hair forward.
Go on, come inside. You’re a brave girl.