Chapter 35 Chanel
Chanel
The moon hangs high tonight, a perfect silver pendant in the sky.
I find Ares standing underneath it, waiting by the lake banks where I’d first followed him. I stay still, allowing myself
the luxury of simply admiring him from a distance. He’s always looked so beautiful in the moonlight. Almost surreal, like
something out of a dream.
Then I step forward—silently, or so I think, hoping to catch him by surprise, but he turns around at once, his dark eyes finding
mine.
“Have you been waiting long?” I ask.
“No, not at all,” he says, his lips sliding into a smile. “I know you usually need two hours to get ready.”
“Well, being hot takes time,” I say. I shrug off my fur jacket as I cross the grass toward him, revealing the tight crimson dress I’d picked out just for him, the one that’s softer than silk and fits like a second skin around my body.
A warm, pleasant breeze fans my hair back from my bare shoulders.
It’s finally starting to feel like summer, and even the air is sweeter, balmy with the fragrance of begonias and yesterday’s rain.
Children are staying out later, chasing each other around the park, licking hawthorn ice pops and scooping traditional Beijing yogurt out of little glass jars.
The yeyes and nainais are back to playing their chess matches and dancing in the courtyards, swaying together to ballads from the nineties, slightly off-rhythm but laughing.
Everything feels fresh and full of promise, like new beginnings.
“I like the dress,” Ares says, his fingers skimming over the fabric around my waist.
I gaze up at him. “Of course you do.”
“This too,” he says, tugging at the black velvet bow in my hair. “And this,” he says, hands drifting down to my jaw, tilting
my chin gently up toward him. The cuts in his knuckles have almost healed, I notice, the dark red scars fading into a pinkish
color. No new bruises, no blood.
“I think you like everything about me,” I murmur against his lips.
“You think so?”
“I’m actually certain of it,” I amend, and pull away, teasing, before he can kiss me.
“You do make it very, very difficult not to like everything about you,” he agrees.
I’m biting back a ridiculous grin as I cast my eyes on the lake.
The pale moonlight ripples over the surface, and out of habit, my stomach tenses, dreading what future might form from the murky shapes, but the water doesn’t change.
The house fire, the smoke, the destruction—all of it is gone now, as if the vision had never existed in the first place.
You can only see the liquid reflections of the lamps, and the two of us, standing side by side, the red of my dress the closest thing to flames.
“Isn’t it so strange?” I murmur, and I don’t have to say more than that. He knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“Very,” he says. “Sometimes I think I made it all up inside my head. If it weren’t for you . . . I would’ve thought I’d lost
my grip on reality ages ago.”
“Do you reckon anyone else will see a vision like we did? If maybe—maybe there are more lakes out there similar to this one?
Or if maybe it isn’t about the lake at all. Maybe it’s the moonlight.”
“Maybe it’s all of it. The exact combination—the place, the timing. You and me,” he says, with a readiness that makes it clear
he’s been wondering about it too, drawing up his own theories that can never be tested. He pauses. Looks over at me, his gaze
catching on the burn scar underneath my collarbone, his face tightening like it’s been seared into his own flesh. “Chanel . . .
I’m still really, really sorry.”
“Sorry? What’s there to be sorry about?”
“I just . . .” He swallows. Shakes his head. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that. Every time I remember it . . . how
close you were to—”
“But you saved me,” I remind him. “And besides, it’s all in the past now, isn’t it?”
The past. I can barely believe it, even when I say the words out loud. The worst has happened, and somehow we survived it, and we’re
both here.
“How’s your brother these days, by the way?” I ask Ares, deliberately changing the subject before he can sink too deep into his own guilt. I don’t know if anything I say can ever convince him to forgive himself, even if I’ve remained adamant that there’s nothing to forgive.
“Luke is . . . adjusting,” Ares says. “I’ve enrolled him at Airington, and he should be ready to start classes next semester.
It’s just that he hasn’t been to school in so long. . . . He hasn’t said anything about it, but I think he’s a little nervous.”
“Luke’s so smart, I bet he’s going to be at the top of his class in no time,” I say. “I can already see him fitting in; he
can be Airington’s next genius, after Henry Li graduates.”
“Those are pretty big shoes to fill,” he says.
