Upon entering the kitchen, I fight the urge to burst into fits of uncontrollable rage.
He's always there! The one person I've wanted since I admitted a crush to Vlad when I was seven became a huge fucking softie. He's always caring and cautious and he thinks im unbearable breakable. Like he's always guarding me. And he had to undergo this lobotomy right before we started messing around.
Then there's Alex. The one guy, aside from Vlad, who has continually understood me straight from the cradle. Another lobotomy.
My mother once told me a story about when I was a baby, and she had just met to Jovanoviks. The first day, my mother couldn't get me to stop crying, and I kept on screaming through hers and their mother's get together. Vlad wasn't born yet, their mother was actually pregnant with him, but Alex was about two. He's probably getting annoyed with my wailing, so he goes into my nursery room, and knowing Alex, he was probably reading so he didn't want noise or anything (apparently he'd been really advanced as a kid), he probably wanted to knock my head off. But all he did was sit by my crib and start reading me his book. And apparently that was all I wanted, to hear someone's voice. When Vlad was born about a year later, and I was older and Alex was three, our mothers claimed, predicted even, that wed be stuck with each other. And so it has been. Alex the researching de facto leader who always knows something about everything, Vlad the slightly naïve mindreader, not to mention the only one of us who isn't afraid of love, and Delaina, the smartass telekinetic who challenges everything, even fate. The three of us have been good together for awhile.
Until Alex graduated high school. To everyone's surprise, he didn't jump on the college bandwagon. He traveled. Hitchhiked actually. We were freshman, Vlad and me, constantly worrying about Alex. We were always the more stable, you know? He hitched all the way to New York, and we hadn't heard from him for almost a year. He comes back to us, meets with us privately, and tells us of an organization he's brought back to Chicago. He had gotten money, which he'd acquired on his own, aside from his and Vlad's seemingly infinite trust funds, and bought a house on some sidestreet of inner city Chicago and started a new branch. Vlad and I took the door test first, as our abilities became running inside jokes for years. Vlad's mind surfing like we were the Internet, my scaring the shit out of them by making the room shake whenever they pissed me off, Alex and his knowing whenever we were lying, but never getting about what...
I hear footsteps. I immediately turn around.
It's Alex, standing by the stove.
"Hey, Delaina, are you okay?" he says, actually sounding concerned.
"I'm fine." I answer coldly. As if he wouldn't know I was lying. Stupid me.
"Delaina...come on. Talk to me." He sits me down at the little kitchen table in the corner and looks at me like he really wants to know.
Oh great. That's just what the world needs. Alex trying to get in tune with a woman's emotional needs. For some reason, I feel like he's taking romantic advice from Vlad. Also a novelty. The guy who knows everything, or likes to think so, is taking advice about matters of the heart from his little brother.
"I don't want to talk about it." That's the truth. I don't want to vent about boys to a guy who I've heard from the world has feelings for me. Awkward much?
"Okay, I guess." I have never heard him use the words I guess in my entire life. Since when has he ever been at a loss?
"Do you want to just...sit here then?" he asks, totally serious.
To my surprise, it isn't that bad of an idea.
We just sit there, for about five minutes, until the novelty of the silence dies out.
"So..." I trail off.
I don't know when it happened, but Alex and I just stopped knowing what to say to each other. Vlad has a theory that we don't know what to say because we have deep seated feelings for each other. And we hide these feelings, me in meaningless relationships with guys like Michael, he with practically a hermit existence, living inside books. I think his theory is pure bullshit, to be honest. Not that I haven't considered it from all angles.
"Yeah...so...I think I'm going to see what Vlad's up to..." I get up and head for my room, which was where I last saw him.
"Umm...Delaina?" he blurts out. Another first.
"Yeah?" I turn around.
He just looks at me, simply, like he just doesn't know what to say. Or worse, like he does know what to say, but can't say it. I've had those moments around him before.
He sighs. "Never mind."
"Okay, so I guess I'll see you later then." I walk out and head very quickly for my room and open my door, trying to get the confusedness out of my head.
I enter my room, where I am greeted with the most sickeningly adorable sight in the world.
Cameo's knocked out in Vlad's arms, and he's simply watching her sleep. Considering the way she looks and the hell she's been through for the past few days, finding out she's not quite human and all, she needs the sleep. And considering he's been watching her go through all this while he falls ever harder for a girl who feels more and more like a little sister, so does he.
"I resent that, Delaina." Vlad looks up at me and talks quietly so not to disturb Cameo.
"What did she call you in here for?" I ask, curious as to the answer.
"She wanted to get away from the questions really. She doesn't know quite how to handle all the pressure yet. And she...wanted to ask me what the kiss meant."
"No way. What did you say?" I ask. God, I become such a teenager sometimes. Wait, I am a teenager. Oh.
"She finally got tired, like not from an extensive zone out trip, so I decided to stay and make sure nothing happened. I just decided to lie down here. She's the one who got close."
"I'm pretty sure you're not complaining. But what did she say??" I ask, now very excited for the both of them.
"We're officially together, if we weren't really before. We decided that a few minutes before she fell asleep. I'm really worried about her, actually. The ghosts and all."
"She'll be fine, Vlad. I promise." I hope I can keep that promise. He was always the younger brother to me, the sibling figure Alex never was. Alex was always a different kind of figure for me.
"I hope so." He says this like he knows I know there's a chance I can't keep that promise, like it's just words. But he understands why. He always does.
"Now, Delaina, what happened with Alex?"
Here we go again.
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