twentytwo - loving you

the art of loving you

- - -

After a moderately good writing session, Sacha had disappeared into his bedroom while I mused over our first drafts. Some of the lyrics needed a little tweaking but I couldn't push myself into changing them without consoling with Kareem and Sacha first.

My little brother had decided that arranging another concert was more important to him than developing his demo, with the claim that getting record's attention would be easier with a growing fan base. I couldn't fault his mindset but I still acknowledged that developing Bodhi's Youtube Channel would help with wider exposure than a small gig.

Halfway between drafting a new bridge for an alternate song, my front door opened and Kezziah strolled in.

I raised my eyebrows but internally cheered at the fact she felt comfortable enough to just walk in like Hendrix and Jem tended to do. Kezziah had been coming over a lot since Zepp died, as Kareem had practically moved in. Both the dogs were alternated between my apartment and Hendrix's, given the fact we couldn't just leave them in Kaz's home alone.

A part of me still felt like I needed to develop a stronger relationship with Kezz, similar to Kareem's with Sacha, and I'd been trying. It was safe to admit that she was a hard person to try and get close to, her trust issues obviously stemming from something a lot more serious than a High School breakup.

Despite the slight tension, I'd grown to adore Kezziah just as much as I did my other friends. She was smart and scrappy and could school Sacha without even hesitating. She'd become a part of our little family, attending game nights and visiting the bakery during her spare time. She was one of us, so much that I could barely remember a time before both her and Kareem were in our lives.

"Hey bitch."

"You should respect your elders, kid."

Kezziah rolled her eyes at me before throwing herself on the stool facing me. "Maybe I'll start respecting my elders when you can grow a beard."

This caused a chuckle to escape.

"Fair enough." I allowed her, laughing to myself. She shuffled, looking slightly uncomfortable. It was almost weird to see her so cautious, as from the moment I met the kid she oozed confidence like it was her second skin. "Kezz, what's up?"

"Where's Kareem?"

"He had an appointment at the VA." I informed her, putting down my pen. "Just a check-up with his leg."

"Sacha?"

"Think he's in his bedroom but he might have sneaked out."

She nodded, eyes avoiding mine as she fidgeted with her fingers. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course." I answered seriously. My eyebrows furrowed at her obvious nervousness. I didn't want her to feel uncomfortable around me, regardless of what she needed to say.

"Kaz's birthday's coming up....and I wanted to ask him to adopt me."

The raw, undiluted happiness that consumed me at her words left me breathless. My lips tugged up automatically and I felt my eyes threaten to water at the storm of emotions coursing through me.

He's going to sob. God. Kezziah means the entire world to him and, after these past few weeks, this would give him the hope he was desperately clinging to.

"That's amazing, kid. Wow, he's going to cry." I let out in a raspy voice, knowing this was something that meant so much to her and would mean even more to him.

She released a breath, visibly relaxing. "So you're okay with it?"

This made my eyebrows furrow. She sounded like she was genuinely relieved with my reaction, as if she was almost worried about it. "Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

Her dark eyes diverted to where her fingers were interlocked in her lap. "I just...I wanted to check with you before making anything official. I mean, you're his boyfriend and it'll affect you too and I don't want him to-"

"Kezziah," I cut her off, refusing to allow her to overthink herself into a mindset that wasn't necessary. "Babe, I'm his boyfriend, not his boss. I want him to be happy, and I know this will make him and me so happy. Please don't think that I'll ever be anything but supportive of both of you. You're his family."

My words encouraged her to look up at me, and my tears almost escaped me as I noticed how completely thankful her expression was. As if I'd granted her the best thing in the entire world just by giving my approval. I stood up from my seat, stepping around the counter so I was in front of her.

"You come first, okay? You've always come first and you'll always be his first priority. I'll never come between that and I never want to. I love you both endlessly, okay? And I know this is going to make him so indescribably happy."

She wrapped her arms around me, tucking her head in the space between my neck and shoulder as I embraced her with the same level of intensity.

"He's going to be happy, Kezz. He adores you so much." I reassured her, "You know, I should be thanking you."

She pulled away from me slightly so I could see her confused expression.

"Without you, I wouldn't have met him." I told her, "He came to New York for you, because he needed his sister. I will be in your debt forever, because without you I'd probably be spending the rest of my life alone."

"Don't be stupid."

"I'm not being," I let out a small sigh, not quite knowing how to fully articulate how much I'd prepared for that possibility. Emery really made me believe that every boy I ever met would treat me like that. "I'm so happy that I have you and Kareem in my life."

