Chapter 31 - Marco
Days passed in a blur.
Rei was back from the hospital.
That was good. That was one thing that was good. He had been discharged and everything seemed fine.
On the outside.
The world continued to turn and people continued to live in it.
But I didn’t think I was fine.
I think I was getting weaker.
The medications had been changed again. The doctors at Aldenberg’s office had adjusted my regimen for the third time in two months, cycling through different combinations in search of something my body would tolerate.
Each change brought a new wave of side effects, each one leaving me a little more depleted than the one before.
Alexei was trying to act like it was fine.
He wore the mask well. He had been wearing it his entire life, after all. He cooked for me. He managed my medication schedule. He counted my pills and timed my meals and checked my pulse when he thought I was asleep. But I could see how panicked he was.
I could see it in the way he stood too close to me, like he was afraid I might slip through a crack in the floor if he gave me too much space.
He was terrified.
Usually we slept with me cuddled to his chest.
That had been our arrangement for weeks now.
I would curl against his side, my head on his chest, my ear pressed to the place where his heartbeat lived, and the sound of it would lull me to sleep like nothing else could.
It was steady. Strong. The heartbeat of someone whose heart worked the way hearts were supposed to work, and I would fall asleep listening to it like it was a lullaby, like the rhythm of it could teach my own broken heart how to keep time.
But last night was different, he was the one resting his head on my chest.
I lay there in the dark, my hand in his hair, his face pressed against the place where my heart beat and I felt him counting.
He was counting my heartbeats.
I could feel the tremors going through him.
I also noticed he doesn’t eat.
He cooks for me a lot but he himself barely eats. The plate he sets in front of himself at the table remains full while mine empties. He mostly only drinks coffee or water.
I barely go home either.
My family exist somewhere out there, past the boundaries of Alexei’s apartment, past the small world we have constructed around ourselves.
A few days ago, my mom sat me down.
I had gone home for the first time in what might have been a week, maybe longer. The visit was supposed to be short. A few hours.
She pulled me into the kitchen while my dad and Luca were in the living room.
She sat me down at the table and she took my hands.
“Marco,” she said. “Tesoro.” Her voice was soft. “I’m happy you have Alexei. He is a good boy. He takes care of you. I see this. Your father sees this. We are grateful.”
I nodded again, not sure where this was going. Her thumbs moved across my knuckles.
“But I miss you,” she continued. “You’re barely here anymore.”
A smile crossed her face, watery and sad. “I hope you can spend more time with me,” she whispered.
I felt guilty and promised I would show up more. But I didn’t know how truthful that was. It was hard for me to be here because I had to pretend a lot.
I was failing everyone.
Everything was going wrong.
***
Today was Rei’s birthday.
At least he seemed happy.
That was the one thing that felt right.
Alexei was closing the buttons on my shirt. It was made of lace; he bought it for me a few weeks ago. I loved it. His fingers moved up the front of the shirt. “You shouldn’t be going,” he said.
I sighed. “He’s my best friend. I have to go.”
He closed the last button.
His fingers lingered on the collar. “You can barely stand.”
The words were true. They weren’t an exaggeration. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else. My balance was off. My vision tilted when I moved too quickly, and I had learned to compensate by moving slowly.
I reached up and caressed his face, then I got on my tiptoes and I kissed his cheek.
“It’s okay,” I said softly against his skin. “The side effects aren’t as bad as before. I’ll be okay. And you’ll be there.”
“From afar.”
I swallowed. That was the other thing.
We weren’t public yet.
I knew what Alexei thought about the secrecy. I knew he believed I was keeping it hidden because I didn’t want Rei to know. Because I wasn’t ready to claim him in front of the people who mattered to me.
But that wasn’t it.
The reason I didn’t want to make it public was the same reason I hadn’t said I love you back.
Because I was temporary, my heart was failing and my body was giving up and the medication wasn’t working the way it was supposed to, the doctors kept adjusting and readjusting and nothing was getting better - and I couldn’t, wouldn’t, let Alexei Morozov stand in a room full of people and claim me as his when I knew that I was going to disappear.
I couldn’t let him build a life around me in front of witnesses, let him hold my hand in public and introduce me as his when I knew that I might not be there for the future.
I wouldn’t let the world watch him lose me.
I wouldn’t give them that.
So I held the words I love you, I love you, I love you behind my teeth because once I said them, they would exist. They would be a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.
“I’ll be okay,” I whispered instead.
When we got to Rei’s party, I walked in first.
I hadn’t been here before. The mansion existed at the end of the world, and I meant that literally. The drive had taken us through the city, then past it, then through stretches of nothing. The mansion appeared at the end of a forest.
The party wasn’t big. There were maybe thirty people. Forty at most.
“Marco!”
I turned just in time to see him break away from a cluster of people I vaguely recognized from Bloodburn - he reached me and picked me up, giving me a spin.
I caught a glimpse of Alexei over Rei’s shoulder.
