The Red to My Grey

by William Dudley Berridge Tuckey

  “I don’t know how I feel right now,” she said softly. The whole thing came off as a shock since she didn’t really bear any resemblance to her mother. Nami had short brown hair that barely touched her shoulders, her eyes were a shining blue and her skin was fair. One thing she did share was her height; she was taller than any ten-year-old I had ever seen. She wasn’t much shorter than Celia, so it didn’t leave the impression that she was an innocent child in all this, but more of a young teenager still trying to find their way in the world. Then again, I don’t think anyone ever stops trying to discover their place in life. Angel, however, didn’t let the shock get to her and remained optimistic, observing the better points in the discovery.

  “Say, if you’re really her child, I suppose that makes you my little sister,” she said while leaning her head over Nami’s shoulder. The girl looked away from the floor to face that fact. She then turned to me and I looked at her trying to anticipate what she was going to say next.

  “And you’re my brother then, Wade?”

  “Yeah, I guess I am,” I spoke in a way to hide how jumpy I was feeling.

  “And you two are boyfriend and girlfriend?”

  “Yeah, we’ve been dating a little while now, ever since he brought me home,” Angel answered honestly, but Nami’s mind was far from innocent as she misinterpreted her.

  “Brought her home…Eww! Eww! Eww! You two are messed up! You’re pretty much stepbrother and sister. I have got to tell Mama!” She went to run for the door, but I yanked her back against the bed by the back of her dress. She turned around and gave me a mopey stare while Angel was utterly flustered.

  “Nami, it’s not like that…I mean it is, but he didn’t take me home to do that kind of stuff. I mean – I don’t know,” she whined. “Sophia already knows about us; in fact, she encourages us. Not quite sure why though.”

  Nami didn’t overlook our relationship; it was very clear she kept the notion of us being together in the back of her head. She put it aside for the moment and we were actually able to make chit chat between us. She told us about her home in Aubrey when she was living with Sophia. She described an easy life where her only worries were getting to school on time and getting a good night’s sleep. I gave her an idea what my life at home was like before I had met Angel and how it had changed since. Angel didn’t add anything to the conversation apart from her life over the past month; it made me wonder just how long she was locked up inside that house. It was around five in the afternoon and I was pretty worn out. I remember drifting off for what felt like a few seconds, but I opened my eyes twenty minutes later to Angel screaming with Nami groping her all over.

  “What the hell?” I yelled as I sprung up from bed.

  “What’s the matter? Why you are squirming?” she asked in a seductive tone which I found off putting to the point my left eye twitched as I watched on.

  “No! Nami don’t! It tickles,” she said as she gasped and laughed while screaming all at once. The idea of me having a new innocent little sister was far too good to be true and it was at that moment I realised what caused this as well as what trait she shared with both of her parents, perversion.

  Angel must have stripped down like usual to change into one of my shirts; she probably thought the girl wouldn’t have a problem with it…or she completely forgot she was there. I thought to myself as I continued to watch Nami reach her hands inside Angel’s shirt. I walked up to the two of them and they both stopped and looked at me as if they were in trouble. I scooped Angel up in my arms and went back to the bed.

  “This is mine, hands off,” I said bluntly.

  The girl stared at me and tried to resume her act of innocence, but it was too late. I had seen her true colours. I smiled at my flustered mess of a girlfriend sitting on my lap. She had beads of sweat running down her neck and I could feel every breath from her. “We’ll be right back, Nami,” she said decisively and then I was dragged into the bathroom only to emerge twenty minutes later with many mixed emotions, yet Angel displayed pretty much only relief afterwards.

  “Angel, what was that about?” I asked while still utterly confused.

  “Nothing,” she said cheerfully before skipping back to our room with her hands resting behind her back.

  “Ahem,” Celia got my attention and I zipped up my pants as I nervously faced her. She and Kitten were holding towels and a fresh pair of clothes each. Their hair was frizzled and the clothes they wore loosely clung to them.

  “We’re good to use the bathroom now, right?” she asked completely red-faced with a pained expression.

  “Ah, you might want me to clean up in there first. Angel and I were…we were just…” I struggled to finish my sentence; it was embarrassing admitting that kind of stuff to my sister. Kitten walked inside convinced it couldn’t possibly be that bad. Celia followed her inside after she gasped at the first glance of the room.

  “Oh god! It’s everywhere! What have you been feeding her, Wade?”

  “Eww! It’s in my stockings!” Kitten screamed aloud to the point the entire house would have heard her.

  Some things in life are better unexplained. I feel this is no different. I managed to escape the pair as they continued to freak out and I tried to unwind by drinking some cold juice, sitting on the doorstep of my house while staring up the sky as the sun began to set. Although I wasn’t alone for long, Nami came and sat down next to me.

  “Hey pervert,” I teased her.

  “Shut up! Don’t be mean!” she whined childishly.

  “What do you want? Do you need anything?”

  She shook her head and fell against my arm leaning against me while smiling.

  “Thank you. Of all the people I could have ran into, I found you. My brother I never knew I had.”

