fifty nine

"but I didn't say it

because I never say things,

I just write them."

"So," Nora nudged my desk with hers as we sat in our almost-empty Biology classroom with a substitute teacher who was too busy grading some test papers. "Are you or are you not asking Alastair out for the Gala?"

I propped my chin on my hand and stared out of the classroom window right beside me. It was a lovely sunny day outside. No rain, thank God.

"I'm not going to the Gala." I simply stated.

"What?" Nora hissed, nudging my desk again. I sighed. "Why not? Tara is going. And so is Steph. I'm going too."

"I know."

"Is Alastair not a party guy?" She asked.

I sighed again. "I don't know. I just...don't feel like going there, okay?" Besides, Noah and his redhead girlfriend were pretty obvious about how grateful they were that I wouldn't be going to the Gala. Was I letting them shape my plans? Maybe. But at the same time, I was just as glad that I wouldn't be seeing them either.

"Have you asked him though?"

"Why do I have to ask him?" I straightened up and glanced at the teacher who still wasn't paying us, or the other few students here, any attention.

"Because," Nora widened her eyes. "You know how it was the last year. And the year before that. Every year the Gala happens, all the girls around town go into this frenzy mode."

My cluelessness must've been obvious since Nora sighed irritatedly.

"Someone else will ask him out." Nora rested her hands flat on her table. "Almost everyone in town goes to the Gala."

I eyed her funny. "And you think he'd say yes to someone else who's not me."

Nora shrugged. "What if he does?"

"I don't think he would." I smiled, though now I was kind of doubting. "Is this your way of convincing me to go to the Gala?"

Nora rolled her eyes. "Clearly not working."

Little did she know, it did kind of work out.

Later when a few more substitute teachers showed up, I figured the entire college was way more into the Gala preparations since very few roamed across the hallways. I was lounging in the college library, trying to study a little when Luce called me. Which was odd since Luce never really called me during this time, when she knew I'd be at college.

I stood up from my table and went towards the furthest bookshelf, sitting down and leaning against it. The librarian rarely came here, so I answered Luce's call.

"So, I've been hearing about this boy you've been dating." Was what Luce told me after we exchanged our casual greetings.

I froze a little and nearly started to think of words to get out of this mess. "Uh, well--"

"Mom told me." She clarified. "And Mase too. Dad seemed pretty okay with it."

I suppose I was a little surprised hearing her say Dad. Luce rarely called him that.

"Well, you...know..." I cleared my throat. "It's...that..."

There was a soft shuffling sound at her end. "They've been asking for several medical and hospital records of Alastair from us. His aunt even visited twice this week. There's this...talk going around town that it wasn't actually Alastair's body they found in the lake."

I went dead silent at that.

"Could be just rumours but then I saw a whole crowd outside the cemetery yesterday. The police are everywhere. It's been...strange." She added, then fell silent herself. Only for a few seconds though, since she added softly--a little cautiously, "how's he doing, Lia?"

I opened my mouth but wasn't sure what to say. "He's...he is okay."

Luce hummed. "So I suppose you wouldn't have told me if I hadn't asked, hm?"

"I...wasn't sure," I whispered, afraid that the librarian might hear me. "I still haven't told Mum anything. And you guys...you guys kept telling me that it was all in my head. I had this feeling that you might not believe me."

As I looked at the shelf across from me, I saw silhouettes of two girls who I usually saw in my chemistry class.

"I'm so sorry, Lia," Luce murmured, sounding as concerned as she sounded apologetic. "I didn't think...well, this is still too complicated. But I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you needed me the most."

"It's okay, Luce."

"Well, I am coming there for your graduation. I'll meet him then, won't I?" She sounded a little unsure and like she was smiling at the same time.

"Yeah," I whispered, then inhaled deeply. "What are they going to do with the grave?"

"Identify who that actually is," Luce said.

"Not Alastair."

"No," Luce confirmed. "But there is this talk about someone named Cassius. I think his aunt knows more than she is letting on. They've been asking for all the reports and records on the Hawthornes since this morning. Iris made rather...weird statements about the grave. She's being questioned. I don't know why she decided to speak up after all."

I frowned when I started hearing quiet excited whispers from the two girls in front of me, with just a shelf separating us.

"What are they questioning her about?" I asked her quietly.

"Where Alastair is if he is supposedly not dead." She replied. "She was his guardian after his parents died. So...that makes sense. The files and reports they've been handing us, they're kind of...weird. I haven't seen much into it but..."

My eyes kept flickering to the two girls who I could barely see from the few cracks in the books in front of me.

"Will you tell me if you find something in them?" I asked.

