Bully stepbrother

77. Resumption

MADISON

The two words 'new year' have never held meaning in my life.

I've heard people discussing New Year's resolutions, but it never bothers me to stop and think for a second about the term.

I didn't believe in progress or anything related to that.

Yes, I had a new dad, a well-furnished home, extravagant clothes, and a driver taking me to and from school. Of course, my situation had improved. I was rescued from my past life. But with all those luxuries life offered, it also brought me Caden: who made sure I never enjoyed all those grateful things around me.

So as I said, the term new year had never made meaning.

All those years I wake up to people bantering about how rough and fast the past year had gone, and how hopeful they are about the new one. But for me, I find the new year just another normal day. It was like I was stuck in a rerun dream, where I keep reliving the same day, only I get to change clothes and meals.

I thought the only transition between my former and new year was the change of the last numbers of the calendar year.

Until this new year, I felt reborn.

It was as if I was granted a new start.

I was married to the boy I've hated for four years. The only boy I ever knew. The boy I share a wall with, back home and here in Palo Alto. That same boy I gave my virginity to for no specific reason. And wanted to do it again and again and again. My bully, my tormentor, and my very own stepbrother wired specifically for me.

He had been nothing but poetry ever since New Year's Eve.

We had gone on a road trip to Lake Tahoe and spent a week at the cozy and quiet habitat, for we both have jobs that can't wait forever.

The experience was refreshing and self-rejuvenating. We made sure to bask in every moment of it.

The second week into the new year, we tried to work on our schedules, like school resumption, our jobs, dinner, and helping Caden catch up on the classes he had missed from last year.

This sometimes makes me angry at both him and me for not covering that last year. Though I doubt if last year had spared us peace and time enough to do that.

However, amid all those, we had made sure our craving for each other was unscathed. We'd cuddle and take a short nap as soon as we get home, before doing homework.

We would watch a single episode of Shadow and Bone and resist the craving of clicking into the next because we have dinner to make.

At night we would curl up in bed, with our legs tangled, and doze off to Caden's Greek myth stories.

As I said, this year turns out quite a new one. I am enamored by him.

It was on Wednesday morning when Caden and I were attending Child Development Study, and Mom wouldn't stop texting me over the honeymoon details she pressed me into feeding her.

The professor had focused on discussing early child health and behavioral developments.

"There's no better investment than investing in early health and child behavioral development," he had said.

"In that case, elders could understand the child's emotional attitude, mental disorders, and behavioral nature. Humans have personal experience with development; it is why we sometimes have difficulty in figuring out how or why humans change or act as they do. Does that behavior have anything to do with age phase, natural behavior, or family relationships?" the professor had also added.