It was important to me that she understood how I felt. Kareem and Kezziah are a package deal, and I never want to come between them. Kezziah will always be Kareem's priority, as she should be. She's his family.

It was never going to be choosing one over the other. They came  together or not at all, Kareem always made that clear. She's his family, they were bonded together out of something so much stronger than blood.

"I-" She started, before cutting herself off and turning away. She sighs, closing her eyes as if she was having a mental argument with herself. When she finally looks back at me, her face is hesitant. "I don't know what Kareem told you about me but I-" She exhaled, "I lived with my Mom until I was around eight so I wasn't like him in the sense that I was born into the system. But even though I had her, I didn't really have her. Kareem's the only family I've ever had, apart from my best friend, he's the only one I've got."

A part of me could relate to that sentence. The fact she had a parent but she didn't really.

Often, I find myself reminiscing on the past. After practically raising myself, I felt like I could relate to those who had absent parents in the sense that I had to do everything. Taking my brother to preschool, dressing us, even learning to cook when I was young.

As fucked up as it is, I guess I could thank my parents for that in terms of growing my love for baking. Whenever Sacha would get upset about our parents not being present, I'd bake. Cookies. Cakes. Brownies. Anything to help him find some comfort, even just for a split second. My love for baking stemmed from a place of brotherly love, of soothing my brother's pain.

Both Kareem and I could relate to that...the desire to keep our siblings safe. Sometimes, during our early chats, he'd talk about all the things he knew Kezziah had gone through, things he'd suspected but never had confirmed. It hurt me to think about her ever in pain, every suffering or the world being too cruel to her from such a young age.

You could see it in her eyes, in all fairness. Everything about her screamed that she'd been thrown into the midst of a tornado and came out fighting. Everything about her said that she wouldn't burn out easily.

"I don't know a lot about what you've been through or what you've seen but I want you to know you'll always have a home here, with me." I told her wholeheartedly, "I don't see my parents. I haven't spoken to them in person since I was around nineteen. This is my family, Kezziah. Hendrix, Sacha, Jem, the band, Kareem, you. You'll always have a place with us, if you want it."

She nodded, fast, as if she was scared that I'd take the offer away if she waited too long. Everything about her just screamed that she was a kid that needed to be cared for, and all I wanted to do was hold her until all her problems disappeared.

"I-" She paused, lip back in her mouth as she took a deep breath. "The band. What happens if they get a label or management or however it works? They'd have to leave, right?"

And that was always the big question. If Sacha's plan worked, if all their hard work paid off; what happens then?

I'd never hesitated when discussing it with Hendrix. If Sacha left, I would too. We started this journey together and I'd stay with him as long as he needed me. With Kareem in the band now, I didn't have a lot of choice on whether I'd stay here or not. We knew I could handle all the accounts from across the world, that I'd still be able to run and own Dexter's in my own way, without physically needing to be there. A lot of workload would be taken off Hendrix and she'd have to focus primarily on running the day-to-day aspect of the bakery, alongside any new students that we employed given that two of our workers would be with me.

For Kezziah, I could understand why she'd be concerned, especially given the fact the adoption would be happening. I didn't know much about her placements but I knew she was transferred into the city a few years ago, and she'd built a strong friendship with the people here. Fallen Temple's success could lead to her potential heartbreak. The uprooting of her life and the lack of stability that years of being in the system had already caused for her. She was aging out soon, Kareem was the only person she could lean on.

Luckily enough, this was a conversation that I'd already had with him.

"If it happens, I'll be making plans to go with them." I answered earnestly, wanting her to be aware that this was something we'd already considered, and that we'd never leave her behind. "Kaz and I have talked about it all and we don't know where we'd end up. Could be London, could be LA, could be fucking Sweden or some place like that. But we wanted to make it clear that, in terms of you, it's your choice. If you wanted to come with us, we'd be ecstatic. We'd never even consider leaving you behind. But, if you want to stay here, we'd understand that too. This has been your home for a long time and it's unfair to expect you to just leave. So, in that case, we thought that you could either stay with Hendrix and Jem, or I'd pay the rent for the apartment I currently live in and you could stay there when you're not at College. We'd pay for you to come out and visit us whenever the semester ends or we'd come out to see you."

"Okay," She said softly, eyes fixed on the mantle in front of her as she seemed to process my words. "What about college?"

"Whatever you want," I leaned forward, elbows resting on the black mantle. "You could stay with us during the breaks, if you didn't want to stay in your Dorm. There's some good Colleges in California or England, in the case we'd be based there. Online classes. I'm not sure." I said honestly, "Whatever you want, whatever you choose, we'll support that. It's never our decision to make and I want to be clear that this is all completely hypothetical. We don't know what the future holds. Five years from now, they could still be scrounging for a record deal and playing in Indie Cafes every weekend, we don't know."