"Of course." She told me. "If it'll help."

I could tell that she wanted to ask more. More about Alastair and what he was doing here. But she didn't. Perhaps she knew it wasn't my place to speak up about it. Though her reaction about the whole Alastair not being dead thing was way calmer than mine had been.

When Luce ended the call, I almost stood up to head back to my table when once again, I looked over at the girls who were still here.

I wasn't necessarily an eavesdropper, but they were gushing way too loudly. I couldn't not listen.

"Yes, Noah asked me out again. I'm glad he did. We make a cute couple, don't you think?"

It didn't take me long to recognise her as Spencer. Of course. Maybe that was why the whispers had seemed a little familiar.

Rolling my eyes, I only managed to take a few steps before getting rooted again.

"Adorbs. Tell you what, Kelly was talking about this real hottie at this small art studio thing. Do you think I should ask him out for the Gala before she does?" The other girl whispered.

I pursed my lips and looked away, walking hurriedly back to my table. Was she talking about Alastair? I thought. Was Nora right? But there were more than a single art studio here. She couldn't have been talking about Alastair.

I spent the rest of the day a little too restlessly in college. Nora picked up on it and asked me several times what was on my mind. I didn't really say anything to her when I wasn't even sure myself. Was I anxious about what Luce had told me over the phone? Or was I just anxious at what I had heard Spencer and her friend saying back in the library?

It wasn't like I had anything to be jealous about. Alas liked me. He loves me. But just because I wasn't going to the Gala doesn't mean he couldn't go too. Wait, no, I grimaced. That sounded like an open relationship. I didn't want that. Did we even have a relationship?

God, why did Alas and I never talk about simple (yet complicated) stuff like this?

And so I was a little taken aback when I saw Alastair in the front yard of my house with Mason, seeming like he was trying to teach my little brother how to play soccer (which Mason must've been ecstatic about). And there was Milo too, I realised, running around Mum's precious rose bushes.

I stared, a little horrified at the latter. Mum would kill anyone who played around with her rose bushes.

"Milo!" I exclaimed, throwing down my bag, and heading for him and his little paws that seemed to be massacring one of the bushes.

I didn't get to reach him when he jumped away. The soccer ball, however, flew up in the sky and aimed itself right at me. And when it barreled into my side, resulting a loud oomph out of me, I toppled over and fell flat on the grass.

"Ow," I grumbled, rubbing my side.

I heard a flinch in the distance, then footsteps rushed towards me.

"Fuck." That was Alastair, his beautiful, concerned face looming into my view. "Are you all right?"

"No?" I took his hand as he pulled me up. As I brushed off my jeans, I looked over at Mason who didn't seem concerned at all. Typical him. "Why are you even teaching him that?"

Alastair smiled at me, his eyes gleaming against the sun. I realised--and certainly not a new realisation--Spencer's friend was right. He is a total hottie.

"Why were you standing in the way?" He asked me.

I rolled my eyes exaggeratedly and pointed over at Milo. "Well, your dog's murdering the rose bushes."

"Your mother seemed fine with that."

I eyed him in surprise. "You're joking."

Mum stepped out on cue, carrying a tray with three mugs of hot chocolate.

"Oh, it's fine, Lia." Mum waved her hand at me. "I can't possibly deny this cute little pup some entertainment."

My eyes widened and I narrowed them at a still grinning Alastair. Then I wagged a finger at him. "You're changing my mother."

He laughed softly and turned around to pick up two mugs. My eyes darted around only to get stuck at a single red tulip poking out of Alastair's pocket. I blinked in surprise. A rather familiar one. I'd been seeing them all around college these past few days. Buy a ticket for the Gala and get a red tulip for your date.

My mouth turned a little dry as I looked up at him.

So maybe someone had asked him to the Gala anyway. Nora was right. This was as complicated as I thought it wouldn't be.

"Mase, you're not getting your hot chocolate until you step inside the house. I don't want you spilling it everywhere on the grass." Mum told him and they both headed inside.

"Here," Alastair passed me my mug and nudged his head towards the porch stairs. "Let's sit."

And so I sat down beside him, fidgeting with my mug but not really drinking the hot chocolate.

"You got back early today." He spoke up, breaking the silence.

I swallowed. "Yeah. Most were just free periods." Since everyone was busy with the Gala, I wanted to add. But I didn't.

Alastair glanced at me but didn't say anything more. I watched as Milo neared my bag on the grass and sniffed it.

"Andrea's hoping I adopt him." There was a small smile on his lips as he looked over at Milo.

"You can live with a few allergic days."

He huffed out a soft laugh. "I can. But he's a handful sometimes."

