CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Bright light pooled on top of Esme’s eyelids, and she winced and rubbed at her face, scattering little bottles from the minibar onto the floor. The TV was still on, and the hotel room’s ceiling wouldn’t stop spinning.
Or maybe she was the one spinning.
She pushed herself up, and bile surged up her throat as the room tilted. Oh no. She panic-ran to the bathroom, and her knees hit the cold tile just as she threw up in the toilet.
Over and over, until it felt like her eyes were exploding. When it finally stopped, she rinsed out her mouth and gazed blearily at her face in the mirror.
She’d vomited so hard she’d left little red dots on her upper cheeks and around her eyes. On top of that, her hair was a tangled mess, she still wore the black dress from yesterday, and she smelled horrible. If her mom and grandma could see her now, they’d be so disappointed.
They’d tell her to crawl back to Khải’s where it was safe, thank him for offering to marry her, and get the marriage certificate signed before he changed his mind. Jade needed him.
But a one-sided love would destroy Esme, not to mention set a horrid example for her daughter to follow. Esme was not going back.
She found her phone, located Phil Schumacher’s phone number, and called him again. It rang several times before it disconnected without going to voice mail. So she called again. Halfway through the first ring, a recording played.
“The person you are trying to reach is unavailable.”
What did that mean?
She tried again. And again, halfway through the first ring, the message came on, “The person you are trying to reach is unavailable.”
He must have blocked her number. He might be her dad, and he’d blocked her. It made her stomach drop and her pride hurt, but she told herself that was
fine.
She didn’t need him.
She didn’t need anyone.
Maybe she was still drunk off minibar drinks, and maybe she was being overly emotional, but as she stood in that cheap motel room alone, truly alone, she swore she was going to do things by herself from here on out. She wasn’t good enough for Khải or this mysterious Phil Schumacher, but she was good enough for herself.
She didn’t need a man for anything. She only needed her own two hands.
As she washed her hair and scrubbed the sand from the wedding off her feet in the plastic shower, a fire raged in her heart. She didn’t know how, but she was going to prove her worth. She’d show everyone.
She spent the day setting up a new independent life. She took a bus to Milpitas and searched the area by Cô Nga’s restaurant for apartments, found a place that offered month-long leases and signed the contract, and went shopping for apartment supplies and new clothes. She’d rather walk around naked than ask Khải for her things. He could have them.
That night as she slept in a sleeping bag on the floor of her empty studio apartment, she dreamed Jade’s father took her away, and she cried herself awake and huddled against the wall, listening to the creaking of the building and the cars passing by outside. As it always did, her fear gradually changed into guilt. If she’d given Jade to her father and his wife, right now Jade would have a complete family with a mom and a dad, not to mention an expensive house and servants. Because she hadn’t given Jade up, her girl was stuck in a one-room shack while her mom carried on a separate life across the ocean.
Would a better mother have given her baby away? Was it selfish to keep Jade? Was love enough?
Fierceness overtook her. Love would have to be enough. It was truly all
she had.
When the sky lightened, she gave up on sleep and researched work visas on her phone. There had to be opportunities for someone like her in a place like this. She was very good at withstanding difficulty. But she read website after website, and they all said the same thing: She needed to have a college degree, twelve years of specialized work experience, or some impressive mixture of the two. She had work experience, but something told her toilet cleaning wasn’t the kind of specialization they were talking about.
She was still struggling to accept this information when she walked into Cô Nga’s restaurant later that morning.
“Oh, Precious Girl has arrived.” Cô Nga ran to her and hugged her tight.
“You had me so worried. Why did you leave without telling anyone anything, ha? Everyone was worried to death about you.”
Slightly in shock, Esme hugged Cô Nga back. “I’m sorry.” She hadn’t thought anyone would care about her after she turned down Khải’s proposal.
She stepped away, forced a smile, and held her arms out. “You can see I’m fine.”
“Khải looked everywhere for you. He said he called you many times. Why didn’t you answer?” Cô Nga asked.
She focused on putting her purse in the regular spot by the cash register and keeping her breathing even. That was the only way to keep herself from falling apart. “I didn’t have anything to say to him.”
