Once We Were Starlight

“I’ll call you later tonight, I promise. Braxton,” he murmured as he moved past my uncle.

I followed, ignoring Braxton when he said my name, hurrying to catch up with Zakai. “But wait, you just got here.”

Zakai glanced over my shoulder at where my uncle obviously still stood, watching us at the door. Zakai met my eyes, giving me a small smile as he leaned in, whispering in my ear the way he had once as we performed for the ones who watched. “I’ll sleep better tonight with you on my skin,” he whispered, and then he turned, opening the door to the apartment and stepping through it. I thought about grabbing him, begging him to stay, but I felt the eyes of my uncle on me, and forced myself to calm my scattered emotions. Zakai needed to make a good impression at his new home, and I needed to give him time and space to do that. Still, it hurt.

“Can I speak with you, Karys?”

I closed my eyes momentarily and then turned toward my uncle, walking to where he stood. “Of course.”

His gaze was stony, expression stern. “Listen, Karys, I know you’re used to”—he waved his hand toward my bedroom—“that. I know it was made to seem normal where you were, but it’s not. It’s not normal and it’s not okay. You’re seventeen, Karys. And Zakai is estimated to be about twenty, which is an adult. It’s inappropriate.”

I linked my hands in front of me, looking down. I felt confusion, shame in a way I never had before, not even with all the eyes upon me, judging and staring.

Inappropriate? My love for Zakai, or the physical expression of it? I recalled what we’d overheard from the two men outside the room we’d been in and felt a fresh wash of humiliation at the memory.

It was a sexual freak show for sickos who got their rocks off watching the grotesque and unnatural.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

My uncle let out a slow breath. “No . . .” He ran his hand through his hair. “Shit. Shoot, I mean.” He let out another exhale. “I’m asking you to be patient with me too. This is all . . . out of my purview. I know you’re struggling as well, Karys, and I want to make this easier on you, not harder. But . . . there have to be rules here. My job is to house and feed you, but also to look out for your best interests.”

Best interests. What he meant was: not Zakai.

Braxton reached out and took my hands in his. He stared at our joined fingers for a moment and my heart picked up. I felt strange, uncomfortable, but I wasn’t sure what to do. My uncle used his thumb to draw a circle on my skin, and then as if he’d done it without meaning to, dropped my hands like they had suddenly caught fire. “School starts in a week,” he said, running his hands down his hips. “College. It’s a very large gift Cody Rutland was able to procure, and an opportunity not everyone is provided. A lot has been stolen from you, but there are many good people willing to help put that in the past.” He met my eyes. “You have the chance to build a good life, a great one. You can be anything you want to be,” he told me, his voice full of surety.

I tilted my head. “Anything I want to be?”

“Right, like”—he looked upward as though thinking—“like a doctor or a lawyer or . . . an accountant like me. I work with numbers.”

“Zakai likes numbers.”

“Forget about Zakai.” He raised his hands and dropped them. “For now. Just . . . at least for now. Think about yourself, Karys. You have to try.”

“I can’t only think of myself,” I murmured. “I’m nothing without Zakai.”

His face morphed into pity. “That’s not true. It’s a lie. You’ve been told many, many lies, Karys, and as your family, it’s my job to help you recognize truth.”

The truth about me being nothing without Zakai? Had someone told me that? Haziq? No. If it was a lie, I’d told it to myself. Confusion descended. It felt heavy and uncomfortable. As stifling as the midday desert heat. I glanced out the window behind my uncle’s head where wind blew rain against the glass. The heat of the desert was just a memory.

“Karys,” Braxton said, drawing my name out. “Do you know what it means to be brainwashed?”

I eyed him for a moment. “No.” I’d never heard that word.

“Well, brainwashed means that you’re made to believe something that’s not true. Sometimes your feelings even follow those falsehoods.”

I continued to stare at him. Was he saying I’d been brainwashed into feeling the things I felt for Zakai? That felt as ridiculous to me as if he’d said I’d imagined each sunrise and sunset all of my life. The visions of those colors lived within me as vibrant and real as my love for Zakai.