  “It’s a shock for me too. I wouldn’t have expected my dad who’s tried to lecture me ever since high-school, to do something so impulsive as to cheat on my dying mother,” I was being an ass, but I didn’t really care.

  “It’s not like I could have a say in what my parents did,” she replied still happy just to be beside me. I petted her head and looked back to the sky.

  “Yeah, I know, sorry,” she closed her eyes for a bit and I sipped down the rest of my juice. I saw Johnson approaching the house from down the street and I moved slightly to be ready to greet him. Nami opened her eyes and they were fixed to him.

  “He’s so pretty!” she blurted out with sparkling in the blue of her eyes. She quickly dashed around the corner and shoved a towel down her dress to give her chest more volume. He went to start a conversation when she reappeared into the doorway.

  “Hello handsome,” she greeted him thoughtlessly.

  “Hello child,” he responded bluntly.

  “I’m not!” she yelled while trying to show off her legs by slightly pulling up her dress.

  “Then you’re a loli?” he teased some more.

  “I’m not!”

  “Then you are a child.”

  She wasn’t about to give up, so she skipped the formalities and went with a more direct approach. Despite being very tall for her age, she was still tiny in comparison to him. She reached up and grabbed his tie and tugged on it to bring his face to hers. She closed her eyes and leant in to him.

  “Nami, open your eyes.” As she opened her eyes she was met by a cold stare, but he continued to smile.

  “If you finish that thought it might be your last. You also shouldn’t keep things where they don’t belong.” He then pulled the towel out from her dress. Nami’s face locked up and her face burnt bright yet again.

  “Y-you touched my…my…chest…boobs,” she corrected herself as she stuttered nervously.

  “I thought that’s what you wanted right ha-ha-ha,” he laughed hysterically, and she sprinted away before we could say another word. Johnson dusted his hands and took a deep breath in and out.

  “What’s eating ya, Johnny?” I asked him as he sat down next to me throwing the towel over his shoulder.
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br />   “Nothing really worth worrying about; life is just tiring right now is all, between work and Sabrina, there isn’t much time to really live anymore.”

  “Yeah,” I replied softly while I thought how right he really was.

  “I suppose I’m entitled to ask who the young lady that just harassed me was.”

  “Yeah, that’s Sophia and Dad’s illegitimate child, Nami, you could say Anne Frey’s journal entries explain along the lines of what happened.”

  “I see. Is it hard for you? She seems like quite the handful.”

  I shook my head and told him that I thought she was a good kid even though her traits were exhausting to deal with. If I think back on it, I realise that she was a pretty influential girl. I had only known her for several hours and as a sister, even less, but she left a good impression.

  “Oh right, I came over here to remind you.”

  “Remind me about what?”

  “Remind might have been the wrong word for it, inform is probably more fitting. Go ask Sophia when Angel’s birthday is.”

  “Alright I guess,” I left Johnson at the door and went inside while praying that her birthday wasn’t today. I found Sophia in the kitchen now much calmer than before, but I could tell she was still very agitated. “Hey Sophia, mind if I ask you something?”

  “Hmm what is it?”

  “When is Angel’s birthday?”

  “She hasn’t told you? It’s tomorrow so you should probably head out now before the shops close if you’re going to get her a present.” My heart sank, but I thanked her regardless. As I turned to sprint out the door, she asked me something.

  “How was your day off today by the way? I hope Nami and I didn’t ruin it for you.”

  It was trivial, but I came to realise it was our first real conversation with one another where we didn’t have someone by our sides. I had always viewed her as my Dad’s reckless, irresponsible lover not as a kind woman that deep down cared about me.

  “It’s been fun. You did a good job of raising Nami. She’s a lovely girl even though she seems to forget how old she really is.”

  “That’s a relief. I wish she would just slow down and take in what’s really in front of her.”

  “Yeah. Actually, have you talked to her since she got here? She said you were missing for a month before she travelled from Aubrey.” Her eyes left a guilty expression on her face which was enough to let me know she hadn’t. “Talk to your daughter Sophia. Thanks again, I better get going.” I came back to Johnson at the front door. He was talking to Dad who was pestering him on his newly made engagement. He was nervous, but he answered truthfully although my father was probably being overly invasive.

  “I can’t believe it’s been all these years and now you’re getting engaged. I remember when you were a young troublemaker, running around fighting on the streets. Guess the girl got you all sorted out. I’m happy for ya, Johnny!”

  “Thanks, Mr Naem…it wasn’t easy getting to where I am now.”

  “Johnny, you’re a life saver man. Her birthday’s tomorrow. I’m going to have to head out now to get a present for her,” I added after they were done. Dad then offered me a lift to the stores, something rare from him. It wasn’t often I would do anything with him anymore. Johnson tagged along, and we drove into the centre of the city, the part of Fellbroke that didn’t sleep and we had a browse around some vibrant glowing shops, selling everything from animals, clothes, food to medicines. There were people everywhere and the district was rowdy enough without music being blasted from a band centre stage just past the stores. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought it was a festival, but it was just another way people made a living in the city.

