Chapter 5
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Shapes and colors.
Morana
Undo me.
As Kyran abandons me to become FrostPlays, I find myself captivated by his words. They race through my head, pricking their fingers on maybes and what ifs. Maybe we could make things work. What if this passion doesn’t run out?
Inevitably, I regain my senses, shake my head, and remember that I’m very busy doing my rounds of checking the trash in the house.
And the trash is where such inane thoughts belong.
People are passionate about what they can’t have.
People put effort into getting what they want.
Once they have it, though? Once they’ve milked it for everything they can get out of it?
They stop caring as much.
Something shinier comes along.
They pursue that, leaving the people who were there for them by the wayside.
And, then, worse, if their new relationship doesn’t work out, they reappear and expect you to pick them back up, comfort them, return to exactly how things were.
If you don’t, they guilt you. They blame you.
They make passive aggressive comments. They make you feel like crap every time they stick their stupid nose back in your business, reminding you that there’s still an open wound where your best friend used to be.
For years, I had a friend named Talira. We did everything together. We texted constantly. We were on the phone every moment we were apart. I knew her better than anyone. She knew me better than my own twin sister.
And, then, we were sixteen, and she found a boyfriend.
Our calls got shorter.
She stopped texting first.
I only ever heard from her whenever there were problems in her relationship.
She dumped me; a horrible year full of broken decisions and consequences I had to face alone passed; he dumped her.
And then—suddenly—she wanted me back to pick up the pieces.
When things obviously couldn’t be the same as they once were when I trusted her with everything, she blamed me. She guilted me at every corner, wondering why I was punishing her when she’d just come out of such a rough and toxic relationship.
He was the bad guy, didn’t I know?
Sure. Yeah. I do. All guys are the bad guys in one way or another.
You chose him, though. Over me.
But I let her. I let her. I didn’t fight or complain. I just let it happen. So I tried to get over the feeling of betrayal, the feeling of having come out of my own nightmare choices without her support. I tried to take accountability for my part to play in our friendship coming apart.
I tried.
But I just couldn’t feel safe around her anymore.
I never knew when she’d pick someone else over me again, so then, when graduation hit, I let things naturally erode.
Yet she still, every so often, sends me a message on Leopard, comments on posts I make, keeps coming back.
Whenever I least expect it. Whenever I’m least prepared.
I’d block her if I didn’t feel so bad doing it.
I know that she’s not a horrible person.
She just made her decisions. And it’s my fault I haven’t told her to leave me completely alone.
But I don’t know how to. I still don’t want to hurt her.
I just…can’t let myself become the one someone I love so much leaves behind. Not again.
I give everything to the people I adore. I bend over backwards. I suffer neglect. I make excuses. I allow every chance.
Talira did a number on my ability to trust relationships.
Add my own brief foray into romantic garbage during the year we were apart and then Maelin’s situation with her ex Harry—a six-year relationship that dissolved in an afternoon last year—to the mix, and I’m not interested in cultivating anything that can rust anymore.
Grimacing, I march myself through my rounds of gathering trash and delivering it to the outdoor garbage can.
I can’t dwell on these old feelings right now—or ever.
They aren’t helpful. They aren’t productive.
As long as I refuse to block or talk, I am subject to jumpscares whenever I check my messages.
And that’s just how it is.
It is my fault. It is a problem that has a solution, but I am letting my stupid feelings keep me from utilizing it.
Undo me.
Ha. I wish it were that simple to deal with people. If others could be controlled and commanded without ruffling any feathers, my micromanaging tendencies would be very happy.
Such a shame that free will exists. Such a big, fat, ugly shame.
Marching up to the second floor, I take a turn down the hall Maelin and Zakery live on, then I follow the sound of a chugging sewing machine toward Maelin’s craft room. Without knocking, I push open the door.
Maelin jumps, twisting in her cocoon of supplies, which unfold around her desk like a craft wardrobe to Narnia.
In the abyss of black-on-black that makes up the interior, windowless room, my sister’s pale skin and white hair stand out almost as much as all her bright supplies. “Mora. Hello,” she greets.