He was standing near the entrance, just inside the door, his hands in his pockets. His eyes were on Rei’s hands, on the place where they gripped my waist.
He was glaring daggers.
But this time, I didn’t feel the fear I felt before.
Months ago, that glare would have sent ice through my veins. I would have stiffened in Rei’s arms, would have felt the old terror rise - the fear that Alexei would hurt him, that proximity to me was dangerous, that the people I loved would be punished for loving me.
I didn’t feel that now.
Instead, I felt something warm bloom through my chest, pushing past the ever-present ache, because he was cute when he was jealous.
That was the thought that surfaced and I almost laughed at myself for having it. But I trusted him.
I trusted that he wouldn’t hurt anyone I loved. The Alexei I had first met - the one who had stood over a body on a rooftop with blood on his hands - might have. That Alexei had been a different creature, but this Alexei.
The one who learned to cook for me. The one who counted my heartbeats in the dark. The one who had said I love you in three languages and meant it in all of them.
This Alexei wouldn’t hurt Rei.
He wanted to. The jealousy was visceral, written in every line of his body. But he wouldn’t act on it, because acting on it would hurt me, and hurting me was the one thing he had sworn he would never do.
My feet touched the floor. “You’re here!” he said. “I was waiting for you!”
“I told you I’d come.”
“You also told me you’d come hang out the last three times and you didn’t.”
“That’s because I was—”
Because I could barely stand.
“Busy,” I finished instead. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small bag I had brought.
Inside was a small silver bracelet with a tiny flower charm that I had picked out myself, weeks ago. “Here,” I smiled, wiggling the bag in front of his face. “I got you something.”
Rei’s eyes went wide. “Marco, you didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to.”
Rei then grabbed my wrist and pulled me with him across the hall.
“Come on,” he said. “I need to introduce you.”
“I know everyone already,” I protested, stumbling slightly as I tried to keep up with his pace. “We go to the same school.”
“That doesn’t count. This is proper.”
He dragged me to the other side of the hall, where a small cluster of people had gathered near the windows.
Alexei was there now.
He moved from the entrance to this corner at some point during Rei’s hug, and he was standing with his arms folded.
Ilya was beside him, bouncing on his heels, already talking about something I couldn’t hear.
And near them but not quite with them - close enough to be part of the group, far enough to make it clear he wasn’t - stood Kento.
He pulled me forward until I was standing beside him, slightly in front, like he was presenting something precious.
“This is Marco,” he announced. “You already know him. But I’m introducing him properly.”
He looked at each of them in turn. “Don’t spook him or I’ll end you,” he threatened.
Ilya, who had been talking to me more than anyone else in recent weeks, played along perfectly. “Nice seeing you up close, Mario.”
He said it like we were meeting for the first time.
Kento had no particular reaction to me.
He was standing slightly apart from the others, his posture stiff, his face arranged in the kind of cold blankness that I recognized because I had seen it on Alexei’s face a thousand times. But where Alexei’s blankness was controlled, Kento’s was different. Hostile.
His eyes weren’t on me.
They were on Ilya.
Rei pulled me away from them. His hand found my wrist and he tugged me gently afterwards. “Sorry,” he said once we were far enough away. “If you’re uncomfortable near them.”
I looked at him, confused. “What? I’m not—”
“I know you don’t like scary people. And they can be… a lot. Especially Kento. And Alexei, honestly, even though he’s been less terrifying lately, which is weird, but whatever. The point is if they do something, just tell me. Okay? I’ll beat them.”
“Okay,” I whispered. “I’ll tell you.”
He nodded once, satisfied. “Come with me,” he said, holding out his hand. I looked up at him. “Where?”
“Just come.”
I took his hand.
He pulled me up from the couch and dragged me to the back of the mansion.
When the door opened, I stepped into a garden.
I saw roses climbing trellises. Lavender lining stone paths.
Hydrangeas in shades of blue so deep they looked purple.
Sunflowers taller than me, and so many flowers I couldn’t name. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It’s…” I started, then stopped, because words felt insufficient. “Rei. This is…”
“It’s Dimitri’s present to me.”
“He built you a garden.”
“Yes. Isn’t he so romantic?”
“He is.” We walked through the garden. Rei pointed out his favorite flowers, told me which ones Dimitri had planted first, which ones had almost died because Dimitri had watered them too much.
We found a bench at the back, near a small fountain that trickled quietly into a stone basin and we sat down. “I’m so happy.”
He was gazing up at the sky, his expression so open and so unguarded, then he turned to me and took my hands.
“Are you happy, Marco?” he asked.
“I am.” It wasn’t a lie. Yes, I was in pain. A lot. But I was happy because Alexei existed and he was the one beautiful thing my suffering had failed to take from me. I didn’t think I had ever been happier than I was with him by my side.
Rei studied my face for a long moment, and then he sighed.
His arms went around me and he hugged me.
“I hope you’ll always be happy,” he whispered against my hair.
I hugged back and I hoped he would always be happy too.
I hoped that his future would be long and full and everything mine was not going to be.