Custom Made For You

Chapter 63- Well, Ain't This A Memory Roller Coaster

  "He's pretty cute up close," Ceb grinned at me.

"Gods, I get it, alright?" I pushed his arm jokingly.

The atmosphere went dead after that.

The other two men were having a pretty private conversation in the living room. Thus, it resulting the both of us in my room, sitting at the edge of the bed. We had a lot to say to each other, I guess, yet nothing came out. This wasn't what I had expected.

I stole glances at my brother, he's my brother today, I think. I didn't want to misgender them. "You a guy today?"

"Yeah, good job on guessing it correctly," he gave me a smile. "I'm a he right now."

"You wanna talk about what happened back then?" my mouth was faster than my brain. Yes, I was curious, but I should have known better not to fill in the silence with such sensitive topic.

He laughed softly, yet incredibly bitterly. "I guess this conversation was bound to happen. The day at the café was pretty bad."

"It's fine if we don't talk about it, if you don't want to," I shrugged, trying to play it off as cool as possible.

He repositioned himself on the bed, hands behind him, propping his body up. "No, I think it's only fair I tell you what happened. I guess you'd be curious too."

I shifted my body, turning to face him, my leg hanging off of the bed.

"I killed them because they were, well, planning to sell you,' he said, in such a calm matter it was spine-chilling to imagine how many times he had played out this scenario in his head. "I overheard them, days before I stabbed them. You were pretty asleep, it was right after that crazy old bastard nearly killed the both of us, again. Guess he couldn't do it because that him and that hag needed money for some stupid alcohol, I was the only one who could provide income."

He took a long pause, taking a deep breath, as if to tell himself to not get angered by the mere thought of what had happened.

He continued regardless, "They kept you alive because I threatened to call the cops on them."

"Why didn't you?"

He looked at me for a while, light reflecting of off his brown eyes, I almost felt bad for asking why.

"Because then we would get sent to the orphanage and it is a high chance we would get separated. I didn't want that."

"Where were all our other relatives then? Wouldn't they care?"

"We don't have contact with any of them. Some didn't want anything to do with us, others simply couldn't do it because of financial situations."

I looked down onto the mattress, "Oh. Sorry, continue what you were going to say."

"Anyway, I don't know what got over them. Maybe it was because me working three jobs at once wasn't enough money for them and their substance abuse, they were talking about selling you. They even had the buyer's contact number. Obviously, I found it and deleted it. They got mad, tried to kill me out of anger but you were the only thing standing between them and me. So they attacked you."

I flinched, bits of my memories of being strangled came flooding into my mind, flashing by, yet quick enough for me to catch glimpses of it, the world looked blurry for a second.

"You alright? Is this too much? Should I stop?" The next moment I knew he was shaking me on the shoulder.

I shook my head, gesturing for him to go on.

"You sure?" he looked for confirmation.

I nodded again. I knew I had to listen to everything.

"I froze for a second, not knowing what to do, it was out of my expectations that they would have done that. I panicked, looked around for a weapon. The only things available were empty liquor bottles. So I hit the old hag with the bottle, and, I'm guessing you know what happens next," his voice was wobbly.

"Do you..." I looked at him, confirming with my brain whether or not to proceed what I was about to ask. "Do you think they were always like that?"

He smiled, I saw his eyes glistened before he looked up to the ceiling. "No, I remember when we were really young, when you were still an infant, everything was going fine."

"What happened then?"

"His business failed, multiple times. He couldn't get up from his failures after those attempts. She was trying her hardest to support all of us at first too. But I guess the pressure got to her, and they somehow turned to substance abuse. I still remember her touch though, which is what disgusts me the most nowadays."

"Have you... Have you ever hated me?"

He turned his head to look at me again, straight in the eye this time, just like how he had at the bakery, his cold lifeless eyes bore into my soul. "Frankly, yes. You were the one reminder I hated when I realised that my world was tattered and torn. You reminded me about how loving and gentle she was, or how warm his smile was. But, eventually, I realised that it wasn't fair for you at all. You didn't ask to be born or to be treated the way you were. None of this was your fault and you shouldn't have had to suffer the consequences of any of our actions."

Looking away, he sighed, "So I started living for you, hoping that you would get out of that hellhole quickly, with at least a decent parental figure, which I decided to take on that role myself. I grew attached to you unwillingly though."

I didn't know what to say. It was a lot to have to absorb, having someone to literally narrate your pathetic life to you was pretty intense.

"I'm proud of you for making this far into life. It means none of my effort was in vain," he pushed himself back into sitting position. "Going to jail for you? Worth it."

I tried to swallow my saliva, yet my mouth was a dry as the Sahara Desert. I couldn't look at him, I was unable to.

I opened my mouth, about to eliminate the deafening silence that was only filled with the muffled conversation outside. My phone rang.

Airi.