“’Sup, twerp?” I march to her bed and flop face-first against the blankets. “Whatcha makin’?” Turning my head, I peer toward my big sister as she smiles.
“An apron for Lukas.”
I arch a brow. An apron for Lukas? An apron for the man who walks around half-naked, eight pack on eternal display, even in winter?
Ever since he and Clara became a couple, the black t-shirts I usually saw him in when he returned from tour fizzled away, and he relapsed back to his branding as the clothing-impaired popstar King.
“Why are you making him an apron? He’ll have to do laundry if you give him clothes.
” I won’t have to do his laundry, mind you, because whatever slim amount of laundry he has presently is never in his hamper.
My brows furrow, and I push myself up. “Wait. Better question: why is it frilly?”
“I’m only following orders.”
“Whose?”
“Clara’s.”
Ah. That makes sense.
I fall back against the downy comforter and stare at the ceiling. “They’ve got a really odd relationship, those two.”
“I think it’s sweet.” Her sewing machine starts back up, and she feeds it fabric. “They rely on each other completely.”
Mm. Can’t relate.
“It’s beautiful how much love has taken root here, considering what all the Bachelor boys had to deal with growing up.”
Abuse. Mental, physical, emotional. Their parents were not kind people. It really is astonishing how each and every one of these men has firmly denied continuing a cycle that would have been so easy to perpetuate.
They have the money.
They have the power.
They chose to love instead of abuse.
And, yes, that is beautiful.
It’s like Kaleb once told me when I asked him why no one knew he was also a Bachelor and our conversation dissolved into explaining how their parents were terrible and why he ran away from it all and how they’d erased him from the limelight.
He said, despite the past, the future is all about growing flowers where dirt used to be, and he’s grateful that he doesn’t have to carry a stage now that his abusers are gone. He’s grateful to have his family back without so much of the pain.
He told me that he still has to get his hands dirty to plant his flowers for the future; he said he still has to address a history of filth in order to move forward.
But it’s worth it.
It’s worth it because once the flowers bloom, you don’t need to mess with the soil as much. You might still need an adjustment or two for them to thrive, but mostly you’ll get to care for them directly, enjoying as they flourish and cover up the soil entirely.
Instead of mourning the dirt patches, he said we can let them feed our future.
No wonder Kyran thought I was in love with the man…
Kaleb isn’t my type, but I respect him a lot and have come to rely on him more than makes sense.
“Am I interesting?” I ask my big sister.
“Um. What?” Maelin asks.
No, then. Okay. Thanks, sis.
I mutter, “Like, what’s a positive trait about me?”
The sewing machine chugs along, every second without a reply building like proof in my chest. It’s proof that I’m not being hard on myself.
It’s proof that this isn’t an oh, she just needs to grow and appreciate herself better situation.
It’s proof that I do know what I am. And one of the only three people in this world I trust knows it, too.
“You’re eclectic,” she says at last.
My muscles sag. “What?”
“You’re like a kaleidoscope. Every time I look at you, you’re into something different.”
“And that’s a positive trait? You couldn’t just tell me I was nice or something?”
She stops the machine and lifts the metal foot before clipping the threads. Without softening the blow, she says, “But you’re not nice.”
That’s…true. “I’m at least kind, aren’t I?”
“Sometimes.”
I roll onto my side, giving my horrible sister my back.
“You’re kinda harsh,” she elaborates. “But I like you. You’re one of my favorite people.”
“Well, fab,” I mutter, tracing a circle into the puffy black comforter.
“What’s this about?” she presses.
My hand closes into a fist. “I don’t know. Am I pretty?”
Silence. “Um.” Silence. “Mora.”
I twist toward her, scowling. “What? I’m not?”
“We’re identical twins.”
I lift a finger. “With subtle variations in gene expression. Behold.” I comb my fingers into my jet black hair, stretching the long strands. “Melanin.”
“If we’re going to consider our differences, I’ve always thought you were prettier.”
My whole entire stomach recoils because I know Maelin’s felt like an outcast her entire life.
I know I spent our school years standing between her and bullies.