Cô Nga dismissed Esme’s words with a wave of her hand. “How are you two going to work things out if you don’t talk things over? Tell him what’s wrong, and he’ll fix it. It’s only easy.”
Esme’s heart thudded, but thankfully, she’d cried enough these past couple of days that her eyes stayed dry now. “There’s nothing to fix. We don’t fit, Cô.”
Her certainty must have been written all over her, because Cô Nga took one look at her, and her face went slack. “Are you sure?”
Esme nodded.
“Where have you been? Is it safe? Do you need money?” Cô Nga asked, patting Esme’s cheek and squeezing her arms like she needed to reassure herself Esme was really there.
“I have everything I need, thank you. I’m staying at that place down the street, the one that rents rooms monthly. It’s nice,” Esme said with a bright smile. Compared to her house back home, it was luxurious. It wasn’t hard to
be nicer than her house, though.
“You’re here.”
She whipped around and found Khải standing in the doorway to the restaurant. He wore his regular secret agent uniform of black suit and shirt, but he looked different than usual. He looked tired. But still so beautiful he sent a sharp pang to her chest.
Desperate for a distraction, she grabbed the tray of sugar packets from the shelf and began adding the appropriate number of packets to the little boxes in the booths. “Hi, Khải.”
“You didn’t answer any of my calls,” he said as he strode inside.
“Sorry.” She could do this. She was going to maintain her composure.
Three white packets of regular sugar. Two brown packets of Sugar in the Raw. Three yellow packets of— He pulled her into his arms and held her tight. “I was worried about you.”
For the longest time, he simply hugged her, and she let him. There were reasons why she shouldn’t, but at the moment, she couldn’t remember them.
He felt so good, smelled so good, and her lonely self drank him in.
Something unfamiliar prickled against her cheek, and she brushed her fingers over his face and leaned away to get a better view. What was this?
“You didn’t shave—”
He kissed her, and sharp sensation arrowed straight to her heart. As soon as she softened against him, he deepened the kiss, taking her mouth with aching
presses of his lips that made her dizzy. It was impossible not to respond when he kissed her like this, like he’d been worried sick about her, like he was passionately in love with her.
His mom coughed noisily. Esme broke the kiss and tried to step back, but
Khải’s arms tightened around her.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“I got an apartment close by.”
He went motionless. “You’re … moving out?”
She hesitated for a second before nodding.
“I don’t see why you can’t stay with me. Like before. We don’t have to—”
He released a frustrated breath, looked out the front window, and grimaced.
“This is not the best neighborhood.”
His disdain for the area made her muscles stiffen. “It’s fine.” The people weren’t as rich here, but that didn’t mean they were bad. They were a lot like her, to be honest. She pushed against his chest, and he reluctantly let her go.
“It’s really not fine. The crime stats in my neighborhood are lower. You
should come back.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
He raked a hand through his hair and took a half step toward her. “You were fine at my place until recently. Why can’t—”
“Do you love me?” she asked softly, giving him a chance to change everything.
He clenched his jaw tight and clasped her hands in his. “I can keep you safe, and I can carry you when you’re hurt, and I can …” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “I can kiss you like it’s the first time every time. I can—I can …”
His expression went determined. “I can work with you on the lawn. I can even get it professionally done. I can fix up the house for you. If you want.
Whatever kind of wedding you want, I can—”
“Khải,” she said firmly. “Do you love me?”
His eyes fell shut, and the fight leaked out of him. “No, I don’t.”
She blinked back tears, pulled her hands away from him, and continued packing the sugar boxes. Three pink packets. Three blue packets. She wasn’t going to fall apart. She wasn’t going to fall apart. “You should go. You will be late for work.”
He took a long, uneven breath. “Good-bye, then.”
She forced a smile. “Have a nice day.”
He leaned forward like he had every intention of kissing her, and for a moment, she was going to let him. She could almost feel the softness of his lips on hers, almost taste him. She turned her face to the side at the last second, and after hesitating briefly, he backed away.
