Chapter Nineteen
Lie in the grass, next to the love of my life.
Mars
Blue sky stretches above me, an endless painting slathered with strokes of white. Running my fingers across the warm grass I’m lying in, I sigh. “My brother is broken.”
“That sucks,” Ceres says, emotional-support queen, while she re-pots one of the many orchids in her backyard. They’re her favorite flower, and they are everywhere.
I tilt my head toward her and find her staring intently at a ladybug on her finger. The tiny creature crawls up to her nail, unaware how blessed it is to be the object of Ceres’s attention, then—rudely—it flies away as though a goddess’s wide, starstruck eyes aren’t following.
Being this close to the footage is a whole new level of hypnotic. “Do you have any siblings?” I ask.
“Not any that count.”
What an interesting answer. Pushing myself up on arms that are getting used to their daily pushup training regime—which looks like do as many as you can and do more than yesterday —I smile. “Might you bless me with an explanation?”
Light catches the green and blue shades in her hazel eyes when she looks my way. “They’re from previous marriages. I’ve never met them, and I don’t really think about them until someone mentions siblings.”
“Ah.”
“I’m my unit’s only, but since both my parents had previous entanglements, I was never treated like an only child.
Or maybe I never acted like enough of a normal person to get the only child syndrome ?
” Her attention slips skyward, then she shrugs and returns to her potting soil. “Point is: I know how to share.”
“Yes, yes. Because sharing is the single thing multiple children glean from the experience of growing up together.”
“Isn’t it?”
“There is also the lifelong codependency.”
Her lips soften. “I think your relationship with your brother is special. I’ve known siblings who never call each other and others who wish death upon one another. Nothing codependent between them. No siblings I’ve ever met have been quite like you two.”
I suppose that makes enough sense. After all, not everyone is blessed with a Jovey. “Your parents…”
“What about them?”
“Were they…good to you?”
“Yeah.”
Nothing more comes, so I nose a bit deeper. “You said you understood Amelia’s situation, though.”
Ceres’s eyes close, and she drifts, for a moment, far away.
When she comes back to me, I expect a guard to be up, but it’s not.
“They weren’t what I needed. That doesn’t make them bad or abusive, but we’re very different people and sticking around wasn’t healthy for me.
They fought. A lot. The arguments were contained and rarely became yelling matches; they always ended with apologies to one another and to me.
It was fine. Normal enough for a lot of people.
I just…” Her lips press together as she pats the soil in around her orchid.
“It taught me not to expect commitment to look like kindness. It taught me, logically, not to expect commitment to look like anything close to loving someone enough not to fight about everything. And so, emotionally, I really… really crave something better than…all that. To unhealthy levels.” Facing me, she wraps her arms around her legs, which remain obscured beneath her long black skirt scattered with golden stars.
“I understand Amelia’s situation at a level that lets me know it doesn’t matter if I understand it more or less.
Even without abuse, or manipulation, or being taken advantage of, she is in a place that isn’t healthy for her .
It doesn’t need to be a nightmare that leaves you bloodied and bruised.
Unhealthy is unhealthy, and if options for better exist, it’s going to be hard to reach them regardless of what’s going on.
Change is scary. It’s that simple. Most things are simple, when you really break them down. ”
“I suppose…that’s true. It might just be complicated to get to where you understand how to break them down.”
She rests her cheek against her knee. “That’s fair enough. I am still trying to break down the fact you’ve brought me carrot cake on three separate occasions since we started whatever we are nine days ago.”
My brows rise. “I’m so sorry. Has it not been enough? Bringing you carrot cake only a third of the days since we became engaged is a tragedy. You should have access to carrot cake every day.”
“Became engaged,” she echoes, dry, but the tiny tip to her lips gives me hope.
“Do you want a ring?”
“No.”
“Would you like some other offering to commemorate our engagement, my goddess?”
Her eyes roll, then she’s sprawling in the grass beside me and releasing a breath as though being near me brings her peace. “Do I not get a proper proposal with you down on one knee right around the time you’re pretty sure I’d actually be inclined to say yes?”
“I’d get on both my knees for you anyday, anywhere, anytime if you say yes right now.”
“More likely to say yes if you tell me to kneel, take my chin in your hand, and make me.”
Propping myself on an elbow, I lean over her and comb my fingers through her hair, laying it out against the grass. Green and red. So perfect. “Pretty sure making someone marry you is both illegal and usually frowned upon by the individual subjected to the force.”
Opening her eyes, she smiles.
Unable to help myself, I touch a chaste kiss to her precious pink lips. “I need you to choose me. Without being told. I need that.”
She whispers, “You’re kissing me on the ground in my backyard, Mars. What do I have to do to reassure you that, on some level, I already have chosen you?”
Heat crawls up my neck. “Not sure. I’m a raging insecurity.”
“I noticed.”
“You do make a really good point, though.”
