Chapter 353 P.M.—The Button Manor #2
Anwar: Still dealing with paperwork. They want to discuss future plans with the prodigy mentorship and everything! Start the celebrations without me! :-)
He felt queasy as he pocketed his phone again, the lie weighing him down. He blinked a few times, erasing the guilt before throwing his arms around Bilal’s shoulders and shaking his head in response.
“I don’t have to go anywhere,” Anwar replied, lying again with ease.
Unlike with his parents, he was used to lying with Bilal.
He lied for months while they were still together, pretending that he was happy in this relationship where they never got to see one another.
And he’d lied every day since they’d broken up that he wasn’t still in love with him.
“Oh, I thought someone was texting you or something,” Bilal said, gently reaching out and brushing some of Anwar’s hair from his eyes.
“It was just a Duolingo notification. That thuggish bird is always threatening me, I swear,” he replied with another lie.
This made the corners of Bilal’s mouth twitch upward a little. “Of course you’d describe a bird as thuggish; you think pigeons are evil.”
“They are. Don’t be fooled by their size, Billy. Those birds must be stopped,” Anwar said with all seriousness.
“From doing what exactly?” he asked.
“Being evil!” Anwar replied, and Bilal smiled at him like he used to smile at him, without any of the hurt or malice in it, his eyes just crinkling and sparkling with delight.
Bilal moved in closer to Anwar, who followed suit, so they were lying down again. Instead of kissing him right away though, Bilal hung his head over the side of Anwar’s face, closer to his ear.
“How did you manage to sneak your phone past the police?” Bilal asked, as his lips grazed Anwar’s neck, sending a shiver through him.
“Gave them my backup phone. I always keep it on me,” Anwar replied quietly, shivering again when he felt Bilal’s warm breath on his skin.
The fencer breathed out a laugh. Nothing about that response would’ve shocked Bilal.
Anwar had been obsessed with Gillian Flynn and Ian Fleming novels his entire life, and was somewhat convinced that he could be the star in his own potential high-octane thriller scenario.
“Of course you do,” Bilal said, amused, and then he brought his head up once again, but this time it was Anwar who eagerly closed the gap between them.
Like before, Bilal held Anwar close, kissing him and holding him like his life depended on it.
It felt like Anwar was in a dream, one he was terrified to wake up from. It was as though the events of the past twenty-four hours had rewound the clock, to a time before when they were still together, and things were still good between them and the world. This felt like the worst lie of them all.
It is a lie, the angel on his shoulder finally hissed in agreement. You and Bilal are over. Mr. Button is dead. All is not well in the world.
Anwar felt a pang in his chest. He couldn’t keep dreaming. He knew that you had to wake up from them eventually. It wasn’t smart to stay deluded.
He drew back again and whispered, “Billy?”
Bilal responded with the same gentleness with which he held him. “Yeah?”
Anwar felt his senses slowly returning as he remembered the other reason he hadn’t left the Manor yet. The reason that had been weighing on him for several hours now.
“We need to talk,” Anwar said.
He could see Bilal’s defenses going up, could see the panic rising behind the boy’s eyes.
“About the Prodigy Ball,” he continued, and when he felt Bilal’s muscles tense around him, he quickly added, “I think I saw something last night … something I couldn’t tell the police or anyone about, because I didn’t know what the consequences would be.
But I’m scared that not saying anything would be worse than saying something at this point. ”
Bilal sat up, suddenly on high alert, his eyebrows bunching together. “What … what did you see?”
“I, uh … got lost looking for the bathrooms on the yacht, this was a little while before the award was announced. I ended up on the lower deck, near what I guess was your dad’s office or something?
I knew I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I couldn’t find my way out.
Anyway, your dad, he was talking to someone—your sister, I think.
They were arguing, and she said … she said she wished he was dead. ”
“My sister?” Bilal repeated in disbelief.
“Yes,” Anwar said. “I saw her through the glass pane in the door to your father’s office.
They were talking and she seemed really upset about something and yelled at him.
I didn’t want to tell the police in case your sister would get in trouble over nothing …
People have fights with their parents all the time, I told myself …
but I don’t know, I keep thinking, what if not saying anything at all was worse than saying something? ”
“Which sister?” Bilal asked. Anwar could feel the fencer’s erratic pulse.
Anwar hesitated. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt him.
“Which sister?” Bilal repeated.
Anwar pushed himself up and looked straight into his ex-boyfriend’s wounded eyes. “Perdita.”