“Bye, Mom.” He waved at Cô Nga.
And then he was gone.
Esme’s shoulders slumped, and she watched his silver Porsche speed from the parking lot through blurred eyes. Sadness swelled and dragged, and she was vaguely amazed she managed to stay standing. Look how strong she was. She could handle this. He was just another man.
Cô Nga came and sat down in the booth, looking shell-shocked and defeated. “I don’t understand when he’s like this. He prefers you, I can tell.
It’s clear as daytime. Why did he say that? I don’t know.”
Saying nothing, Esme focused on the sugar packets. She stuffed one last packet into the black box, placed it against the wall next to the sriracha, hoisin, and chili sauce, and moved to the next booth. As she picked up the white sugar packets, however, wet droplets splashed onto the paper. She wiped it on her shirt and got out a new packet, but she got that one wet, too.
“Here, here, here.” Cô Nga pulled her into a hug. “Here, here, Precious Girl.”
Her control snapped, and hard sobs wracked her. She wasn’t that strong, after all. “I’m sorry,” Esme said. “I’m not your ‘precious girl’ anymore. I
tried. But then I fell in love with him, and I can’t be with him when it’s like this. I’ll break.”
Everyone deserved to love and be loved back. Everyone. Even her.
Cô Nga rubbed Esme’s back like she was shredding carrots. “Here, here, you’ll always be my Precious Girl. Always.”
Esme hugged her tighter before she swiped a sleeve over her face. “I would have liked to have you as my mother-in-law.”
Cô Nga patted her cheek, watching her with sad, wise eyes. Then, she got her phone out of her apron and held it as far away as possible as she squinted at the screen, selected a phone number to call, and put it on speaker.
After a series of rings, Quân picked up, asking in a distracted tone, “Hi, Mom, how are you?”
“You need to talk to your brother,” she said.
“Does this have anything to do with Esme—Mỹ? Did you ever find her?”
Cô Nga nodded quickly even though Quân couldn’t see. “Yeah, yeah, she’s here.”
“Oh good, that’s great. I’ll—” Background voices interrupted him, and there were muffled sounds like he’d covered the phone to speak to someone on his end. “Yeah, I have to go. I’ll call him tonight.”
“Not tonight. Now,” Cô Nga insisted. “And if he doesn’t answer, you need to go see him.”
“I can’t. I’m in New York pitching for the next stage of fund—”
Cô Nga spoke over her son. “Come home. This is important. He’s your only brother and needs your help.”
Quân released a slow breath. “Sometimes, he doesn’t want my help.”
“You have to try. He’s your responsibility. Be better than that stinky father of yours.”
There was a long silence on the phone before Quân said, “I’ll take care of it. I really have to go. Bye, Mom.”
The line went dead, and Cô Nga muttered to herself and stuck her phone back in her apron.
Esme grabbed a handful of sugar packets but hesitated before putting them in the box. “I don’t know what Anh Quân can do, Cô Nga. He sounds busy.”
This drama between Esme and Khải didn’t seem like it should take priority.
Cô Nga waved Esme’s comment away. “You have to be tough with Quân like this. I know, I’m his mom. But he gets things done when I push him.
You’ll see.”
“He seems to do well all by himself. He’s a CEO, isn’t he? That’s an accomplishment.” Esme couldn’t imagine doing anything like that.
“It sounds good, but it’s a small company. Nothing like Khải,” Cô Nga said in a dismissive manner.
Again, Esme got the impression they weren’t talking about the same Khải.
Why did people make it sound like he was mega-successful when he wasn’t?
She shook her head and got to work. It didn’t matter.
She had to mind her own business. There were three weeks left before she had to leave, and the clock was ticking.
In this country of empowered people, justice, and fairness, opportunities were there for everyone. Marriage and birth couldn’t be the only ways to belong here. She didn’t believe that.
There had to be something she could do to earn her place here, some way to prove herself. She had to keep looking.
• • •
Khai sat down in front of his desk in his office, and he honestly didn’t remember driving here, walking into the building, or going up the elevator.
He’d done it all on autopilot.
