𝙰𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛'𝚜 𝙽𝚘𝚝𝚎 

🅣︎🅡︎🅘︎🅖︎🅖︎🅔︎🅡︎ Ⓦ︎Ⓐ︎Ⓡ︎Ⓝ︎Ⓘ︎Ⓝ︎Ⓖ︎

𝑫𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔,

𝐵𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟, 𝐼 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑎 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑙𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑠-𝑢𝑝. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑎 𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑠****𝑑𝑒. 𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙-𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑠 𝑚𝑦 𝑢𝑡𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑟𝑛, 𝑠𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑑𝑣𝑖𝑠𝑒𝑑.

𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢, 𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤, 𝑖𝑠 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑔𝑔𝑙𝑒𝑠, 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑒. 𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑎 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑑, 𝑓𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟, 𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑘 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝. 

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆'𝒔 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒔𝒖𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕.❤︎

✿︎𝑪𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒚✿︎

POV Lucian

"You know I could help you better if you just told me exactly what you were looking for?'' Maëlla asks behind me as I go through her closet. 

"I already told you it's just a birthday dinner party, except it's not really a party because there will be only five of us but I still need to find you something fancy to wear. Not too flashy but not too modest either..."

Gosh, this would have been easier if Akhyra had provided a dress code. When my sister's hand gently grabs my elbow, I turn around to find her looking at me with a warm expression in her eyes.

"Let's sit for five minutes, okay?"

I suddenly realize that I might have appeared bat shit crazy. I basically burst into the room ten minutes ago and told her to get herself ready because I was taking her out. Of course, she was excited, but as she kept on asking questions, I gave no explanation and went straight to her closet to begin rummaging around like I owned the place. 

"I'm sorry for invading your space," I tell her. 

"I'm fine," she chuckles. "You, on the other hand, look like you could use a break."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

I follow Maëlla to her bed, and we both take off our inside slippers to get on the mattress and sit in front of each other with our legs crossed. It's been our thing when I used to live here with her and Mom. When one of us was having a bad day, we'd go to the other's room and sit like this. For us, this meant that we were creating a safe space for the other person to talk.

"You want to hold a plushie?" Maëlla offers as she points to the collection of BT21 I've gotten her. All seven of them are stacked against her headboards. Those plushies are characters representing members of her favorite K-pop group. 

"I want the koala," I say, pointing to the blue one. 

"That's Koya, a good choice." 

I hold the plushie against my chest in the same way that Maëlla holds the heart shaped one. She does not force me to talk. Instead, she gives me time to gather my thoughts. 

"There's someone I met recently," I begin, then immediately shake my head when I see her eyes widening. "It's not like that. I kinda work for her."

"Why the 'kinda' part?"

"Well, technically, I'm not her employee. It's a punishment from Coach for getting kicked out of the quarter-finals. I have to chauffer his daughter."

"Hold on... you mean that all this time you've been back here, you were driving around Akhyra Morel?"

I raise an eyebrow at the starstruck look on her face. "I didn't know you were a fan. Since when are you into ballet?"

Maëlla facepalms at my question as if to say what an idiot I am. "It's not about being into ballet. This girl is a national treasure. An international icon! At least she was until she pushed that little girl."

"Akhyra didn't push her," I find myself saying automatically. 

"Uh... yeah, she did. Have you not seen the video?"

"What I meant is that it wasn't intentional."

"It seemed pretty intentional to me," she counters, and when I'm about to argue, she holds up her hands to stop me. "Hold that thought. I'm perfectly aware that celebrities have the right to not always be in the mood to interact with fans, but she was just a kid. Was it that difficult to keep hugging her for a few more seconds?"

My sister does have a point, but she won't get the full picture unless I explain it to her, so I decide to do it. After all, she's going to meet Akhyra tonight. It's best for her to be aware of what to expect beforehand.

"The thing about Akhyra is that she doesn't tolerate being close to people. I don't know if it's a medical condition, but she has employees who make sure that nobody comes close enough to touch her."

"That's the first time I'm hearing about this," my sister answers. "The media doesn't know that?"

"I don't think she wants them to know." From all the research I did about her, I never found anything related to that topic.

"It makes sense that she wouldn't want this to get out, a celebrity who's afraid to be touched by other people? They'd have a field day with this."

"Exactly," I confirm. "So not a word, to anyone," I say, and she looks at me offended. "I'm sorry, Genius, just putting it out there."

"So you're taking me to her birthday?"

"Not hers. She's hosting the dinner for one of her employees," I clarify.

