Chapter 5 CALLAN #2
I really felt like she needed my opinion. But then again, I wasn’t sure. I hardly interacted with people. When I addressed my soldiers, it was always my opinion that mattered. No one questioned me. No one would tell me I was wrong.
But she wasn’t a soldier. Just a girl. A girl who was really pretty. A girl whose emotions I didn’t want to hurt.
“Any idea?” She finally looked at me. And God her eyes. They always seemed to hit me like strings of silver bullets. But instead of raw, unadulterated pain, it was euphoria, like liquid gold flooding through my veins, burning in equal measure, too bright, too intoxicating to be anything but wrong.
“You got the anatomy right.” The words left my mouth before I could stop them. “The details, the colors, the balance. But the eyes don’t connect. There’s no focus.”
“Really?” Her eyes widened in…shock? Surprise? Disbelief at my sheer audacity to question her creativity? I really had no clue.
“It just…looks like you didn’t paint what they are thinking.” I dared to add as her gaze returned to her tablet, fingers pinching the screen, zooming in until the eyes covered the entire screen.
“Wow,” she whispered under her breath. “Wow.”
Then she looked back at me. “You know what? You might be correct.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t even breathe when those eyes looked at me like that, shining like that.
“Thank you,” she beamed.
Fuck me. Her smile. I felt like my heart was going to combust inside my chest.
I stood there like a fool as she began to erase, add colors, light and shades. I watched as she attempted to bring the eyes to…life.
“Thank you,” I said instead, after what felt like hours.
She paused, lifting her head. “For what?”
“For earlier.”
“Oh,” she beamed again. A bullet to the heart. But no pain. Just a high.
“It was nothing,” she said dismissively. “I’m just glad I could help.”
I recalled her words from earlier. The one that had been churning at my mind since our encounter.
“Nice to meet you…again?” I rephrased and something flickered across her eyes. “You said that back in the hall.” My voice was quieter. “Have we met before?”
There was a small pause. Then she nodded.
“It was two weeks ago.” Her expression shifted. “At Fitz’s Lit and Brew.”
I stiffened. The name of the coffee shop struck a cord inside me. That was where I always had my coffee every time I came down to Braemont. Except that two weeks ago, I wasn’t anywhere near Braemont. But Zaghan was.
Zaghan.
Zaghan’s words surfaced in my memory.
‘Be careful down at Braemont. Some fucker tried to kill me’
Realisation snapped into place.
It wasn’t me she met that day. It was Zaghan.
My stomach coiled, the weight of the revelation settling heavily on my chest.
If she truly met me two weeks ago at Fitz’s Lit and Brew, then it wasn’t me she met. She had met Zaghan. My irrational twin brother. My other self. The other version of me.
This meant Zaghan had talked to her. He had interacted with her.
A thread of unease pulled tight in my gut. What exactly did the two of them talk about?
“You don’t remember, do you?” she asked, her head tilted as she watched me closely.
I studied her too, wondering how to answer that. I couldn’t lie.
“I don’t,” I admitted, my voice even.
A flicker of something passed over her eyes. Disappointment? Hurt? These things confused me a lot.
“Oh.” That was all she uttered.
A beat of silence stretched between us. Then she added, “It’s okay, it wasn’t a long interaction. You were sitting at the back. I walked up to you to ask if you had seen a book at your table when you arrived.”
My mind worked through the information.
A book. That was how it started. Zaghan had met her over a book.
I hated it. I hated that I wasn’t the one to remember it. Hated that Zaghan had a memory of her and I didn’t. And Zaghan would never forget. Not when she looked like glass, something he could easily break. Her memory would linger. He would come back to look for her. To claim her.
A strange, unsettling feeling overwhelmed me. I hated it.
She shifted on her bench, as if her mind was sorting through something. Then she suddenly dug her hand through the peach cotton bag lying next to her on the bench. The hand returned with her cell phone.
“Give me your phone,” she said.
My brow lifted. “Sorry?”
“I’ll save my number.” Her smile was easy, unguarded. “In case you ever feel like talking about books, especially Donna Copeland’s. Or you know, panicking in crowded places.”
Then she chuckled.
For some reason, I didn’t argue, and didn’t wonder if this was strange. I had never exchanged numbers with strangers before, not my personal number, at least. But somehow, I reached into my pocket and brought out my phone, the metallic device cold against my palm.
I handed her the phone. And in less than a second, she entered her number and dialed it.
It rang. Her ringtone was a song in a foreign language.
It wasn’t Chinese, not Japanese. Maybe Korean?
Her cotton bag had a picture of an Asian man.
Maybe he was from a boy band. The bag did read SG Boys.
Maybe she liked the boy. I frowned at that thought, a thought that suddenly developed a flavor–a revolting, bitter taste on my tongue.
When she handed my phone back to me, there was a new contact on it. Beth with a black heart icon placed next to it.
Beth.
Elizabeth?
I liked it.
A loud horn blared nearby just as I changed the saved contact to Elizabeth and pocketed my phone. Her eyes darted behind me, and a smile perfected itself on her lips.
“Well,” she breathed, throwing her tablet and her cell phone into her bag. She rose to her feet, swinging the bag over her shoulder.
“See you around, Snow white.”
Snow white.
See you around.
I shouldn’t care about those words. But watching her get into the waiting Range Rover, a cascade of golden hair glimpsing from the driver’s seat, I reflected on our conversation. See you around. I didn’t know if that boy that just came to pick her up was her friend or maybe something more.
But I wanted to see her again.
And again.
Maybe again?
I wanted to see her until this unnamed feeling in my chest faded away.
I would see her again. And when that happened, I hoped she would meet me, not Zaghan.