Chapter 37 #2
He grunted in delight before answering in a breathless voice. “Because I want her to take after you. Duh. What should we name her? She should have a Western and Eastern name. Ruan Biluo for the Eastern one? I’ve always liked that name.”
I laughed and reached my hand back to grab his neck. “You’re crazy.”
I pulled him close to place a kiss on his lips. Xander got off me, but he didn’t go far. He scooped me up, blankets and all, and carried me to his bathroom. I never thought I’d shower with someone else, let alone allow them to wash me, but Xander was forever my exception.
He treated the act of washing me like one of worship, taking care to pay attention to every part of me with the utmost care, and every time he washed a section of my flesh, he’d follow it with a kiss.
What amazed me was how none of it was sexual.
Every gesture was one of reverence, and following each act, my entire soul felt reborn into the version of me that I could’ve been, the version who believed in him and us.
Hold onto that feeling, I chanted to myself. As long as you can.
My first work free day was a lazy one. Xander and I got coffee and lunch before walking through the same New York City park where we ran into that lady who turned into a malicious spirit all those years ago.
I couldn’t help but shake my head as I thought about how far I’d come and how much I’d learned about ghosts and myself since then.
When we returned to Xander’s penthouse, he left for an evening concert.
While my schedule was lessening, his only seemed to increase as Sinners Do It Better grew daily in popularity.
Every concert they’d done in the past year had been sold out, and we’d had to avoid paparazzi more and more when we went out these days.
Alone, I stretched out on the cushioned outdoor chaise on Xander’s terrace, which overlooked the city beyond and below.
The August air was perfect, even at night like this.
The fairy lights strung along the terrace glowed, and a Sinners Do It Better album played from the stereo inside to filter out to where I relaxed.
“Meow,” Catsper called, staring down at me from where his ethereal body perched on my head.
I smiled and reached up to poke his nose, my finger meeting resistance where the little transparent black tip was. “Where have you been today? Haunting the dog downstairs again?”
The black cat almost seemed to smile at that as he hopped off my head to curl up by my feet.
My phone rang, and I knew without looking who it was. Nerves tried to tear at my insides, but I swallowed them down and answered before I could talk myself out of it.
“If it isn’t my darling brother,” I greeted.
“Darling? I don’t know about that. Handsome, awesome, best brother ever. Sure. I’m those things.”
I rolled my eyes even as I grinned. “Meh.”
“Did you enjoy your first day off in forever?” Terrance asked. “What did you and your boyfriend get up to?”
Terrance always called Xander my boyfriend when we spoke, and I’d stopped trying to correct him. And it wasn’t because the idea made my insides melt like butter over fresh pancakes.
“It was a very relaxing day,” I told him. “I slept a lot. You know, catching up on all the years of my fucked up sleep schedule thanks to my job.”
He laughed. “I can just picture you out like the dead. Drool all over your face. Hair sticking up at all angles. You slept so hard and messy when you were little, too.”
That gooey feeling inside me turned sour in an instant. I couldn’t swallow the nauseating feeling climbing my throat as I thought about why I’d slept so hard and long during the day while in the safe company of my older brother.
“You still there?” Terrance asked after many moments of silence.
I had to inhale deeply through my nose and blow it out through my mouth before I could answer. “Mhm, yeah. Sorry.”
“No. I’m sorry,” Terrance apologized regrettably. There was no missing the heavy tone of guilt in his words. “I shouldn’t bring up the past.”
I hated the ragged sound of his voice. I hated that I made him feel like he had to walk on eggshells when speaking to me. I hated that I couldn’t just exist with my brother and be jovial about our shared childhood without the cloud of the true past hanging over us.
“It’s fine, silly,” I lied with a laugh. “I love our memories.”
That wasn’t a lie. Terrance had always been my best friend and the perfect big brother.
He let me play games with him instead of telling me to get lost like the other brothers did their sisters.
He would sing songs to me while we brushed our hair and teeth after bath time.
He’d sneak extra cookies from the cookie jar to share with me after our parents went to bed.
We’d play house in our playset outside, and every time someone from the neighborhood or school called me weird for my “imaginary friends,” Terrance was the first one to stand up for me.
“You love me?” he asked hopefully.