He’d been too busy adjusting to the knowledge that Esme was safe and unharmed. The previous day had passed in a white blur. Even though logic had told him she was most likely fine, horrible scenarios had possessed his mind nonstop, and he’d been a wreck, not sleeping, not eating, watching the news in case she showed up on a gurney in an ambulance.
Now that he knew she was okay, he finally relaxed and let himself contemplate the fact that she was not only refusing to marry him, but moving out early, too. Back there in the restaurant, he’d made the best case for staying with him that he could. And she’d turned him down—as she should have.
Just look at him now. He’d thought he’d go through a terrible withdrawal when Esme left him for good, but he was shocking himself with how fine he was. Everything was perfectly, perversely, anticlimactically fine. He wasn’t sad or mad or depressed. He felt … nothing.
As he started his computer and watched the screen come to life, mundane work tasks lined up neatly in his head—emails, projects, important shit. He was like a fucking machine. Back online, ready for production.
When he opened his first email, however, it took him three tries before his cold fingers could type “Hi, Sidd” correctly (that would be Sidd Mathur, the M from DMSoft), and even then, he wasn’t sure he’d spelled “Hi” right. Was it just an H and an i? That didn’t seem like enough letters for such an important concept.
Whatever, he would plow through. People said he was smart. All he had to do was focus. He was good at focusing, too good sometimes. When he finally finished the email, he checked the clock and was floored to see he’d spent two entire hours on one short paragraph of text.
He sighed and lifted a hand toward his forehead to massage it—and accidentally poked himself in the eye. Shit. Now that he was paying attention, his head throbbed, his face hurt, and his limbs felt off, like they’d been taken from someone else and glued onto him. He was probably getting sick. It had
been a while since the last time, so he was due something awful. Come to think of it, he hadn’t had a flu shot in years.
He opened his desk drawer, got out the small bottle of ibuprofen he kept there, popped the lid off, and shook a couple of pills into his palm. At least, that was how he envisioned it in his mind. What really happened was he scattered pills all over himself, his desk, and the floor.
When he went to clean up the mess, pills crunched under his feet and knees and slipped out from between his fingers. By the time he’d gathered the majority of the pills back into their jar and accidentally pulverized the rest, he’d banged his elbow on his chair and hit his head on the desk.
He stepped into the hall, meaning to go to the kitchen for water, and he noticed the office was eerily empty. It was like working on Christmas.
That was when he remembered today they had an offsite company-wide team-building thing. Fuuuuck. His partner was going to give him shit for being antisocial again. When his phone started buzzing, he dug it out of his pocket and answered it without checking who it was.
“Yo, it’s me. How are you doing?” asked a familiar voice that did not belong to his partner.
“Hi, Quan. Everything’s …” He glanced at the pill bits all over the floor of his office, and look at that, one of his shoelaces had come undone.
“Everything’s fine. Why are you calling?”
“Mom says I need to fly back from New York to see you because it’s an
emergency. What’s up?”
“There is no emergency.”
“How’s Esme?” Quan asked in a neutral tone.
“Fine.”
Quan kept quiet and waited.
When Khai couldn’t take it anymore, he said, “She’s not coming back. She found an apartment by the restaurant that she likes better than my place.”
“How are you with that?”
“Fine. I’m just … fine.” And he wished he wasn’t. If he could manage some manner of dramatic emotional upheaval and prove he was heartbroken at her loss—and therefore in love—he could keep her.
But nope. He was A-OK.
“Want me to come home early?” Quan asked. “We can do shit. I dunno, go pick up chicks at a tax convention or something.”
“No, thanks.” He didn’t want to do anything that involved women for a long time, and the thought of “picking up chicks” made his headache worse, even though it meant he got to go to a tax convention.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay then, but if you need anything, you can call me whenever. If I don’t pick up, I’ll call you back as soon as I can,” Quan said.
“You don’t need to tell me this. I already know.” Quan was the most dependable thing in Khai’s life.
“Just reminding you. Okay, I’m gonna let you go now. Bye, little brother.”
“Bye.”