"Now, are you ready to talk about the reason why you were so worked up when you came in?"

I explain to her what happened this morning from Valentino's message to not being able to get a hold of Akhyra on the phone.

"I began spiraling down the moment I realized that she might not be picking up because something had already happened and I didn't make it in time. It brought me back to that night..." I trail off, unable to finish.

"The night I attempted," Maëlla softly concludes 

My head hangs low as my shoulders sag. "I'm sorry, we don't have to talk about this," I manage to get out.

"Hey none of that." My sister gets closer to me to take both of my hands inside of hers, forcing me to look into her eyes. "No secret. No shame. Remember?" 

"It felt so real," I continue in spite of the knot in my throat. "This feeling of powerlessness. That I'd arrive too late... I was reliving that night all over again. I couldn't figure out why bad things kept happening to people around me.

"Lucian..." she whispers in a pained voice.

"If I'm a bad person, bad things should happen to me, not to other people."

"You're not a bad person," she reprimands.

"We both know that's not true."

"Lucian, we already talked about this. You've gotta see a professional to help you deal with that guilt."

"A psy's not going to tell me anything that I don't already know Maëlla."

I don't need to pay someone to hold myself accountable for my actions. I know what happened in the past, and I know what part I played in it. 

As if sensing where my mind is going, my sister speaks up. "You are listening to the voice inside your head feeding you lies."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"This entire family fell apart because of me. That is the truth. Our mother won't even look at me anymore because I'm responsible for what happened to you."

She shakes her head vehemently. "That's not true."

"It is!" I cry out, and she jumps startled. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to yell." I get out of her bed, feeling her worried stare, tracking my movements. 

"Where are you going?"

"Just get ready, and I'm going to pick you up at seven."

When I get inside my car, I finally allow myself to break down. I'm unable to stop the flashbacks of that dreadful night from assailing me.

***

My sister attempted suicide on the day we celebrated her sixteenth birthday. My mother was working a night shift at the hotel, so preparing the birthday dinner was on me. 

This entire day Maëlla had been excited to visit all of her friends around town to spend some time with them. The dinner would only be a family affair because Maëlla always did something else with her friends afterward. 

I remember texting back and forth with her as I bought the ingredients for dinner at the grocery store that evening. 

I remember our silly argument about whether or not cucumber should be considered a fruit or a vegetable. Then she thanked me for being the first to make her laugh for real today. 

I remember how intriguing I found that message. I'd seen her this morning. She was radiating light and energy. She just couldn't wait to get out of the house and start visiting her friends. At the breakfast table, she even surprised Mom and I with a gift, and we both found it hilarious that she was gifting us on her birthday. 

So I couldn't understand why now she was implying that she hadn't laughed for real this entire day. It's almost like an alarm had gone off in my head, and I asked her if she'd fought with her friends. But something inside of me kept nagging at me, telling me that wasn't the issue. 

I decided I'd have a talk with her the next day as I didn't want to put her on the spot on her birthday and make her talk about things that she wouldn't want to.

When I got back home, I called out her name as I stored the aliments in the kitchen. When I got no answer, I went to check in her bedroom if she was asleep, but her bed was empty. She would have told me had she gone out, so the next place to look was the bathroom. Once again, when I called for her, I received no answer. I decided to open the door, just to make sure that she wasn't inside, but when I tried turning the knob I realized that it was locked. This confirmed my intuition that Maëlla was indeed in the bathroom. 

With a racing heart and a spiraling mind, I went to my mother's bedroom, where I knew she kept a set of keys for all the doors in our house. Something inside of me already knew what I'd found once I'd walked through that door, but part of me still refused to believe it.

Until I take my last breath, I'll always be haunted by what I saw when I finally entered the bathroom. My sister lay unconscious in a bathtub filled with water tainted red with her blood. 

All at once, I noticed the razor blade on the floor and drops of red staining the white ceramic tiles. The cry that came out of me then was anything but human.

I don't know how my feet brought me to her, but in an instant, I was inside the bathtub, holding her wet and cold body against mine, caressing her face with shaking fingers.

I sobbed like a wounded animal just like I am right now. 

When I hear the passenger door open, I don't have to look up to know that it's Maella coming to check on me. She was probably looking at me from her window after I bolted out of her bedroom.

She doesn't say anything. She simply sits there and lets me cry as if she knows that's all I need.

"I'm okay," I say after a while.

"No you're not," she whispers back at me. "And that's okay."