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And that was all I could take.
I stormed away.
I slammed my door.
And I knew things were about to get ugly.
Chapter Fifty-One
*
Aslan
*
(Moon in Nepali: Candrama)
“YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHO JUST MESSAGED ME,” Neri said with a smile, stepping into my room as if she owned the place.
“Leave the door open,” I muttered, saving my progress on my latest language app and closing the second screen where I’d been working my way through a math paper I’d found online that was said to be impossible.
It wasn’t impossible.
Frankly, it was easy, and the thrill of completing the page-long calculations had made my brain dance with colours. I’d slipped once—on The Fluke when Neri was doing her math homework a few years ago—and told her that numbers felt smooth to me. Liquid and silky, a pleasure to think about and untangle, but when she’d looked at me like I was lying or worse...making shit up, I’d swallowed down the rest of that truth.
The truth being, I didn’t just feel numbers, I saw them in colour. Technicolour with glowing edges and sparkling curves. Twos were orange, sevens were turquoise. Together, they conjured such a pretty shade that I got goosebumps whenever they appeared in an equation together. I think that was why I was so good at math. It was like a dance to me. A dance where I somehow inherently knew all the steps.
I hadn’t told Neri that part of myself for two reasons.
One, I didn’t want her to think of me as strange, and two...while it remained my little secret, I could pretend the gift came from my father: the father who’d raised me and filled my crib with number toys and games. I didn’t want to think that it might’ve come from my biological father. That this uniqueness might be hereditary and yet another thing I couldn’t escape.
“Why do you want me to leave the door open?” Neri asked quietly, frowning a little at my lack of enthusiasm.
Tossing my phone onto my pillow, I swung my legs to the floor and stretched, popping muscles that’d had enough of manual labour. This week had been insane. I’d spent hours scrubbing The Fluke so it was ready for its rest over Christmas. I’d run countless errands for Jack and spent days ordering new stock and supplies for the new year.
Lucky for all of us, tonight marked the start of our official holiday. Neri had finished school yesterday, and Jack and Anna were already celebrating with a bottle of champagne that they splurged on every year. A bottle with a drunk humpback on the label and the words ‘Whale Plonk’.
Plonk typically meant cheap and barely palatable wine, but this particular winery loved to use the word cheap when they really meant exorbitantly expensive.
“Aslan...are you okay?” Neri asked quietly, leaving the door open and stepping closer to me with a wary glance.
I didn’t want to be mean, but...I couldn’t keep choking on it. “You flinched last time we were together, or have you forgotten? I’d hate to make you feel uncomfortable by being alone with me.”
She gasped. “You know I didn’t mean to. You took me by surprise.”
“You would never have flinched before that bastard.”
“I was washing dishes. I didn’t hear you—”
“Exactly, Neri! You were washing dishes. And I was going to fulfil your very unique little fetish, but in one jolt you showed me that you’re lying to me.”
“I’m not lying—”
“You’re not talking to me, that’s for damn sure.”
“I am. I do. I just—”
“Look. Forget it. It’s not my place to get mad.” Scrubbing my face, I did my best to stop our fight before it escalated. “Who messaged you?”