I shrugged since he was probably right.

"So," I started, not sure whether I should ask him about the red tulip in his pocket or the fact that we hadn't yet talked about Cassius. I stuck with the latter. "Is it okay if we talk about Cassius?"

Alastair stiffened a little but nodded anyway.

"Luce called earlier," I told him, and then added in all the stuff she had told me. Alastair listened quietly, glancing at me from time to time. When I finished telling him everything, I added, "why do you think your aunt's doing this now?"

He sipped on his hot chocolate. "I called her yesterday."

"You did?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "I...after I left Cass's apartment and dropped you here, I called her. I asked her to explain all of...this to me."

"Did she?"

His eyes found mine and it was more than just a glance. He didn't look away. I didn't either.

"Yeah. All kinds of messed up stuff that she had sworn not to speak of again."

I parted my lips in surprise, not sure what to say.

"Dad was a fucked up piece of shit." He looked away, and even if he said that so nonchalantly, I noticed the way he clenched his jaw. "He wanted a son who would be perfect to continue the family business after him. She told me that...I was that son for him. Cass wasn't. He treated Cass like shit. He treated him so horribly. And Ma never stopped him. When I used to, they sent me elsewhere. Like my aunt's house."

I frowned down at the cup of hot chocolate in my hands.

Alastair sighed. "We both were kids back then. Cass used to show beaten up sometimes. I used to get worried and they never told me why. And it...kept on happening like a bloody cycle." He breathed out a short, humourless laugh, fixing his gaze ahead of him. My heart thudded at the hidden pain in his voice. "They hated that he was colourblind. They hated that he liked playing the piano. They hated how he could cry over any small show of violence. They hated everything about him. Even when there was...nothing to hate about."

I was staring at him. The air around us felt heavy. His voice felt heavy. And the corners of my eyes stung a little.

"She told me that one day she was dropping me back at my parent's house. And she was...and she was with me. And we both saw it. How Dad...how he punched Cass right in front of us. I guess I must've figured then where the bruises on Cass came from. She told me I got furious then. I got...I got the anger from my father apparently. I wanted to know why. I suppose I thought they loved Cass like they loved me. But they didn't tell me why. They just...asked the doctors to wipe my fucking memory like it didn't even matter. Both of them. Ma didn't stop him. And Cass...I forgot all about him."

A soft breeze whipped across his dark strands, ruffling them a little.

"I don't remember my father much." He spoke much softly this time, almost as if he was afraid speaking this out loud would change something. Break something. "But she...my aunt said that he was a monster when he wanted to be. Nobody was there to stop him. Not when they gave me drugs to make me forget. Not when he made Cass's life a living hell. Not when he was...ruining his own family. No one could stop him. She told me how badly those drugs made me react at first. I don't remember this, but they kept me locked in that hospital until my father said it was all right for me to leave. Cass was kept locked in the mansion, and I don't...no one, not even my aunt, was let in. Cass wasn't let out. Not until Ma finally stood up to him that day, pushed him down from the balcony and into the pool below."

I felt the blood and the words draining out of me.

"He died," Alastair whispered. "Ma went insane. Cass must've left amidst the chaos. And I was...just eight. I believed in all the lies they told me. I believed that my parents had died. I believed that I had no brother. I believed them."

When he fell silent, I blinked up at the sky and exhaled shakily. "That's..." horrible, I wanted to say. But it didn't come out of my lips. A lot made sense now, except that it was awfully wrong. Fucked up.

"That's not even the worst part." I saw him frowning down at his hands. "The worst part is that...Cass never showed it. How much he was hurting. He never--he never told anyone. He never told me. He never said anything to my aunt. He smiled every day like everything was fine."

I stared down at Milo who was now wandering around our feet. "He was keeping it together for you." A tiny whisper escaped my lips.

"Why for me, Ophelia?" He asked weakly, defeated.

I gave him a small, sad smile. "That's what you do when you love someone."

His eyes finally met mine and it was sad, all of him was sad and in pain. The world had been cruel. So cruel to him. "I was supposed to be there for him."

"You are."

He shook his head. Then he shook it again. "I'm not. I was never there for him."

"You stood up to your father for him."

"And for what? To let him lock me up in some mental asylum just so I'd forget?" He asked a little desperately, almost as if he wanted to change that. Change that and fix things. "I stood up to him when it was too late."

"It's never too late," I told him, and then I took his hand, lacing my cold fingers with his warm ones, hoping he'd look at me. Into my eyes. "It's still as if he never existed back in your hometown. Your aunt's changing that by speaking up about him. You can too, Alas. You can still give him some justice."

His eyes fell down to our hands and he gripped tighter. "I can't."

