by Rina Kent
Usually, if someone were to stare at me the way Xander is right now for more than five seconds, I would be compelled to run away. It’s sinister and filled with so much anger, it’s physically wounding. But I can’t run away from him. I did it before and it ruined us for fucking good.
“Why green?” he asks.
“Huh?”
“You heard me. Why is it fucking green?”
“My favourite colour?”
“I hate your favourite fucking colour. I hate you, Kimberly.”
Ouch.
I try to think that I already know that bit of information, that he’s always made his feelings crystal clear, but hearing him say the words is equal to inhaling black smoke straight to my suffocating lungs.
I couldn’t breathe if I wanted to.
“I hate your eyes and your fucking hair.” He clutches a strand and strokes it between his thumb and forefinger as if he’s memorising it – or thinking about burning it. I can never tell with him.
He’s that dark well that’s been abandoned for years. You never know if you’ll find a treasure or vengeful ghosts in it.
“Then stop touching me,” I breathe out. “Stop getting in my way, stop invading my life and knowing so much shit about me.”
Most of all, I need him to stop seeing me. Because if he keeps doing that while pushing me away and letting other beautiful girls into his bed, it’ll only make the fog worse.
Why can’t he leave me alone until we part ways at the end of the year?
Just why can’t he do that?
“I should.” He releases my hair with distaste. “But you keep being this sore thumb, making yourself noticeable all the fucking time. Don’t ask for my attention or I’ll suffocate you with it.”
“I n-never asked for your attention.”
“You want me to believe that?”
“I didn’t.” I push away from him. “Go away, Xander.”
I’ll talk to him when he’s sober. Better yet, I might not talk to him at all. It’s fruitless anyway. It’s not like he’d answer any of my questions like a normal human being.
He’ll just torment me some more, push me around some more, and then I’ll retaliate and it’ll turn ugly.
No, thanks.
He grabs me by my wrist – the scarred one – and forces me back against him. My breathing hitches as he dangles a pack of M&M’s in front of my face. It’s open and all the ones inside it are green.
“Why do you have green M&M’s?” I ask in a small voice.
“I found them.”
“You found them? You expect me to fall for that?”
“Yeah, and I want you to eat them.”
“I won’t.”
“Do it or I’ll turn Kirian against you. He already doesn’t trust you after he witnessed your suicide attempt.”
My lips part as I stare at him. “D-don’t.”
“Then eat them.” He shoves the M&M’s into my palm. “And don’t vomit them or I’ll shove another pack down your throat. I can do that all night.”
“But Mum –” I cut off before I blabber everything. I can’t tell him about my deal with her. My wanting to say something is a nasty habit from when we were children, where I ran to him and poured my heart out, then slept all wrapped around him.
Xander used to pat me to sleep, but now, he would just push me into a bottomless hole.
He’s not my friend anymore; he’s my enemy. I can’t let my stupid memories get the better of me.
“I don’t fucking care about Jeanine.” His gaze hardens. “Do it.”
Sometimes, I swear he loathes my mother, but he has no reason to, aside from what I used to tell him. Did I paint her like an actual monster back then?
“Xander…”
“Shut the fuck up. I told you not to say my name.” He releases my hand and motions at the pack. “Eat it.”
Keeping much-needed distance between us, I open the pack with trembling fingers. The smell of the peanut and chocolate gets me right in the nose. Considering I only had an apple today, my stomach growls with the need for a taste.
I stare up at Xander with one final plea not to have me do this. I’ll have to run or do exercises for an hour to erase the calories and I hate physical activities from the bottom of my heart.
“Hurry,” he orders.
“Damn you,” I curse him under my breath as I throw the first M&M in my mouth. My heart skips a beat at the taste, sweet with that rich chocolate flavour. It’s been so long, a year to be exact, since I last had M&M’s. Even more since I last enjoyed them.
I had them that day I lost him once and for all and since then, I haven’t been able to properly taste M&M’s or pistachio gelato.
The first piece is the hardest, the second tentative, but by the third, I’m popping them as if I’ve been dying and it’s my cure to live. I want to savour it more, to commit the taste to memory, but I’ve been starved of this joy for way too long.
No idea if it’s because a long time has passed since my last M&M or the fact that I feel Xander watching me like a hawk as I devour the entire pack.
I don’t dare look up at him and meet those eyes, or else I’d offer and share. I’d stop and ask all the questions burning inside me.
The pack is empty too soon, and the moment the last bit disappears down my throat, I feel the need to throw up.
Shit.
I ate all those calories. I need to get them out and –
“Don’t even think about it.”
I lift my head to find Xander staring down at me with his lids half-closed, although the rest of his face is stone cold.
Only Xander wouldn’t loosen up when he’s drunk.
“How do you know what I’m thinking about?” I ask.
“I just do. It’s a curse.” He reaches his thumb to my lower lip and wipes some chocolate off. “You want to throw it back up, but don’t. Rein it in. I’ll stay with you until the urge goes.”
My chin trembles, but I clench my mouth, not wanting to feel the softness of his touch or the dooming weight of his words.