As soon as the line went dead, he looked around the vacant office, took a step, and almost ended up facedown on the floor. Sighing, he went down on one knee and grabbed his laces, but he tried multiple times and the things wouldn’t tie. What the fuck was wrong with him? He had to be coming down with the flu. Fed up with the entire process, he took his shoes off and carried them with him as he left the building and walked home. No way he was driving or going to a team-building thing like this.
The trek was long and hot and weird with no shoes on, and he was pretty sure people slowed down as they passed him. He didn’t feel at all like a Terminator today, not one in good condition, anyway. When he reached his
place, he was sweaty, dehydrated, and badly in need of a shower, but after the door swung open, he stood there, unable to enter.
His entire body resisted going inside. His head spun, his heart slammed, and his stomach twisted. The house was too dark, and the musty air made him want to throw up. It didn’t make sense. He’d been in there just this morning. But he’d been too focused on possible Esme catastrophes to notice anything else.
He sat down on the concrete steps outside and smeared the sweat away from his clammy face. This flu really sucked. He was exhausted. He could sleep and sleep for ages. But he had to shower and air out the house first.
That musty heaviness, whatever it was, had to go. Maybe one of Esme’s fruits was decaying in the trash and there were mold spores floating everywhere.
Gritting his teeth, he got up, stepped inside, and tossed his shoes to the floor, not caring where they landed. He couldn’t breathe. The air was thick
and oppressive, all wrong.
Mold spores, mold spores.
He marched to the kitchen and yanked the trash out of the cabinet. Empty.
What the hell? He searched the kitchen for other locations where fruit could be moldering away. None.
All surfaces were spotless. The only thing out of place was a half-filled water glass on the counter. Esme’s. Warmth pricked over his cold skin in a sick wave. He didn’t realize he was reaching for the glass until he saw his hand approaching, and he stopped himself before making contact. Curling his fingers into a fist, he backed away. He didn’t want to put her glass in the dishwasher like he always did. He wanted it … right there.
This suffocating air. He hurried through the house, opening all the windows and doors, but it didn’t help. His nausea got so bad he spent a few minutes hunched over the toilet, but he didn’t throw up. Bed, he should just go to bed, but not when he was sweaty like this.
Somehow he got through a shower without wounding himself in the process and dressed in an inside-out sweater to keep the seams off his skin and workout shorts—he wanted layers, lots of layers, and was looking forward to his heavy blankets. But when it was time to get in bed, his limbs locked, and he couldn’t do it.
It was official now. Esme was never going to sleep in this bed again.
No more naked Esme welcoming him close, inside her body, crying his name as she clung to him. No more Esme weight draped over him like a sloth in a tree, warm and soft and perfect. No more Esme smiles at night, in the morning, and every time he looked at her.
He yanked the comforter off the bed and carried it to the living room, where he wrapped the blanket around himself and collapsed onto the couch.
Fuck, they’d had sex on this couch. On the green shag carpet, too.
Everywhere. And there was another one of her half-filled cups on the coffee table. He couldn’t escape her—he didn’t even know if he wanted to—and his head felt like it was going to explode.
He covered his face with the blanket. And breathed in her Esme scent. At first, he expected his nausea to worsen, but his muscles relaxed instead.
Heaven, sweet heaven. If he shut his eyes, he could almost imagine she was here, wrapping her arms around him, and sleep dragged him to a place where he didn’t hurt anymore.
Thank fuck for the blanket. He was never washing it again.
• • •
Khai woke at odd intervals throughout the night and the next day: 12:34 A.M., 3:45 A.M., 6:07 A.M., 11:22 A.M., and then 2:09 P.M.. That last time bothered him with its lack of logic, and he was scowling at his phone when
Quan walked through the unlocked front door in jeans and an old black T- shirt.
Quan took in the shoes scattered on the ground, the opened windows, and Khai’s blanket-clad form on the couch and asked, “What’s going on? Did you burn a pizza in the oven or something? Why are you venting the place out?”
Khai sat up, but the blood rushed from his head from the sudden movement, and he slumped against the back of the couch. “The air felt
funny.”
