WRONG NUMBER | NIKI

11 - Try Not to Fall In Again

What do you think of me?

The question follows me home and settles itself into the quiet corners of my mind with infuriating determination, refusing to remain where I'd left it beside the swimming pool. It lingers through the walk to the school gates, through the polite goodbye we exchanged with surprising awkwardness after finishing the last of the inventory, through the ride home where I spent twenty minutes pretending to read the same page of my chemistry textbook while not absorbing a single word written across it. Every time I try forcing my thoughts somewhere safer, they circle back with remarkable efficiency until I'm staring absentmindedly out the window again, watching the city dissolve into streaks of afternoon sunlight.

What do you think of me?

It should have been an easy question. I should have been able to answer immediately. You're irritating. You talk too much. You make assumptions. You notice things I'd rather people didn't notice. You smile at the worst possible moments. Instead, every answer my mind offers arrives immediately followed by another memory determined to contradict it.

The boy everyone describes as cold had wrapped both arms around me without hesitation when I couldn't breathe.

The boy everyone calls distant had sat beside me in complete silence because he'd somehow understood that conversation would've been unbearable.

The boy I'd accused of surrounding himself with dangerous people had thanked me for replacing a bandage as though I'd done something extraordinary instead of something painfully overdue.

None of it fits. It's like trying to solve a puzzle whose pieces insist on belonging to entirely different pictures. The realization should probably make me uncomfortable; instead, it makes me curious, which, somehow, feels infinitely more dangerous.

The car glides through the iron gates of my grandfather's estate just as the late afternoon sun begins melting into shades of amber across the sky. The driveway curves gracefully through acres of meticulously trimmed gardens, every hedge sculpted into impossible perfection, fountains spilling silver ribbons of water into marble basins polished so frequently they reflect the clouds overhead. Even after visiting this place for as long as I can remember, the house still possesses the unsettling ability to make me feel small before I've even stepped inside. It rises from the center of the property like something belonging to another century, enormous windows catching the fading light until the entire building seems dipped in gold, while rows of luxury cars already line the circular entrance where uniformed attendants greet arriving guests with practiced smiles.

Tonight isn't technically a family gathering. Officially, we're here to celebrate the launch of a new cosmetics line under the company my grandfather built from nothing more than a single laboratory nearly forty years ago. 

Investors have been invited. Business partners. Executives. Friends important enough to become honorary family whenever expensive champagne is involved. Somewhere inside the ballroom, speeches will be made, photographs taken, contracts quietly discussed over crystal glasses while everyone congratulates one another for accomplishments achieved almost entirely by people wearing name badges instead of tailored suits.

My father straightens his tie before the driver has even opened the car door. My mother smooths invisible wrinkles from the skirt of her dress. I catch my own reflection in the tinted window beside me and wonder, not for the first time, whether I've ever looked genuinely excited arriving here.

The answer presents itself almost immediately. No.

The entrance hall smells faintly of polished wood, fresh lilies, and expensive perfume. Staff members move through the mansion with the effortless coordination of people who have rehearsed every detail long before the first guest arrived, silver trays balanced gracefully between conversations while soft classical music drifts from somewhere deeper inside the house. Crystal chandeliers scatter warm light across marble floors so immaculate they almost seem untouched by footsteps, and portraits of relatives whose names I've memorized but never truly known watch silently from gilded frames lining the staircase.