“Of course I do, Terr-Bear.”
He was quiet. That silence became deafening. Like air inflating a balloon to the point of bursting, I braced myself for the loud pop that I knew was coming.
“Then,” he hedged, “will you please come to my wedding? I won’t make you be in the wedding party or come to the rehearsal dinner or anything.
Just … Just coming to the ceremony is enough.
Knowing my baby sister is there, hugging you, getting a photo with you on that huge day.
I … I want to share this special moment with you, Kendyll.
It won’t be the same without you there.”
I closed my eyes. Terrance’s wedding was this month.
I no longer had work as an excuse to miss his big day, and if I was honest, I didn’t want to miss this day.
I wanted to watch him greet the love of his life at the head of that aisle.
I wanted to see him laugh and cry as he looked at her, knowing he was getting to start his life with his other half. But …
“I told Mom and Dad that I invited you,” he continued in a rush. “They don’t hold anything against you. They know you were just sick and in need of help back then. They’re excited that you might come. They’ve missed you, too.”
His words, meant to be comforting, had the exact opposite effect on me. Ice cold sweat lined my forehead and raced down my spine.
Suddenly, I wasn’t outside on the penthouse terrace. I was back in my childhood bedroom, staring across the dark room at the door as it opened to reveal a monster disguised as love. The clothes on my body were suddenly too tight, touching me in places where sweaty, rough palms had stolen from me.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I grabbed a fistful of my hair and tugged at the roots to focus on that burn instead of the one inside of me. “I’ll try,” I croaked. “I gotta run. My phone is about to die.”
Before he could respond, I ended the call and let my arm fall limp. The phone clattered to the ground, but I couldn’t be bothered to care. My ability to breathe was getting away from me. I plunged my other hand into my hair and curled in on myself while trying to shove down the painful memories.
I wasn’t that little girl anymore.
I wasn’t stuck there anymore.
I wasn’t his anymore.
Catsper meowed loudly. I slowly peeled my eyes open, not even realizing they were full of tears until Catsper’s phantom nose tried to rub them away where they trailed down my cheeks.
“Thanks, boy,” I whispered hoarsely and scratched at his ears as much as his ethereal body would allow. “Thank you. I—I’m fine.”
He curled up right against me. The coolness of his spectral form and his quiet purrs calmed me down. I managed to unclench my tight muscles and take the strategic breaths I’d learned to fight off panic attacks.
My eyes grew heavier. I wasn’t sure how long they were closed, but nearby music woke me up. The album I’d had playing had been replaced with new sounds, and when I lifted my eyes to the chaise lounge next to mine, I almost wondered if I was still asleep and simply dreaming.
Xander relaxed against the back of the seat with his long legs stretched out.
He’d changed out of his concert attire and into a thin pair of black joggers and t-shirt.
His hair was damp, and I could smell his expensive spicy body wash on the breeze.
His onyx eyes stared at the guitar in his lap as he idly strummed and played a slower melody.
Wordlessly, I rolled onto my side to face him.
He didn’t seem to notice. A new piece began, and after a few strums, he sang softly under his breath.
It wasn’t the kind of singing that someone did when expecting to be heard.
The deep and rough words falling past his lips were uttered so quietly, I almost couldn’t make them out over the guitar, yet I caught the words, even if I didn’t understand what they meant.
My heart tumbled over itself, listening to him singing in Mandarin.
The beauty of the foreign words and song carried me away from all that troubled me.
When the song concluded, I whispered, “That was so beautiful.”
He looked up at me in surprise then gave a small, almost sheepish laugh. “You should’ve said something if you were awake. I wouldn’t have wounded your ears with my singing if I’d known. There’s a reason I don’t sing for the band.”
I shook my head earnestly. “I loved it. What song was that?”
“‘Yuèliang Dàibiǎo W? de Xīn,’” he answered with a purse of his lips as he propped the guitar next to his seat. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Also known in English as, ‘The Moon Represents My Heart.’”
“That’s a lovely sentiment,” I mused and looked up to find the bright moon in the sky.
A whimsical light in a dark place. A promise of eternity, as it was always there to shine down on you.
A heart that was like the moon … what a wonderful idea.
Clearing my throat, I met his eyes again. “How was your concert?”