“You okay?”
He rubbed at his aching temples. “Shouldn’t you be in New York pitching for your B-round financing?”
Quan toed his shoes off and crossed the room to press a hand against Khai’s forehead. “I did the important stuff yesterday and rescheduled the rest.
Was worried about you with the breakup and Andy’s death anniversary coming up.”
Khai pushed his brother’s hand away. “It’s just that flu that’s going around. Go back to New York. I’m fine.”
Shit, death anniversary. A cold sweat broke out over him, making his skin tingle as his heartbeat went erratic. He’d purposely blocked it from his mind because he hated those kinds of things, and this was the big one, the ten-year anniversary. There was going to be a ceremony, more monk chanting, and geysers of tears. His head throbbed on the verge of explosion.
“There isn’t a flu going around. It’s summertime.” Quan frowned and stuck his hand back on Khai’s forehead. “You don’t have a fever.”
“It’s in the pre-fever stages, then.” Khai mumbled the words because sound hurt now.
Quan sat down on the coffee table and searched his face like an astrologist reading the stars. When he shifted his position to get more comfortable, the water glass got in his way. He reached for it, but Khai stopped him.
“Don’t.”
Quan blinked and asked, “Why not?”
“I like it there.”
Quan stared at the water glass before fixing his eyes on Khai with a look of dawning understanding. “Holy shit, it’s hers, isn’t it? Do you know how cute that is?” Rubbing at his jaw, he added, “Also maybe a little emotionally unstable. You’re not being creepy, are you? Like stalking with binoculars and calling her at night to make sure she’s sleeping alone?”
“What? No.” But who the hell would she be sleeping with? If Quan meant another man, that was disturbing enough to warrant lengthy contemplation.
“Those weren’t suggestions,” Quan added. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m not being creepy,” Khai said in exasperation.
Quan nodded, and after a stilted moment, he dug his phone from his pocket and held it up like he was snapping a picture.
“What are you doing?” Khai asked.
“Sending a picture of your beard to Vy. You look kinda like Godfrey Gao right now.”
Khai rolled his eyes and scratched at his face. How long had it been since he’d shaved? He couldn’t remember. The past days were a mess of chaos in his mind.
“I’m not joking. Look at you,” Quan said, holding up his phone with the snapshot of Khai on it. As far as Khai was concerned, he looked less like a movie star and more like a drug addict, but what did he know?
Just then, message boxes from Vy flashed on the screen.
Oh momma.
Tell him to keep it.
Rawr.
Khai grimaced and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Not sure if I like my sister rawring at me.”
Quan laughed before his expression went serious. “Only Esme can, right?”
Khai thought that over for a few seconds before nodding once. Attraction, sex, lust, and wanting all orbited around one focal point for him. The focal point was Esme.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said at Michael’s wedding, about how you’re not in love, and I dunno. Maybe you’re not, but this …” Quan motioned at the open windows, the cup collecting dust on the table, and Khai’s couch-ridden form before resting his elbows on his knees and leaning toward him. “This is you being sad, Khai.”
He frowned at his brother. What bullshit was this? “I’m not sad. I have the flu.”
Quan stretched his head from side to side until his neck audibly popped.
“You know you’ve been like this before, right? It’s a predictable pattern with
you.”
“Yes, I’ve had the flu before.”
“I’m talking about being heartbroken,” Quan said, his eyes delving into
Khai’s in an uncomfortable way.
Khai’s body stiffened. “I’m not. I—”
“Do you remember when Mom and Dad separated when we were little?”
Quan asked quietly.
“A little. They were together, and then one day they weren’t. It was fine.”
He shrugged.
“Except you weren’t fine. You stopped talking, and you got so clumsy you had to stay home from school for two weeks.” An ironic smile touched Quan’s mouth. “I remember because there was no one to take care of you, so I had to stay home, too. I made us ramen in the microwave, and you were upset because there was no poached egg like when Mom cooks it.”
“I don’t remember any of that.” And what he did remember was neutral and colorless, flat. He’d been told to give his dad one last hug before he left
town for good. He remembered hugging a person who used to be everything and feeling … nothing.