“I am known for my ability to do that. It’s an occupational hazard.”
I flop back down beside her, stretch my limbs at my sides, and try not to lose my mind when her hand finds mine. Our fingers thread, and my heart shakes. Wetting my lips, I say, “This is very Up of us.”
“Hm?”
I cut my attention toward her. “ Up ? The movie? When they’re having a picnic and looking at the clouds together?”
“Oh. I don’t really watch movies. I don’t even own a TV. If I did, I’d have to give up bookcase space, which is out of the question. Obviously.”
Obviously. Probably for the best, given how that husband and wife scene is singularly the most traumatic moment of my childhood…well…apart from Mom dying on us, anyway.
“You okay?” Ceres asks.
“Yeah, why?”
“Your grip tightened.”
“Oh.”
A breeze rustles the grass around us as she squeezes back, silent support. Rudely, that chokes me up, and it becomes hard to breathe.
“I love you,” I say, as though my voice isn’t breaking.
“You’re not sounding okay, Mars. In case I haven’t been clear enough yet, the one thing I can’t stand is liars.”
“I’m okay . I’m just not that great. You know?”
A bird streaks above us, from one tree branch to another. Ceres asks, “Wanna talk about it?”
“Someday. Maybe.”
“I’ll listen.”
I draw her hand to my lips and kiss. “I know. You listen. A lot. Every time Amelia’s called, you listen.
She has heard my voice here a few times, yet she hasn’t asked you how you are or what’s going on more than once.
She just talks, and you listen. I think it’s someone else’s turn to do the listening where you’re concerned. ”
“Amelia’s going through a lot right now.”
“I know.” I roll my eyes. “I’ve heard. But everyone is always going through something.”
“Not me. I sit in my house and I work on stuff most people prefer I not talk about. Nothing happens. She used to ask how I was. And when the answers were always the same, she stopped. I’m really…rather boring, Mars.”
“I don’t think you’re boring.”
“That’s because you are so exciting it bleeds into me. I barely emote most days. Let’s not delude ourselves because you’re infatuated. I’m not certain I even have a personality of my own. I just reflect what other people give me. Which is exhausting. And why I don’t go outside.”
“We’re outside right now.”
She turns a frown toward me. “You know what I mean.”
I grin. “My love, that scowl isn’t very reflective of me, now is it?”
“Trust me, I’m bursting with chaotic elation on the inside. And it’s all your fault.”
“Yay.”
A reluctant smile replaces her frown, and she moves so she can rest her head against my shoulder while I hold her hand to my heart. It’s hammering. Probably with that chaotic elation she mentioned.
If I’d known my beautiful Ceres was my completely insane Sara sooner… If I’d known she wouldn’t mind me …
“Little goddess?”
Drowsy, she makes a soft sound.
“How do you feel about coercion?”
“Love it.”
Heh. That’s what I thought. To think, at every point, I’ve been anxious over nothing.
“Do you think Brian’s a fan of blackmail?” she asks.
I glance at the top of her head, at a ladybug in her hair. “Why are you thinking about Brian?”
“All girls think about Brian. He’s the ideal male specimen, or so I’m told.”
“He’s the Tamaki, you said. Too bright. Too blond.”
Her head tilts so she can meet my eyes. “Which is why I want to know if he’s a fan of blackmail. Doesn’t seem like he would be, but he loves mail so much…”
“Often, blackmail isn’t even mail.”
“True. Yet Brian is mysterious and unpredictable.” She snuggles.
“I will need you to text him this burning question, or I might be up all night thinking about it. And then, in the morning, I’ll have to message him myself.
We might fall in love. I am, after all, only a girl.
Highly susceptible to the charms of a mailroom uniform. ”
Huffing, I retrieve my phone and grumble, “As if you don’t have a personality.”
“I’m gleaning your mischief.”
“Me? Mischievous? Never.”
Mars : Blackmail, yay or nay?
Mars : Also, I will need you to stop stealing all the world’s women. Leave some for the rest of us. Please.
“He might not reply for hours. Lots of mail to sort, you know.”
Disparaged, Ceres sighs and bemoans. “I suppose I’ll have to think about him for hours, then.”
“You will do no such thing.”
She draws her free hand to her forehead. “Woe and sorrow. My fair Brian.”
Blessedly, it is at this moment that my phone buzzes.
Brian : I’m not stealing all the world’s women. Only Amelia.
Brian : Also, blackmail isn’t even mail.
“Blackmail isn’t even mail. Told you.”
Ceres gags and wrinkles her nose. “Ew. You know your friend so well. How sickeningly sweet of you. You’re practically buttercream frosting.”
“You like buttercream frosting.” My heart skips a beat. “Right?”
Unbidden, lips touch my cheek, and a dash of moisture follows as Ceres flicks her tongue out against me. “Mm. Yeah.” She buries her face in the crook of my neck. “Guess I do.”