I don’t want to hear that I’m prettier. Not from my beloved big sister who has had to grow up in a world where she’s been called a freak.
I say, “I think you’re prettier. By a landslide. ”
“Does it matter who’s prettier?” she asks. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” I repeat. “Probably hormones.” All confusing feelings belong to hormones.
Not that I’m having any confusing feelings.
Undo me.
I fear I’m the one who’s becoming undone.
“You wanna talk about it?” my sweet sister asks as she folds up the giant frilly apron.
“Not really. It’s just…how did you come to trust Zakery so quickly after everything that happened with Harry?
Maelin’s nose wrinkles. “Is Talira bothering you again? She needs to let you go. The relationship died; she killed it. End of story. Unless you derive any entertainment from stalking her on Leopard, block her. Trust me. It’s better for everyone when you cut people like her out completely.”
“Talira hasn’t bothered me for a few weeks now. She sent me something at Christmas.” A stupid gif. With stupid opossums. Because we used to love opossums.
I haven’t cared much about America’s greatest marsupial for five and a half years. But… Maelin doesn’t know that, so she still mentions opossums to me sometimes. All she knows is that I used to talk about our country’s only marsupial a lot more than I do now.
Because I don’t care about marsupials. It was one of those things that didn’t matter until it became a thing with someone else.
Opossums became our thing while I was still friends with Talira.
And then it became nothing again—little more than an inside joke that fizzled out while she was still dating the guy she picked over me.
I wish she’d stop bringing up old jokes we used to have and expecting me to still laugh at them.
And I wish I could tell my sister the truth without feeling weak.
It’s all just a reminder of how crowded the grave is.
It’s not just our relationship at face value down there with the maggots; it’s the entire person I was when there was us.
“It’s probably about time for her to bug you again,” Maelin mutters. “Block her before she can.”
Excellent advice. It’s the kind I’d definitely give if our roles were reversed. I just can’t bring myself to do it, and I don’t know why.
Maybe it’s the moral superiority—blocking her without notice is cruel, and I don’t want to give her any reason to think I’m behaving like she did.
Even though it doesn’t matter.
Even though the fact I’m not dropping everything to build a time machine for her and go back to when things weren’t complicated makes me the villain in her story already.
Maybe I want her to understand how badly she hurt me. Maybe I want her to hurt just as badly every time I don’t reply and she can feel that distance in the silence. Maybe I like knowing that she wants something I’m not letting her have anymore. Maybe that feels like vindication.
Maybe I’m the problem. Maybe I’ll always be the problem.
With Kyran, maybe it’s not that I love deeply and don’t want to get hurt.
Maybe I just know that I’m not a good person, but even I have limits and don’t want to harm someone who doesn’t deserve it. I respect Kyran. I’m grateful for all the joy his work has brought me. From the very first video of his I found, he had me laughing until I was crying.
I’ve always struggled to make friends. Losing the only one that clicked with me in an effortless way has me questioning all sorts of things about myself.
Primarily, why wasn’t I enough for her?
Would I be enough for Kyran?
Why do I want to be enough for him so…badly…
“Mora?” Maelin asks, setting the apron aside and moving to the bed with me. “What’s wrong?”
Staring dead ahead, I swallow—hard. “N-nothing. Why?”
“Your eyes just widened.” She holds her hand up to my cheek, comparing our skin tones. “And I think you’ve lost your melanin.”
I swat her hand away, then I hug her. “I just had a scary thought is all.”
“What sort of scary thought?” she asks, wrapping her arms around me.
The kind of thought that changes everything.
I’ve just realized that none of my struggle right now would matter at all if I didn’t want to be in a relationship with Kyran.
I’d roll my eyes.
I’d move on.
I wouldn’t keep thinking how nice it might be to thoroughly, and undeniably, undo someone.
He’s painted a very clear and honest picture of what he wants.
It’s hard not to want to take the chance and trust him.
It’s hard not to want to believe that I am capable of being loved, consistently and unconditionally and passionately.
“Mora?” Maelin prompts.
I snuggle her. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll figure it out. Thank you for letting me vent, Mae.”
Hesitant, she holds me tighter and says, “Anytime.”