I didn’t listen to the cliff nightmares.
I shook those off.
Now I’m here. My guilt for disregarding my dad’s advice is apparent. I know that’s what this is.
Roughly, I wipe at my eyes.
These are harder to experience every night. Harder to wake up from. I understand I’m fighting against my own happiness and it’s tearing me apart from the inside out.
Reaching over to the nightstand, I switch a knob to a lamp. Sweat coats my bare chest, and the warm light illuminates the ink along my upper bicep, shoulder, and upper chest: a tattoo of a snake twisted around red roses and yellow flowers, the latter being the national flower of Thailand called golden shower, or Cassia Fistula.
I go to grab my phone but accidentally touch my wallet. Leaning out of bed, I curl my fingers around the brown leather and study the wallet under the lamp. My thumb runs over the burned number in the left corner.
9.
Banks gifted me the wallet for my recent birthday. I breathe in a strained breath. Grief rolling through my body, I don’t go back to sleep.
I climb out of bed.
Going through the motions, I leave my room, shower, put on my radio, and make a protein shake. By the time light hits the sky, I’m just waiting for Luna to text me when she’s leaving the penthouse.
Her Introduction to Economics for Business course meets on Tuesday and Thursdays, and I sit behind her assigned seat. I tried to talk my way out of paying a fee to sit-in on the lecture—I’m not really there for school, anyway—but it was a no-go. The price of auditing that class is now added into Kitsuwon Securities’ P&L sheet.
At the kitchen bar, I search through social media for any threats towards Luna.
Comms crackle in my ear. “Banks to Thatcher, I’m heading out to Jersey with Sulli.”
“Copy,” Thatcher says quickly over the radio.
I frown. New Jersey.
What’s Sulli doing in New Jersey? Are they going back to Atlantic City to gamble again?
I shouldn’t ask.
You can ask, Nine.
I take a tight breath and text Banks. What’s going on in New Jersey?
Casual. Very casual. I’m just a boss checking in on one of my guys and his client. That’s all this is.
Seconds later, I get a reply.
Neurologist. – Banks
Shit.
Shoot.
He’s finally doing it.
Instinct overpowers logic, and I quickly jump up and grab my jacket. With one hand, I text back: Where?
54
AKARA KITSUWON
Nerves are in overdrive when I show up to the doctor’s office. Especially when I see her.
Sulli pops up from her seat in the waiting room. Her green eyes tunnel through me with surprise and confusion and weeks I’ve missed.
I spent over five years protecting her. Years with Sullivan Meadows. Years at her side. Years hearing her laugh. Years feeling her knuckles press into my arm. Years seeing her climb to the top again and again.
Years with her love. Years with our love.
Whenever I screwed up and we fought, she was still there.
This time, leaving her detail has wrenched me away from those years. Left me looking to my left and right and there’s no Sullivan. No laughter, no playfulness, no competitiveness, no love. Just empty.
A void that I created.
A void that’s killing me slowly with every passing day. Each hour without Sulli is a brutal millennium.
The waiting room is mostly empty. Hovering near Sulli is a temp bodyguard that I employ. Seeing me, he arches his shoulders, lifts his chin. On his best behavior. He gives her enough space.
And he gives me space to approach.
I stop a few feet away. Resisting with all that’s in me not to step closer. Not to open my arms for her. Not to pick her feet off the floor and spin her around like we’re reuniting after forever.
She halts suddenly, mimicking me. “Hey,” she breathes softly.
I haven’t really heard her voice in a while.
I miss you, Sul.
Pressure bears down on my chest. Air is too thick to inhale. “Hi,” I manage.
Her green eyes carry longing and sadness, and I caused that. It cuts me up. Bleeds me out. I push my hair back and then put on a black beanie.
“I didn’t think you’d come.” She gathers her hair into a messy bun. “I mean, I fucking knew you asked where the doctor’s office was, but I thought maybe you’d just Google Maps it and stay home.”
“It’s a big deal. I want to be here.”
“Even though you’re not dating us anymore?” She snaps the hair-tie and crosses her arms.
I glance over my shoulder. Behind a desk, a receptionist is on the phone, back turned to us.
Sulli catches me looking. “You’re afraid she might hear?” She intakes a hot breath. “Kits, I’d scream it from the rooftops, if I could. It’s the fucking truth. We were together. I know you want to erase it from your memory like it never happened—”