ryne's song | ashe
❝ i don't wanna cry 'cause it doesn't help
no, it won't bring you back to me,
any sooner, sooner ❞
"SO, YOU LIED about getting with the girl that tormented her?" Maxi asks, looking at me from the chair she's found herself in at Rain's side of the room.
I meet her gaze from where I'm lying on the top of my bed, nodding my head. "Yeah."
Maxi nods as she continues to recount. In the position we're both in, this seems a lot like a therapy session. Except Maxi would make a terrible therapist, she hasn't got the unbiased part down.
"And she took you back after that?"
"Yeah."
"What the fuck...." She leans back in the seat, popping another one of the chocolates I'm pretty sure is Rain's into her mouth.
"What?"
"Nothing, just thinking."
"Well, your thinking sounds very opinionated."
"Funnily enough Luca, that's because it is." I roll my eyes and she picks another one of the chocolates from the box, ignoring her phone that rings by her side. "But you care about her?"
"I do." I really do.
By her pinkie finger, Maxi declines the call, before flickering her eyes up to mine. Her eyes are pitch black in the lighting we're currently in, with only a candle to lighten up the dim room of the early morning.
"So why are you doing this, if you know it's going to hurt her?"
"Because..." She raises a brow, and I realise I have no answer. I don't want to hurt her, I want her safe, I want her happy, I want her with me. But I don't want the future I know is most likely to play out.
"Saamiya said you were the last to give in, why?" She questions further, intrigue vivid as she raises a brow waiting for an answer.
"You know why."
She doesn't object and we sit in silence for a while. Maxi calculatedly picking the chocolates which aren't dark to devour, and me staring at the wall counting down until Rain comes back from soccer practice and keeps me entertained with whatever wild story he has lined up.
Even Caleb, Sage, or Atlas would suffice. They all have practice at the same time today which is why I've decided to spend my morning with Maxi Astralis. Who I've found out is the second youngest cousin, is of Japanese descent on her mother's side and white on her father's just like the rest of the cousins.
"What if I told you I didn't want to do it?" I propose.
Maxi pauses eating as she pops her chocolate coated thumb out of her mouth. "I'd say Luca, you have a backbone. And I'm surprised."
"And If I told you I wanted you to keep it a secret?" I observe her reaction.
"I'd say sure."
"Even from your cousins?" Maxi thinks it over, nodding. "Why would you help not do it?" I question further.
"Because I'm not a huge fan of revenge. I think it's stupid that an eye is for an eye." She answers swiftly, like she has some experience with the topic.
"Then why did you agree at first?"
"I owe Saamiya."
"You scared of her?"
Maxi throws her head back and laughs, "please, she's the least scariest person I know when she's not angry and plus, I owe her."
"Why, what did she do to have three out of four cousins in debt?"
Maxi zips her lips and throws the key away. "All I'm saying is that out of everything you've told me today, with this girl, and you, and the messed-up shit between the two of you. I just think that getting revenge is going to complicate things further."
"But Caleb -"
"What about him?" She cuts off.
"You don't understand, this like...ruined him. He thought he could trust her, and I've never seen him like that ever." I mean, I deserved mine. Nads has always been better than me, so she could fuck me over and over again and I would deserve it. But dad and Reid didn't. Caleb doesn't deserve any of this either. Nor Atlas or Sage.
"Well don't you think that's on him?" She asks genuinely.
"I don't want to go against him." I don't want to betray him.
"You're not ratting him out or anything. You have the power to say no Luca. You know that, right?"
"Yeah." Sure. "What are you saying we do?"
Maxi leans back into the seat, covering the top of the chocolate box with its lid and placing it back where she found it. So, it is Rain's. Fuck, he's going to kill me for this later.
"Well, we're both in positions neither of us clearly want to be in, so let's make the most of it."
"How?"
"By lying, of course."
"You want me to lie to my best friends?"
Maxi shrugs. "You want to hurt her more?"
I don't say anything, and she grins.
"Fine."
"You're not going to thank me?"
"Don't push it." She raises her hands in surrender as her phone rings for the hundredth time today. "Boyfriend?" I tease.
"No, my mom, she won't stop bothering me. She thinks I've run off and died. God, she's annoying. Give me a sec." Maxi walks off in the corner and answers the phone, speaking in a different language.
After a while she switches to English. "Just call Marguax if you don't trust me!" There's some more yelling on the other side and Maxi huffs out in frustration, wrapping her hands around herself. "Fine. I don't care anymore, just call them." She hangs up, before turning to me. "I hate her. She never fucking listens."
"Yeah?"
She nods slowly. "You're looking at me like I've lost my mind, don't you ever hate your mom?" She asks, looking down at her phone the second a message comes through and typing away furiously with a scowl imprinted on her face.
"Oh. Right, my mom. She's actually uh..." Just say the word Luca, why are you struggling? I clear my throat. "Dead." Dead. It's been years, three and something. I should learn to live with it, learn to live without her. But every time, my heart constricts and I just...I just wish she wasn't gone.
There's an eerie silence as Maxi looks up from her phone. "Oh, shit I'm sorry." Her screen goes black, and she slips the phone into the pocket of her jeans, awkwardly.
Shit, I didn't mean to make things awkward. "It's not your fault." I clear up swiftly, sensing the tension that's bound to build.
