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My stay with my sister was more freeing than it had been hiding out in Sylvester’s flat. Because I was in a different city, I felt further away from my problems. I also felt less visible. It was also humbling to not have a driver at my beck and call – to have to try and hail normal taxis and make small talk with the drivers.
It was nice. My sister, for all her personal issues, had more of a ‘real’ life then I’d ever be able to hope for. She bought groceries at a market, drank at a dive bar with her friends and girlfriends, watched reality TV with her neighbor Billy. For a while, it was nice to experience her life instead of my own.
One morning, I was cooking breakfast for us both, when Juniper waltzed in, fresh as a daisy despite her late night. “How are you going to win back Ria, then?”
I spluttered on the orange juice I was sipping. “Excuse me?”
Like I hadn’t heard her, she repeated more slowly: “How... are you going to win back Ria?”
I set my glass down on the side and prodded the bacon in the frying pan. “I’m not sure that’s an option.”
“That’s always an option.”
“Could your ex-girlfriend have wonyouback? When we had to get your stuff out of her place?”
“Sure she could! But not the way she was going about it.”
I turned off the gas on the hob and turned around to pay attention. “Explain it to me.”
Juniper seemed thrilled to have been asked. She crossed her legs onto the chair and leaned forwards across the table. “Alright. Well, I’d been having issues with her for a while. She’d blow things up, get dramatic too quickly over small things. And she’d always hold stuff over my head, like ‘I did this thing for you, so you should do this thing for me’ or ‘I’m not going to do this thing for youuntilyou do this thing for me’.”
I remembered our visit: “What, like, ‘I’m not going to give you back your possessions until you take me back’?”
Juni slammed her palm into the table with enthusiasm. “Hot damn, exactly like that! And,and, that’s my point. I’d brought this stuff up with her, how she was always trying to bargain and exchange, how it was like she was tallying up the things we did for each other, how it made me feel on edge, etcetera. But she always got defensive, argued. She never listened and improved. It wasn’t a deal-breaker, her always tallying things up. She didn’t seem to realize she was doing it – she couldn’t help it. But it was the fact that she never took it on board when I brought it up. She could’ve worked on it slowly and I’d have helped. But because she would never admit she was doing anything that was hurting the relationship, we could never work on it. Andthat’swhy I wouldn’t take her back.”
I was silent while I processed what she’d just said. Juni crept in around me and stole some bacon out of the pan, returning to sit at the table and munch it out of her hands, caveman-like.
After a few minutes of thinking it over, I snapped into action. “Juni, help me pack my stuff. I have to get to the airport right now.”
She punched the air. “Yes! Billy’s gonnalovethis development.”
“Okay, but tell him after I’ve gone, please?”
She nodded, and we got to work. We gathered my stuff and rushed downstairs to hail a cab. Juni threw my stuff into the cab along with her blessing: “Give Ria a hug from me. She’s smoking hot!”
And then I was off.
Before I could hope to make anything right with Ria, I had to make things right with myself. And, by giving into Apollo’s dirty tactics, I’d betrayed myself and everything I stood for.
Therefore, as soon as I got off the plane, I had my driver pick me up and drop me off outside Apollo’s offices.
Then I marched into the reception area.
Here goes nothing.
Helli looked up from her computer. Seeing me of all people stood so nonchalantly in Apollo’s reception, she had the decency to gasp.
I was pulling no punches today. “Get my half-brother here. Now.”
A member of security yelled to the others. “Code red! Seal the doors! Shut this place down!”
Helli stood up, bolt upright. “Mr Brock isn’t answering his phone. I’ll go and fetch him personally.” She turned on her heel and swiped her ID at the door to the elevator.
And I waited.
The security figured out, eventually, how to activate ‘code red’. The entrance sealed over with a security shutter, and all the inner doors slammed shut and locked. A red alarm blared the most obnoxious siren.
Then, my half-brother, Apollo Brock, walked through the door that Helli had left by.