I leaned my head against his shoulder and placed my still full mug beside me, curling my other hand around his arm. "I know you can."

I felt him exhaling.

"And he'll be proud of you. He'll be happy." I said, my heart still heavy with whatever that he had just told me. There was a story behind his mysterious twin. The one everyone thought didn't exist. But not a happy one. Cassius's whole life, I thought, was made a miserable one.

But there had been happy moments. For when he had his brother. When he had Alastair with him.

"He'll be happy when you are, Alas."

******

Mum forced Alastair to stay over for dinner, which I guess we both saw coming.

And it was horribly embarrassing. The dinner, I mean. Mum kept on asking personal, really personal stuff without any shame. Dad wasn't any better. Mason and Helen kept saying stuff that made me want to throw things at them. Milo seemed like he was enjoying too, eating out of the little doggy bowl that Mum somehow already had for him.

Alastair seemed rather amused throughout the dinner too, which I wasn't really angry about. Whenever he smiled at something one of my family members said, I'd feel less angry and less embarrassed and remind myself that it was worth it. Him being happy was worth anything.

"Remind me not to ever bring you here for dinner again," I grumbled as I walked him to the front door.

Alastair stopped outside the front door, out on the porch and grinned at me. The moonlight shining right over him didn't help my inner swooning.

"I had fun." He said.

"But what's the point of having you over for dinner when you can't even sleep over?" I asked him, raising my hands up in the air a little exasperatedly.

He reached out and brushed my bangs out of my eyes, his hand lingering there. "Your mum's against the whole late night sex thing."

I gasped in horror. "Did you say that to her?"

"Did I?" He smiled cheekily.

"Oh my God, you're no better than them!" I glared at him, feeling my cheeks heating up.

He laughed. "I was just kidding."

I frowned at him, then opened my mouth to say something but thought otherwise.

"What is it?" He asked.

"I...well," I started, shifting a little on my feet. He noticed and raised his brows a little. "You've got a red tulip with you."

He stared at me, confused, then realisation flickered in his pale grey eyes. "This?" He asked, pulling out a worn-out looking flower from his pocket.

"Yes." I hesitated, wrapping my arms around my middle. "Who gave it to you?" I could ask, couldn't I?

He looked down at it, then back at me. "Oh, someone came by the studio this morning. I...don't really remember the name." He finished a little sheepishly.

I blinked, then smiled a little. "Will you be going to the Gala then?"

"Hm, no."

"Why not?"

He shrugged. "Not with her. I told her so, but she gave this to me anyway."

I frowned, then repeated, "why not?"

Perhaps he adored the moronic side of me since he gave me that soft smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. And it still managed to make my heart skip a beat. "Because I was hoping you'd ask me first. It's your college anyway."

"What?" I stuttered. "But she...how...that's just..."

He raked a hand through his hair, his eyes rounding in surprise. Fake surprise, I realised, since he was trying not to smile. "Don't tell me you've already got a date."

"I...well..." Oh God, I couldn't even form proper sentences now.

"You know it'll break my heart to go there with someone who's not as beautiful as you." He added.

I blinked at him. Then I blinked again. And then I was laughing, probably at his words, and throwing my arms around his neck, kissing him a little clumsily.

"Is that a yes?" He smiled against my lips, his hands settling on my waist.

"I forgot to get a red tulip of my own though."

Alastair smiled, pressed a quick kiss to my lips, and pulled out something from his other pocket. I recognised it as a very wilted looking hawthorn flower. "We can use this."

I tried muffling my laugh against his shoulder. "Where in the living fuck did you get that?"

"Your mother said you'd like it if I proposed to you with this." He answered.

I pulled back. "Proposed?"

"For the Gala." He gave me another cheeky, irresistible smile, leaning closer to press a soft kiss at one corner of my lips. "What else did you think?"

I opened my mouth, closed it shut, then opened it again, only to gasp when he nipped my jaw.

"Sorry, I should've warned you." He murmured and I could feel his smile against my skin. "My lips are rather distracting."

I laughed again and gripped his shoulders, pushing him just a little away so that I could kiss him properly. Somewhere in between, he slid the tiny hawthorn into my braided hair and I nearly didn't notice.

"Oh for fuck's sake. Mom, Lia's making out with her boyfriend at the front door!" I heard Helen shouting behind me.

Alastair pulled away, shaking with laughter. I pressed my cold hands against my cheeks, looking at him with wide eyes.

"I'll see you later, love." He kissed my cheek and pulled away for good this time. "Don't wanna get on the bad side of your mum."

And as he left, I stared at him and wondered how incredibly easy it was to love him.