THERE'S A PENTHOUSE UNDER MY name in Beijing, so I was thinking maybe Beijing over Shanghai. And because I have my eyes on this one school there." Klarise says to me over in bed. I was reading a book in my reading glasses while she had been on that laptop of hers, typing away loudly.
I put my book down, taking off my glasses. "Penthouse? Since when did you have a penthouse in Beijing?"
She types one last word and closes the laptop, so her attention is fully on me. "It's not exactly mine, more like my grandma's. She left it under my name before she died, and so since it wasn't under my parents', when they were arrested the government didn't take it away." My eyes must've been sort of wide, because she chuckled and added: "Okay, I was her favorite grandkid, alright?"
"Well then it's decided. Beijing it is, in a nice good penthouse."
I am picking up my book again, relaxing my head back into my pillow, when she says something else. "One downside though." She smiled cheekily but also nervously, scratching at her head unawarely. "It's...kind of, um, what do you say? Uhh, out of place? Okay, no one has taken care of it for maybe over fifty years."
"Fifty years?" I couldn't hide the shock in my voice.
She nodded gingerly. "Yeah, even though my grandma left it to me, she wasn't even living in it when she was alive. It was left to her maybe from my great-grandparents. So it might need some cleaning. Maybe more than that. Like, uh, maybe renovating because some things might be kinda too old to be in use."
I looked away from her, at the wall in front of me. There's a mirror there, reflecting my shelf of Oscar and other rewards I've won over the years. When my head has done its thinking, I look back at Klarise, this time less shocked and more grinning.
"You know what? That makes it even better."
From her apologetic face, she manages to smile along bit by bit. "It is?"
"Yeah, I mean, we get to remodel a place the way we want it. It'll be like, really really ours." I bring my hands up, making a weird house figure with my fingers, stacking them up on one top of the other. "I've actually never lived in a penthouse, did you know that? Not that it matters, but anyway, we could do so many things with that penthouse. It will be like our dream house. And then," I stop with the random house stacking with my fingers and grab ahold of her hand. "We will live in it together, for the rest of our lives. Happily ever after."
She looked at me, eyes wide and unmoving. Then a smile cracks up her face as she draws away her hand, turning off the lamp light on her side of the bed. "That last part was cheesy," she says, but I could sense that excitement in her that has now also been ignited in me.
"Fine, that last part was cheesy. But you get the idea, right?" She nodded, yawning and ready to go to sleep. "Here's the plan, after I sell this house of mine here, we will rent somewhere in Beijing when the penthouse is getting renovated. Mason and Cameron, since we already discussed this with them a few days ago with Jackson, we will find them a place close to the penthouse. Of course Jackson will be living with us, Mason can come over to visit if he and Jackson wanted to hangout. Jackson is already seventeen, his birthday celebrated with mine last month, and so after a year he'll be off to college and me and you can focus solemnly on ourselves and our career. Sounds nice?"
She was already tucked in cozily, blanket over her shoulder. She yawned once more. "Since when have you become a planner?"
"I've always been one, you just never saw this side of me." I packed up my reading glasses and book to set away, turning off my side of the lamp light.
"I'm seeing it now, and I want to say sexy but it's actually very ordinary."
I engulf myself with the blankets, digging my arms into her under the quilts. "I will take that as a compliment. If I don't love you the way I do, that sharp tongue of yours will be cut off someday."
"Yeah right, like you dare to hurt me."
I laughed, then with one of those obvious old day acting ways, I rubbed my chin like I was thinking. "That's true, you're the one who will end up hurting me."
She wasn't laughing like I expected when she lightly punched me on the shoulder. I waited and waited, but that laughter never came with her teasing punch. "That wasn't funny. I don't want to hurt you again. I won't hurt you again."
Her voice, that was happy moments ago, was now quavering. I realize my mistake faster than the younger me would have. "Sorry, I didn't mean it in any way."
She was quiet for a second, then I felt her wrap her arms around my stomach. "I'll promise you something." We haven't had really hard conversations like this in a while, the memories of how we held each other and used to cry together now all flushing back into my flesh, my body remembering the stuff that could still happen. "I won't ever leave you again."
I reassure her the best I can that night, just this one sentence from me had triggered her. It made me realize, even though her face was better, even though she has healed from all that stuff she has been put through the best one can, she has never exactly healed from the two times she left me.
