Chapter 49
Aoi
“Andrew, you should sit down.”
We have to talk once and for all. I can’t go on knowing he’s been lying to me since the beginning.
“Why? Did something happen?” he asks coyly, and flashes a worried smile.
“Sit. Down,” I order, taking a seat myself.
He sits down in the chair opposite mine at the table and crosses one leg over the other.
I suck in a breath before speaking, “The more time we spent together, the more I started wondering if I knew you. It was strange how familiar you seemed, but then I concluded it was due to the first night we spent together. I told you I had memory loss from the trauma I suffered eight years ago and that I don’t remember much from that time.
” I pull up my sleeve, exposing my scarred forearm.
“I told you about this scar and how I don’t remember how exactly it happened.
My uncle and friends tiptoed around the subject, and no one ever dared to bring up the missing years of my life. ”
Visha shifts in his seat and straightens his back. “To protect you, I’m guessing.”
“I stopped trying to remember because the pain didn’t seem worth it. But then you came into my life, and over the past weeks my mind has kept trying to access these memories.”
“Do you remember anything?” he asks reluctantly, his fingers twitching in his lap.
He deserves to feel as terrified as I feel betrayed, and I’m not about to cut him some slack.
I laugh, the sound cold and empty. “I remember everything.”
“Aoi-”
“Oh, I’m not done yet. The best is about to come.” I smile, but there’s not an ounce of warmth in me anymore. “At first, it was mere fragments. When you said something I had already heard before, when you smiled at me, when you gazed at me…it all felt so oddly familiar.”
“I can explain.”
I close my eyes, nausea churning in my stomach. It takes every ounce of strength for me to stay sat and not bolt through the door.
“But it’s one phrase that sealed the lock.” I exhale a shaky breath, my fingers trembling as they clench tightly. “Now and forever.”
He stands up and moves to my side, but I flinch away before he can touch me.
Thick poison drips down my tongue with each word, “You knew about my memories. You knew what your departure did to me, how it damaged me irreversibly. But you uttered that phrase. You knew what you were doing. Was it funny to play with the truth in front of me? To dangle my memories in front of my eyes while I was ignorant?”
“No, no, Aoi, that’s not it! I didn’t mean to do that. I was stupidly hoping you’d remember me but-”
I glare him down, daring him to say another word. “You lied about your identity. Gave me a fake name and pretended to be someone else. For what? To fuck me? You disgust me.”
He sinks to his knees, clinging to my legs so familiarly that I gasp, my body burning painfully.
“No, no! Aoi, listen to me. I messed up, I know I did. I wanted to tell you, but I was scared you’d still see me as the kid you raised.
I just wanted a chance, but then I found out you didn’t remember our years together and I thought it could be a fresh start for us. ”
“A new beginning based on a lie? How fucking selfish can you be? Who the fuck even are you?” I spit, disgust filling me up by the second. “You’re not my Visha. He would never use my weakness against me. That kid would have never lied to me like that!”
He’s about to speak when I lift my finger, gesturing for him to stop and letting all my rage sizzle underneath my skin. “I hate you. Do you hear me? I fucking hate you!”
“Please, don’t. My Paradise, you know I never meant for this to happen. You know I love you! If I had known this would happen, I would have told you sooner. I wanted to- I was about to!”
“Oh, shut up. I don’t care about your excuses. You think it will change anything?” I demand, slamming my hand on the wooden table, making the vase tip and shatter on the ground. “We’re over. I’ll get someone to pick up my stuff. I knew getting involved with you was a mistake.”
“Don’t say that! It wasn’t a mistake!” He reaches for my hand, lips quivering, but I yank it away. “I didn’t mean to hide it, I swear.”
“Aw, you didn’t mean to hide it? Well, thank you very much that makes it all so much better.
” I want to scream my lungs raw, but I know I’ll start crying if I do, and I don’t want to show him how hurt I actually am.
Anger is better, it locks him out. “I don’t know what’s worst. You lying and hiding your identity from me or the fact that you let me open up to you while you knew about everything.
Was this some kind of power play? Did you get off on fucking me over? ”
I shove him off me and glare at him as he falls on his ass. And yet I feel no satisfaction whatsoever from seeing him so desperate and pathetic.
“Of course not! Please, Aoi it can’t be that you believe me capable of scheming something as twisted.
” He gets to his feet and grabs my hands, pulling me against his chest as he holds me close.
“You know me. You know that this was a stupid mistake. I should’ve told you!
I know it, but you’ve forgiven me before.
Do it again, one last time. I promise, I’ll never lie to you again. ”
A pang of pain jolts in my chest. I thought I knew him, but I was so wrong. Aiden was right to warn me about him. I’m so fucking stupid for trusting him and even more stupid for falling for him.