  “Hey, Wade, over here!” Johnson called to me from across the crowd. He was standing in front of a trending store. I wasn’t entirely sure what their main practice was, but they sold all sorts of things, they even had a barbeque area in the back. I ended up buying her an anklet since nothing else caught my eye. It was an interesting piece of jewellery. It was listed in its description that it would change colours to reflect the wearers’ emotions or maybe it was the soul, so we saw it best to pass it around to each other and see what colour we would get. I got a lovely shade of blue that was soft on the eyes. Dad got a deep purple that barely distinguished itself from black and Johnson got a bright lime green.

  “Curious, I wonder how metal can change colour flawlessly.”

  “Well there’s some liquid inside of it so I assume that would have something to do with it, Johnny,” Dad answered him as he watched the lime green go back to the deep purple as he held it.

  “I’m just curious on how it can tell the difference between people,” I added.

  It wasn’t like it was a giant mood ring or something either, it was very well made and was appealing enough with its default metallic shining silver state. We arrived home shortly after we received a text that dinner was close; we dropped Johnson home too as he got an abusive phone call from Sabrina. As we walked through the door, we could hear Sophia scolding Nami in the kitchen.

  “I thought you would have enough common sense to stay home and take care of yourself!”

  “I-I missed you though, Mama,” her voice broke as she tried to hold back her tears.

  “What you did was reckless. You’re ten years old, you can’t get on some train and travel to a city with so many people that could have hurt you.”

  “But I didn’t get hurt…I found you and the family I never knew I had. Why did you hide them from me?”

  They both went silent as Sophia was unable to answer. I walked inside to defuse the situation; the first thing to catch my eye was Angel hiding around the door also listening to the conversation. Before I had a chance to speak, Dad gave his opinion and confronted his new daughter.

  “Sophy, you’re the reckless one; everything you have ever done was based on impulses and your own ambitions. I’m pretty sure Angel is a good enough example of that ha-ha-ha,” he teased her and put his arm around her. He stared deep into Nami’s eyes with a gentle bubbly smile that was unique to him and lifted her chin up as she wiped her tears away. “Now that I got a good look at you, you’ve got my eyes and my smile; everything else screams Sophy.”

  Nami stayed silent and she started to shake nervously; she had to have been feeling overwhelmed at this point. Dad put his hand on her head to still her.

  “Welcome to my family Nami, forgive them if they’re a little crazy.”

  “N-no they’re perfect, Thank you so much!” She broke back into tears and threw her arms around both him and her mother. It was heart-warming, but it was hard to watch knowing she had suffered for so long before this. I took Angel back to my room and left what would play out go freely. I hid the anklet in a clothes drawer and I fooled around with her a little while the dinner’s aroma wavered ever closer from down the hall. I helped brush her hair that was now even longer than I remembered and was almost down to her calves.

  “Nami may be a little wild, but she’s a sweet girl. I’m glad your dad likes her so much, maybe we can be one big happy family now,” I shuddered at the thoughts of the kind of chaos that might come to be from all of us being in one place.

  “About that, I was thinking we should move out eventually; things are getting a bit crazy and not just here either.”

  “What do you mean by that?” her voice became serious and cold.

  “I want to find a place of our own where we can get a little time to ourselves, since you know there’s a kid living here now and your mother…and her thing with my Dad.”

  She then kissed me and the cold vibe she gave off was instead replaced by giddy, mischievous laughter after she brought her lips from mine. She caught me off guard, so I stared aimlessly at her while consumed in thought.

  “Why? Is there something we can’t do now with all that’s going on?”

  “I-I think you know what it is.”

  She went to take her shirt off and had it over her head when a n
ervous stutter drew us from the moment. Standing behind our now half open door was Nami freaking out.

  “What are you doing?”

  Angel went to speak, but I put my hand over her mouth and pulled her shirt down, so it would cover at least to her thighs.

  “You’ll understand when you’re older, probably,” I said bluntly.

  “Probably…? Well I came to tell you dinner’s ready.”

  We went to a crowded, rowdy dinner table that was more than what I was used to. Celia, Kitten and Sophia were gossiping at one end of the table while Angel and I teased Nami. Dad sat back laughing without a care in the world, downing his food as if it was to replenish all the energy he had used throughout the night.

  “Hey Nami,” Celia called to her.

  “Yes?” she answered nervously since they hadn’t talked yet.

  “Did you meet any cute boys in the city today before my loser brother found you?” It was an awkward question to ask off the bat. I assumed it was an inside joke or something since Kitten was having great difficulty containing her laughter as she was almost bursting at the seams with it.

  “Not before, after…yeah. He was kind of scary though, but he came off as really dependable and brave under the surface,” a very mature response which was met by an immature burst of laughter from both the girls.

  “She’s talking about Johnny ha-ha-ha!” Celia blurted aloud.

  “Oh my God Sophia, she’s so cute! I just want to steal her away for myself.”

  “W-what? Is he really a bad person or something?” Nami asked innocently, still unaware of how deeply connected everyone she would come to know really were. Dad intervened into the conversation and steered it in the right direction. Sophia and Angel laughed with a sense of restraint to avoid singling out the child any more than she already was.