This sparked a laugh out of her as she shook her head, "That's not going to happen. They're too talented for that. You're too talented for that." She emphasized pointedly.

My eyebrows raised, "Kareem told you then?"

Kezziah snorted, "He didn't need to. You didn't think I'd actually believe that Sacha just wrote those songs? His brain is too small for that."

"He actually writes a good proportion of it, especially the instrumentals." I pointed out, "And the others write too. We just wrote a lot of the songs before the band were even formed."

"Still," She shrugged, "You could take the credit, Saint. It's just as much yours as it is theirs."

"Maybe one day," Humming, I let the corners of my lips tug up at the promise. "If anything ever comes of it."

Kezziah smiled at me gently, no doubt lingering in her dark eyes. "When it happens, when the band blows up, you're gonna change the world."

Many hours after Kezziah had left, I found myself still pondering over her words. She had something so effortlessly confident about the way she spoke, the emphasis she put on words that made them sound so strong and so definitive.

The desire to change the world was never something that appealed to me. The world is so enormously large that it would be damned near impossible to impact nearly eight billion souls.

But just one. Just one soul, one world. That'd be enough for me. As a songwriter, I'd be satisfied if my words just changed one person's life.

My world was made up of so many different things, so many different aspects that I cherished and held close to my heart. Music was something I always found sanctuary in. So many bands and so many lyrics that I could get tattooed onto me forever because at a time of my life, they were what got me through it. They made me feel like I could make myself into something so unbelievably great.

I was always so immensely grateful that I could connect with Sacha through music. My bond with my brother was something I cherished. A part of me felt slightly guilty that I'd been seeing him a lot less, seeing as I'd been staying at Kareem's a lot or spending my time with him.

It was hard to get to sleep. This was the first night in a while that I was sleeping alone, and I wasn't really used to it. Kareem was warm and it was so much nicer falling asleep to the soft sound of his breathing than to the stark silence in my bedroom.

Whenever Sacha got really drunk he always came to my bedroom and we'd end up staying up all night having deep conversations about everything. Aliens, the meaning of life, religion, our futures. That was the thing I liked best about living with my brother, he truly was my best friend. I knew that, regardless of how intoxicated he was, he would always really listen to me and he cared. Sometimes we'd talk, sometimes we'd just relax in the silence.

Sacha hadn't kickstarted any conversation when he stumbled into my room at 2am, so I'd just shuffled over so he had room to lay down. It was as though he'd known I'd needed him here with me. Right now.

"Saint?" Sacha said. I hummed in acknowledgement.

"Sach?" I murmured back just as softly, the sound of his breathing being the only thing I could hear within the dead of the night.

Another from the long list of reasons why I love the early morning. My mind was always alive with words, countless songs of ours have been written at this time. The hours between 1am and 5am always made me feel like I was on top of the world or drowning beneath the waves, with no in-between. But everything was quiet. The world stopped screaming, if just for a split second.

"What does love feel like?"

The 2am version of people was always blunt. So fucking honest and real and dark and vulnerable. There's no light to hide behind, no crowds to hide a flickering flame. 2am exposed our fears and our dreams, our most intrusive and melancholic and selfish thoughts.

If he would've asked me that question last year, I could've given him a whirlwind of answers. Love is selfish and cold and scary. It's not worth the agony it provokes, the pain it can cause. Love is giving people the power to destroy you.

I spent so long thinking that was the answer, spent so long with the same viewpoint, that it left me breathless when I realized that it wasn't my first thought. I know what love feels like now and the experiences that made me build that unreal perception wasn't based on love.

Love is waking up in Kareem's arms and exchanging sleep-soft kisses, and it's taking King out for a walk and feeding each other ice cream, and it's wiping each other's tears after a nightmare.

It's holding his hand on a bad day and washing his hair when all he wants to do is lie in bed and cry. It's insulting his music taste and claiming superiority, despite knowing all the lyrics to his favorite songs. It's baking cookies at 4am when we can't go back to sleep. It's sloppy kisses and dancing in the kitchen to some cringy pop song, laughing until the sun comes up.

It's Kareem and his lazy smiles and the glowing stars in his eyes.

It's holding each other until the mental demons fade away.

It's hugs, and soft kisses, and little mumbles of endearment.

It's hot chocolate in fall. It's the sunlight after a storm. It's blunt, and brazen, and breath-taking.

Love is golden.

A/N:

thank you for reading :)