I’ll stay with you until the urge goes.
How can he say things like that so easily? How can he reach inside me and effortlessly wrench these feelings out?
He places his thumb with the bit of chocolate between my pursed lips. “Finish it.”
I shake my head, but that only makes him push his thumb harsher until it connects with my teeth. “We can do it the easy way or the hard way.”
Or I can just bite you.
I’m about to do that when he smirks as if he’s been reading my thoughts all along. “For the record, biting me is the hard, not the easy one.”
I dart out my tongue and lick the chocolate off his thumb. It’s quick and I finish soon after I start.
My tongue itches for more. I’m like a newbie getting her first hit of drugs, her first high, and needing so much more of that madness.
Xander doesn’t remove his finger, even after I’m done. He stares at me with a weird type of intensity.
He always has this frown whenever he looks at me, a fucked up type of interest, which I’ve always known is because he hates me.
But right now, it’s not hate that’s staring back at me. It’s anger, raw and unhinged. A shudder goes through me, even though he hasn’t directed it at me yet.
His thumb leaves my lips and I exhale, thinking it’s finally over.
“The right green eyes,” he slurs.
“W-what?”
My breathing cuts off when he cradles my cheeks with both his hands and brushes his lips against mine. Once. Twice.
It’s soft, so soft, I think I’m going to die from the feeling of it. I never thought Xander’s lips would be this soft. Not once have I imagined our first kiss would be this gentle, heartbreaking even.
First kiss, if we don’t count the smooches we had as kids.
He groans deep in his throat as he possesses my lips and turns me around, slamming me against something hard, a tree.
Tingle
s erupt down my spine as I open my mouth with a moan. Xander loses all softness then. His tongue finds mine and he kisses me with a ferocity that leaves me soundless, breathless, and boneless.
I wrap my hands around his nape, letting them get lost in his thick hair as he grabs my face tighter, kissing me harder and faster, like it’s the first and the last time, like he has to run right after this.
From the outside looking in, it must seem like he’s sucking my soul out of my mouth, and that’s probably what he’s doing.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think he’d kiss me, or that he’d be this passionate about it, as if I was the only kiss that matters in his life and –
As fast as he starts, he wrenches away from me with a deep, pained growl.
My back is still against the tree, my legs shaking, and I couldn’t move if I wanted to.
He glares down at me like I’m his worst enemy before he runs a hand through his hair. “Fuck!”
He kicks a pebble, facing away from me as if my mere view repulses him. “Fucking fuck.”
“What the hell?” I murmur out loud, although I mean to say it internally.
He’s at my face again, his eyes glimmering with deep-seated rage, and this time, he looks about ready to unleash it on me. “Don’t you ever, and I mean ever tempt me again.”
“What?”
“Get the fuck out of my sight. Your face disgusts me.”
A sob catches in my throat as his same words from that day years ago cut me open all over again.
He started to mend those wounds only so he could rip them open.
I hate him.
I hate him.
I hate him so fucking much.
“Now!” he growls and I don’t have to be told twice as I turn on my heels and run out of the garden.
My lips are swollen, heart slaughtered, and head swimming with that memory from seven years ago.
11
Kimberly
Age eleven
“Over there?” Xan points at the path between the trees.
“Yeah,” I say without smiling, even though I want to. Badly. “Go fetch her.”
“Luna!” he calls for our cat as he disappears behind the trees. “Come out!”
His voice slowly fades, and I huff, throwing green M&M’s into my mouth. I’ll leave all the other colours for Xan.
Luna isn’t there. She’s at home sleeping by the fireplace – his, not mine. Mum would kill me before allowing me to have any pet.
But Uncle Lewis let Xan have Luna and after that, she became our cat.
She’s not missing, but I told Xan to come look for her because he was being a meanie. Since he hates the cold, I brought him out when it’s about to snow.
I sit at the rock at the entrance to the forest and grab a stick, then twirl it on the ground as I wait.
Earlier, I told Xander how much I hate being Mum’s daughter and that she’s stopping me from eating my favourite food.
“Ignore her; you’re beautiful,” he said while he was watching Kirian sleeping.
“I am?” I asked, staring at him with wide eyes.
His cheeks turned red before he nodded. “You’re the most beautiful girl I know.”
“Even more than Silver?”
“More than anyone.” He clutched Kir’s finger and my baby brother curled his fist around it.
That couldn’t be true; he was lying to me. Everyone says Silver is a Barbie doll with her golden blonde hair and pale blue eyes. She’s always elegant and majestic, while I’m just…me.
Fat and ungraceful. And I have some blemishes that won’t go away.
“You’re lying.” I pouted.
“Why would I lie to you, Green?”
My face heated and I twirled a strand of my hair. “You don’t think I’m fat?”
“No.” His sky-ocean eyes met mine. “You just like to eat and I like it when you eat.”
I hit his shoulder with mine. “Can you go with me to the grocery shop?”
“Later. I’m meeting Aiden and Cole for a football game.”
“But you did that last week.”