"I said we'll spend the rest of our lives together. No one's leaving anyone."
I wonder what kind of a promise it was we made back then. When your partner says they'll never leave you again, does it count as a promise-breaker when they left you because it wasn't an actual decision up to them to make?
I think it counts.
MY PLAN FOR THE five of us quickly followed suit after two weeks, since it was pretty important to have Jackson catch up on his education as soon as possible—he was a smart kid though and I think he had a plan for college and everything himself without even telling us.
I sold the place I had in LA, Juno and Mason helped me with the paperworks, and then I used that money for the renovating plan me and Klarise had already made. So the moment we landed in Beijing, the penthouse was already being set to work.
Cameron's place in Beijing was a little far from the penthouse, and because of that—also because he wanted something more meaningful with Mason—he sold it. Together, he and Mason bought a place in just around the same neighborhood of the penthouse.
Me and Klarise rented somewhere not very far, a fancy but also not too fancy place. Jackson was quickly enrolled into the school Klarise found for him—which she spent the whole two weeks while we were packing finding—and Mason and I were also already looking for films and projects for me to take.
Things actually settled down easier than I thought it would. It all went smoothly, not too much fuss as moving tended to get.
I remember the first day we moved part of our small belongings into the place we were renting, with Jackson being dealt with and introduced at school already, Klarise and I could see it all coming along as a picture. This visual dream that was dangling in front of us, this dream of us being together with Mason and Cameron.
"I can't believe this is happening." Klarise said, her face in the crook of my shoulder as she wrapped her arms around me from behind. I hold her two hands that's at my abdomen, the two of us watching the boring view of buildings from our tiny balcony. After the penthouse was done renovating, the balcony would be bigger, and of course, the view would be better. But this plain, boring view and this small tiny little balcony, it all brought on this feeling of the daily life of an average couple. It was a good feeling.
"Me neither," I whispered, somehow wowed by this life we were going to have, right in front of us. Could this really be it? Will this finally be the one thing I really wanted being settled down in such an easy way? I wanted to think that this was it, after all the misunderstandings, the pain, the suffering, the dealing of deaths, this was finally going to maybe be the "happily ever after" that I never believed in. I was starting to believe in it, just by the tiniest bit. Me and Klarise's happily ever after.
"I can see it, Maeve, I can see all of it."
I turned around in her arms so that my back wasn't toward her and my face was. I could feel my smile being mirrored back to me on her. "Oh?"
"We'll have family dinners every Friday night with Cameron and Mason, it's either we go over to their place or they come over. Likely we'll go over because Cameron might try to ditch like he always tries to do, though he ends up being the one most satisfied in the end. And then we'll go on picnics together, I'll pack us our lunches, which we will argue over what to bring because you hate some food while I like them." I arched my brows at her, and she laughed. "It's true! You hate tuna, but they taste so good. But anyways, there will be so many picnics we can have so it doesn't really matter. When Jackson goes off to college, we can travel the world together. I've always wanted to go to Paris, isn't it surprising both you and I haven't been there? So Paris, and then Japan, I've only gone there once but the food there is amazing. After that, you can decide the places you'd want to go to. Or maybe not, since, well, your taste in things are sort of weird."
"What! That's not true. Not true at all."
She poked me on the nose and I felt like I was going through couple-hood, but at the same time, going through the joy of a child I never really had when I was younger. "Okay, fine, since your design for part of the penthouse wasn't as ugly as I thought it'd be." I rolled my eyes and she just laughed harder. "Hm, maybe when we settle down after traveling everywhere we could, we can get a pet."
I scrunched up my nose. "A pet?"
She nodded eagerly. "Yeah! A pet that'll be yours and mine. I was thinking we might even get two, like a cat and a dog."
"That is not a good idea. Cats and dogs don't get along." I did not want a pet, was never the pet type.
"You're so stereotypical. If we raised them together, they'd get along just fine."
I let out a defeated sigh. "Whatever, that's so far in the future anyway."
She nodded, bringing me into a tighter hugged as I hug her back, feeling the awaited time upon us being shined with a hopeful spotlight.
"Yeah, so far in the future. There's so much more...but we can figure the rest of it out as we go."