"Yeah, shit, sorry isn't that like one of the things you're not supposed to say? Why am I asking you this? Sorry, I'll stop." Maxi turns around probably in embarrassment before turning back. "Again, I'm really sorry."
"It's fine."
"It's not fine. I -" She stops mid-sentence and I feel my brows draw in confusion as her face contorts into something else, pity? No, shock?
"What?"
She touches the pad of her fingers to her cheek, and when I do the same, I feel dampness. I instantly shoot up from the bed, sobering from the calm. "Shit, sorry."
"No, it's okay."
I wipe the tears, why the fuck am I crying? "No, fuck, this is so embarrassing. Sorry I'll just uhm -" I turn but my vision has blurred, hindering my ability to see the bathroom. Fuck, where's the bathroom?
"No Luca, it's fine you're allowed to cry." Maxi tries and comforts, but this is so beyond that.
"I don't cry." I can't cry.
"What?" Suddenly the room seems too small, and the shirt seems too tight, the air is suffocating and Maxi, she's distorted.
No. No. No. No.
Not this again.
"Luca -"
The first sob that retches, has me panicking. The last time I cried over this was in the hospital room, why is it hitting now? Why can't I escape this?
I can't breathe.
"Can you um call-'' Her. Please, her.
"Who?"
"Caleb."
Maxi nods, and rushes out, probably in search of Caleb's room. But then I remember he's at soccer, I don't know the time. He could be ten or thirty minutes long. I'm all alone.
I watch the clock tick by, counting my breaths the way mom had taught me to the very first time this happened when she was alive, and I had to go out to play for my first basketball match when I was eight.
"You count out loud Luki, look at my lips."
"One," I breathed out, the contraction still there and Mom had nodded comfortingly, her hand holding mine. "Two," she squeezed my hand consolingly as I mimicked the way her mouth moved, counting with her. "Three."
Reid was their basketball star. I stopped playing four years later. I couldn't do it, every match I'd freak out have a panic attack, vomit, cry, feel like I just wanted to curl up in a ball and never come out.
I'm not like Atlas, Sage or Caleb I can't do the whole sport star thing. I can't do the crowd, can't do the unknowingness of things as they play out. I can't do any of it, and I've always felt pathetic for it.
Dad loves the boys, he's always had. When he was around after all the work trips when I was younger, he'd take me to all their games.
"Let's take a bet, who do you think will win?" He'd ask.
I'd smile in the seat behind; mom would die if I ever rode in the passengers at nine. She couldn't make this particular game, but she always came to the others.
"Caleb's team."
Caleb was always the best, even back then. I don't ever think I've seen him not be perfect. At his games we'd always be there, everyone's parents but his - Cecilia was pregnant so she could only come to home games and Armand wouldn't show up sometimes.
"Where's your dad?"
Caleb looked up at dad, taking his bottom lip between his teeth a lit anxiously before straightening up. Even at ten, nothing could truly and visibly shake him. "He couldn't come."
Dad would kneel to his level, placing his hands on Caleb's shoulders. "That's okay, you're still going to kick there ass anyway." The ends of Caleb's lips would arch up at the comment.
"Tommy." Mom would scold and dad would get up from his position, messing up Caleb's hair and swiftly placing a soft kiss to Mom's cheek.
As I got older as well, before my driver's license and everything I'd still sit at the back of the car when dad would drive me to any of the boys' matches. The passenger's seat was always reserved for mom.
Sometimes, I see the way dad looks at four of them and then me. Like, if he could he'd trade me for any of them; Sage for his kindness, humour, and swimming ability - he's the greatest and humbly so. Atlas because well, maybe dad could have another talented basketball player son and Atlas is the dream, he's scandal free twenty-four seven - before Nayelie came along that is. Then there's Caleb who is overall perfection, he comes from the perfect family. Two happily married parents, himself and Elisé.
After mom died, I wanted to be Caleb. I wanted to experience how it must feel to have everything you could want and more. And sometimes I'd want to be Atlas who was always the most fun to have dinner with at his place, his mom and dad always embarrassing him but lovingly so. And to be Sage, God, that would be the dream to be the boy who's never sad with a heart of gold.
There was one common denominator though that they all had that I lacked other than the talent. A mom, I just wanted a mom again.
"Fuck, what is it?"
I hear Caleb's familiar voice approach from outside the walls, when the door opens again Caleb scans the room before his eyes fall onto me.
His face falls as he approaches dropping his duffel bag to the ground instantly. I notice his dark damp hair that sticks to his forehead making him look younger. The door closes behind him and Maxi disappears on the other side, leaving the two of us alone.
"Lucs, what's wrong?" He asks, approaching me with concern across his features. I open my mouth to speak and nothing comes out, panic surges through me again. Caleb nods, understandingly, "It's okay, you don't have to say anything now." He comforts, embracing me.
I sob in his arms when he runs his hands through my hair like how Mom used to. "I just want her back."
"I know." He whispers agreeing.
"It isn't fair Caleb."
"It isn't. But you're still here Lucs and you're alive and breathing and she loved you for as long as she could, she loves you now too."
Sure.
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a/n
didn't know how to finish up this chapter, so then i listened to 'ryne's song,' and oh my god.
also, so sorry i've been m.i.a!! literally had so many projects due last week, but hopefully that's the last time i'll be gone for a long period of time, since everything seems pretty clear for the next couples weeks (i think!)