“Maybe you were too young. How about … after Andy’s funeral. Do you remember that?”
An irritated sensation scratched up Khai’s back, and he kicked his blanket off, suddenly needing to be free. He wanted to brush his teeth and shower, shut all the windows, and maybe put that cup in the dishwasher. Wait, no, he wasn’t ready to put the cup away yet. “Yeah, I remember. I was fine.” Too
fine. “Can we not talk about this?”
“Why?”
“There’s no point. I wasn’t heartbroken then, and I’m not now.” Stone hearts didn’t break. They were too hard. “I’m like a Terminator with logic programming and no feelings.” He stretched his lips into a plastic smile.
Quan rolled his eyes. “What a load of shit. Are you going to say you don’t love at all? I know you love me.”
Khai tilted his head to the side. He’d never thought about that before.
“There is literally nothing you can say to make me believe you don’t,”
Quan said with absolute confidence. “Go ahead. Try.”
“I hardly ever do things with you, and we don’t have a bunch of similar interests, and—”
“And you never forget my birthday, and you always share your food with me even when it’s your favorite, and I know anytime I need something, I can count on you, no matter what,” Quan finished.
“Well … yeah.” Those were hard rules in Khai’s universe.
“That’s brother love. We just don’t say it because we’re tough and shit, but yeah, I love you, too.” Quan punched him on the shoulder. “And why the fuck are you wearing a sweater in late July?”
Khai rubbed his shoulder. “I told you. I have the flu.”
“You don’t have the flu. This is how your heart breaks. It’s like you hurt
too much for your brain to process, and then your body shuts down, too. You were a lot like this after Andy. Even down to the one sock.”
Khai looked at his feet and was surprised to see he only wore one sock.
“Maybe it came off in my sleep.” He dug through the blanket, but it wasn’t there.
“Or you forgot it. After Andy, you were so out of it, we were all afraid you’d accidentally kill yourself by walking in front of a bus or forgetting to eat.”
Khai shook his head and scratched at his beard. “That doesn’t sound like me.”
Quan laughed. “No, it doesn’t. That’s why we were all so worried, and you seemed off ever since then. These past couple months are the happiest I’ve seen you in a long time, to be honest.”
Khai gritted his teeth. He hadn’t been happy. He’d been in an Esme high.
There was a difference, though at the moment, his mind wasn’t clear enough to figure out what it was. Frustrated, he pulled off his one sock and tossed it on the floor. There, now he was symmetrical. But a lone sock lay on the floor, completely out of place.
Quan considered Khai for several long seconds before saying, “Are you ready for the death anniversary next weekend? Talking about him might help.
You never do.”
Khai fixed his attention on the sock on the floor. “I did. At Sara’s wedding.”
Quan released a heavy exhalation. “Yeah, I heard about that. I should have been there with you.”
“It’s not your fault when I hurt people,” Khai said.
“It’s not yours, either.”
Khai shook his head at his brother’s insensible logic and focused on the sock again. He should pick it up, find its mate, and stick them in the laundry
together. It was distinctly infuriating imagining his socks journeying through the house separately. They were designed to be together.
Unlike Khai. He was meant to be a lone sock. Lone socks had a place in this world, too. Not everyone had two feet.
“When’s the last time you ate?” Quan asked.
Khai lifted a shoulder. He couldn’t remember. “It’s okay. I’m not hungry.”
“Well, I am. You’re going to eat with me.” Quan got up and padded into the kitchen. The fridge opened, plates clattered, silverware clanked, and the microwave hummed and beeped. Soon, they were eating together on the couch as Quan flipped through TV channels until he found a program where ticker symbols scrolled along the bottom.
Khai hadn’t brushed his teeth, showered, or shaved, and he was fairly certain he was a psychopath, but sitting there with Quan, things seemed better. Eating with his brother and watching TV while sick felt familiar, and fuzzy memories flickered in his mind.
Maybe he really had been in this same position before, but as for the rest of it, the broken-hearted stuff, he couldn’t bring himself to believe it.