“We do that every week, Green.”
“But why? Who will keep me company?”
“You have Kir.”
“He’s a baby and I don’t think he understands when I talk.”
“I have to go.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Of course I can.” He pulled his hand from Kirian’s fist. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Green.”
I frowned, my forehead turning painful. He’d been saying all these things lately that made me want to punch him.
Since that day Mrs Knight left and never returned, Xan and I had become best friends. We had done everything together and had shared all our lives with each other.
Then he decided Aiden and Cole were more important than me.
“You can go meet Silver,” he said, watching me closely.
“Who I meet is none of your business.”
He pushed me out of Kirian’s room so we wouldn’t wake him up. Outside, he crossed his arms. “What are you being so angry about?”
“You don’t know?” I threw my arms around.
“No.”
Stupid tosser.
I wanted to be with him, but he wanted to be with his stupid friends. In that case, he could go to them and leave me alone.
I stormed to my room and slammed the door shut. I flopped on my bed, fuming, and attacked a bag of crisps I hid under the covers after Mum came to check on my room.
A moment later, a knock sounded on the door. “Open up, Green.”
His voice was steady, pleading even, and it almost made me want to let him inside.
I didn’t, of course.
Not until he knew what he did wrong.
“You’re being a baby,” he said.
“So leave me alone.”
“I don’t want you angry.”
Then don’t go to your stupid friends.
Whenever I was alone, my house felt so empty, like a horror film I had watched with Silver the other time. Ghosts had come out and had tried to suck the life out of any human in there.
Xan was the only one who kept those ghosts away when Dad wasn’t around. I didn’t want to be alone with Mum. She always looked at me as if she wished she’d never given birth to me.
Being with her was the worst, most real nightmare I’d ever had.
“I handpicked green M&M’s for you.”
My mouth watered, but I didn’t reply.
“I’ll leave the pack in front of the door. I’ll come back later, Green. We’ll watch a film together, okay?”
Don’t go.
The words slipped to the tip of my tongue, but I bit down on a mouthful of crisps to stop them from escaping.
I jumped up and watched him from the window as he headed to Aiden’s house down the street.
He really left.
Xan returned a while after and asked if I forgave him. I said yes, if he’d find Luna for me.
Which brings us to now.
Walking outside in the cold is his punishment for leaving me earlier. Once he spends some minutes out there, I’ll forgive him.
Silver said she came around here with her dad and that it was so freezing, she felt the cold and even sensed ghosts.
I grin.
Ghosts are good. Xan will be scared and –
Oh, no.
Ghosts.
Ever since Xan disappeared with Aiden and Cole three years ago, he doesn’t like to be left alone in unknown places.
I heard Uncle Lewis talking to Dad back then, and he said bad people kidnapped them. It took Xan two days of walking through an unknown forest until he could come home.
He snuck into our house through the servants’ entrance, got into my room, and slept with me for a month after that.
Although he didn’t like to talk much about that time with others, he told me how much it scared him to be alone out there.
That h
e called for his Mum’s help, even though he knew she wouldn’t come for him anymore.
I cried for him then. I just wrapped my arms around him and cried.
His pain is mine.
I feel it worse than he does because while he was simply telling the story, I felt every lash of cold against his skin and every tear he shed while he called his mother’s name in that unknown dark place.
I might have also kicked and screamed in my head at the people who took him to that place.
That’s how much I’m connected to him.
Why did I think it was a good idea to bring him to the cold and expose him to a situation similar to the one from that time?
Jumping to my feet, I follow the path he took. Twigs crunch under my shoes and I flinch as if someone grabbed me by the shoulder.
“Xan,” I call, keeping a straight line.
The more I walk into the forest, the colder it becomes, just as Silver said. Or maybe I’m imagining it.
“Xan, come out! Luna is home.” My voice breaks and I swallow.
There’s no trace of him, no matter how deep I get in.
“Xan!!” Tears fill my cheeks and my chest squeezes so hard, I’m afraid it’ll burst. “I’m so sorry! I won’t do it again. Please!”
I’m running now, my feet moving of their own accord as I cover all the road I know and even into a road I’ve never been on before.
There’s no trace of him.
I stop in the middle of the forest, tears streaming down my cheeks and slipping into my mouth. My unsteady legs barely carry me as I watch my surroundings, empty and desolate, and without him.
“Xaaan!”
What have I done?
After what seems like half an hour of fruitless searching, I go back home. I don’t know how I do it, but I manage.
Uncle Lewis parks at his driveway the moment I reach our street. Mum went out for a meeting with her agent, so it’ll take her a long time to return.
Not that she would care.
“Uncle! Uncle!” I run up to him and he meets me halfway, a frown creasing his brow.
“Xan is in there and he didn’t come back. He’s…he’s…” I’m breathing so harshly, I’m skipping over words and unable to form a coherent sentence.
Uncle Lewis grabs both my shoulders with his comforting hands and watches me with a calm, soft expression. “Take a deep breath, Kim, and speak slowly. Let’s try it, in, out. In. Out.”