“I mean, nobody can replace Henry Li. But trust me, being smart will get him far. And if anyone does give him a hard time, I’ll step in.”
His expression softens, the line of his mouth loosening. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Though I doubt I’d need to, when everyone’s already terrified of you.”
“You’re not terrified of me,” he points out.
“That’s because you’re my boyfriend,” I say. This has the exact effect I wanted. His eyes turn to molten amber, some bright
emotion flickering across his features, and the curve of his smile is almost shy, even though he’s had three weeks to get
used to this.
Part of me had thought that maybe he wouldn’t ask me outright.
He was, after all, already doing everything a boyfriend would, and more.
While I was still stuck in the hospital, he visited every day with fresh flowers and fruit baskets.
He was the one who thought to bring me my favorite brand of face masks, who bought a scented lychee plush toy to keep me company at night, though I barely needed it, because he’d stay with me all the way until I fell asleep.
Then, once the bandages came off and I was finally given permission to go anywhere I wanted, he went everywhere with me; he took me shopping again, carried my bags in the hand that wasn’t holding mine, dutifully followed me through dozens of stores, waited for me to try on dress after dress without the slightest hint of impatience.
And when one of the retail assistants started unabashedly flirting with him, he’d turned to me, grabbed my waist, and kissed me until my jaw unclenched and the jealousy in my stomach dissolved.
I could feel him smiling when I pulled away.
“What was that for?” I’d asked.
“To make it clear that I’m yours,” he murmured into my ear. “And because I wanted to. Are those good enough reasons?”
“Maybe,” I allowed, fighting to keep my facial muscles in check so he couldn’t see how hopelessly, absurdly happy those few
simple sentences made me.
He started planning out our dates too. Long midday walks around Chaoyang Park, finding a patch of grass to fall back on when
we were tired, him using his arm to shield the sun from my eyes. A nighttime visit to the local aquarium, his silhouette edged
by the blue glow of the water, pointing out all the different fish he knew, laughing when I admitted that I only knew two,
and that was from Finding Nemo. Baking at his place, his hands around mine to steady them as I squeezed blueberry batter into heart-shaped pans.
Building forts in my new living room, pushing the chairs back to make space for the hot flush of pleasure in my chest, lying together on the cushions imported from France and gazing at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers he’d ordered for me.
It was his idea to try a new restaurant every couple days. “What are you craving?” he would ask, and I would tell him whatever came to mind: Korean barbecue tonight, or Sichuan food, or something as specific
as scallion beef pancakes. And every time, he would return an hour later with at least three different restaurant options
to choose from and a detailed overview of each, noting which ones had good lighting for photos and which ones offered the
best seating. He would let me pick whatever I wanted from the menu, and he would always offer me a bite of his dish first,
and if I decided I actually liked his meal over what I’d chosen, he would just smile and slide it over to me.
When we did go out to eat, I could still hear my mom’s voice in my head. Are you really going to finish all that? Control yourself, Chanel. There were still those flashes of guilt where I felt the compulsion to make a list of all the foods I ate like someone at
a confessional, sorting them into good and bad and inventing new, arbitrary rules to torture myself over what was on my plate. But it was getting easier to ignore the voices and the rules, easier to sink my teeth into the food and actually enjoy it,
to say yes to dessert because I felt like it and maybe it could be that simple. Life could be that good.
Then, three weeks ago, we watched a new action blockbuster together at the theater in Solana.
A movie date. Our very first one—something that felt extraordinary because of how ordinary it was, the kind of couple activity I used to
dream about when the idea of being together with Ares seemed impossible.
The movie itself was awful. Despite the rave reviews, all the promotion that had been slapped onto billboards and bus station
posters and social media ads, I could barely bring myself to watch it. Influencers had been filming themselves walking out
of theaters crying; the only times my eyes teared up was from yawning.
And yet I had no desire to leave. I was happy to lie on those leather seats for hours, watching the actors stumble through
recycled jokes and buses explode on-screen with Ares next to me, his arm around my shoulders, leaning over to grab a handful
of caramel popcorn or whisper in my ear about how horrible the acting was.
After, we went back to his apartment, debating the whole way whether the glowing reviews were fake or if there was some kind