Antilove

Sedici

CAPITOLO SEDICI

a sudden move downhill

***

ONE OF THE standing, prominent moments embedded in the far recesses of Rose's limbic system was when she was just adopted.

    Rose can't remember the date quite clearly—it's fuzzy around the corners but she can dig up some documents. She doesn't want to, though, because she hasn't touched the bottom section of her second closet since her mom passed.

    The memory, in detail:

    Mom driving. Rose in the back. Jacket over her lap. Dad as the passenger. He was looking back at her with a wink as he told her about the cool things they'd do as a family. The window was cracked a bit down. Wind slipped through her unruly mass of hair. Slipped into her lungs. Made her nervous. Made her excited.

    They were driving through a winding road, double-laned, and lined with green and blue. Tree and the coast below. At six years old, Rose had only ever known one home and that address was located in Nevada, in a rundown neighborhood. She had never seen the sea like this, never felt the air like this, and more importantly, never had a view like this. Never had parents like this.

    It was too early to form bonds and almost, just almost too early to form memories. But on that day, she did.

    The family hadn't always lived in the city, they started out in the suburbs. Rose went to school the next month and she hated it. Public school was horrible on her introvert attributes and she never really developed out of that.

    "Rose?"

    His voice is hesitant, as if he could see the reflection her pupils projected.

    Lucien has always looked beautiful but it changes with the time of the day. In the mornings, he's the essence of effortlessness and clean skin. Towards noon, he's condensation from a hot shower and in afternoons, he's rolling clouds over storming waves. And at night, Rose has the privilege to see him as rosé splashed on silk sheet.

    "What?" she replies and turns on her side. She's just gotten up from an after lunch nap and spent the past quarter hour staring out her sliding floor-to-ceiling windows she has in her living room.

    "You alright?" he asks.

    The smell of his sweat reaches her nose and she sees that he's just been to the gym, towel and shirt in hand as he heads to the shower.

    "Just thinking," Rose says. Absentmindedly, she starts drawing circles on the strip of skin between her shirt and her shorts.

    "I'll be right out and we can think together," he says. "Among other things to do as a pair."

    "By the time you're done, I'll be asleep."

    "That works too, since I'm in your dreams."

    "Smoother than gelato, aren't we?" Rose says without missing a beat.

    "I taste just as good, too," Lucien adds.

    Getting the pillow her head left a print on, she throws it at him. He dodges and it hits the potted plant behind him, but thankfully, doesn't topple it over. Lucien gives a deep chuckle and walks off as Rose gets up from her retreat on her couch. She gives a quick peek at the time and realizes she's only slept for half an hour.

    Groggy, she digs out a bottle of water from the fridge and downs it with two aspirins. True to his word, Lucien returns just as she's packing away the groceries she got this morning. Without even a word, he joins her in putting the fruit in the bottom drawer.