“I don’t fucking know you anymore.” My body recoils from his touch and I stumble backwards, looking down at my shaky hands as nausea churns in my stomach. “You’re fucking disgusting. You did this! You did this to me–to us.”
“No, you know that’s not true!”
“All I know is you’re a liar.”
I dig my nails into my forearm, drawing blood. He reaches for my arm in an attempt to stop me, but the mere thought of his touch makes me stagger back.
“Don’t say that. Don’t throw me away,” he raises his voice, body trembling, and the sight breaks my heart once more. “I love you. I love you so much that I can’t live without you. Please…please forgive me.”
“Then die.”
He shakes his head, tears welling up in his eyes, matching mine. “I recognized you the moment I saw you in that hotel hallway,” he confesses in a whisper.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you fucking didn’t, you lying piece of shit!” I yell, feeling myself slowly losing my mind. “All you do is lie! Let go of me! I fucking hate you!”
He lowers his eyes. “I swear I did.”
I don’t want to ask how he knew it was me. I don’t want to stand here and listen to him lie again and again, messing with my head and manipulating me. I’m fucking tired of people toying with my heart.
And yet a tiny voice in the back of mind forces me to ask anyway. “How did you know it was me just by looking at me? Why didn’t you tell me the truth that day?”
He leans his forehead on my shoulder, and his electrifying scent makes me shudder. “Your entire existence is engraved in my soul, every detail of your face and body, your laugh and smile. I couldn’t forget you even if I tried.”
I breathe in and out, hoping to regain some self-assurance. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not the man you knew and clearly you aren’t the kid I knew.”
Disgust and confusion swarm my thoughts. Did I groom him? How did he turn out like this? What have I done to him? I’m horrible. I’m disgusting.
My heart hammers in my chest as my breathing gets caught in my throat.
I can’t breathe. The walls are closing in on themselves, and I’m trapped between them, stuck in a puddle of crimson blood. My blood. The one I spilled because of my fucked-up heart and my rotting brain.
“Please, stop. Let go of me, Visha,” I cry, shaking as my veins pulse with the need to purge. “Please.”
He takes a step back, blinking away unshed tears and cups my cheeks. Worry contorts his features as his eyes dart from my wobbly lips and the nails digging in my scar. “Aoi, what’s wrong? Does it hurt? Breathe slowly.”
I glare at him, inhaling chopped breaths as my lungs fill with sizzling red ink, choking me. “S-stop.” My knees give out but Visha catches me and picks me up.
My fingers clutch his shirt, holding on to this man I want to punch and scream at, but I can’t even bring myself to look at him. He settles me down on the couch and kneels between my legs, causing another memory to pop up in my head.
Visha brushes a strand of hair away from my face. “Look at me. Breathe in and out slowly.” He grabs my hand and lays it flat on his chest, his heart beating furiously. “Focus on the beats.”
He caresses my cheek with the other hand, watching me attentively and too tenderly. It makes me sick to the point I want to rip out my skin and snap my bones to feel something else.
It’s all because of him.
If he hadn’t lied to me–no, if he hadn’t been Visha, this wouldn’t have happened.
Things would be different. I wouldn’t be in such pain, reminiscing about a time when I loved him like family, because he would’ve been someone else.
We could have met as strangers and I wouldn’t feel guilty for loving him, for wanting him.
This is twisted. Andrew is Visha. The man I love is the child I took in a decade ago.
Panick explodes in my chest, and I yank my hand away from his, standing up and staggering away from him. He reaches for me, but I hold out my arm in front of me, stopping him from taking another step. “Don’t touch me. Stay there.”
I don’t recognize my voice. It’s a foreign sound, fragmented and devoid of joy.
If I hadn’t met him-
You’d be dead, the voice in the back of my head echoes. If you hadn’t met him on that snowy night, you’d be dead by your own hands.
That’s true. It’s because I found that adorable child on the sidewalk that I ended up postponing my suicide, until I completely ditched the idea for his sake–because he gave me love and a purpose.
But it’s different now. It’s all wrong and fucked up. I can’t love him. Not when he used to be that kid.
“This is wrong. Everything is wrong.”
Why did I have to find out? Why did I have to remember?
They should have remained deeply forgotten in the pits of my mind. That way I could have continued to love him, letting this feeling bloom in my chest without shame and guilt.
He gave me hope. I almost believed this could work, that maybe I wasn’t doomed to misery. I thought this was it, he was the one.
“It’s over.”
Visha’s lips part but I don’t give him a chance to speak before I run out of the penthouse, my lungs burning.
It was too good to be true.