“And what did you say?” he asks, scooping out powder and tipping it into the blender cup.
“The basics,” I answer, watching him closely. He flips the blender on, and for a few seconds, we’re drowned out with noise. He switches it off, tears off the lid and tosses it into the sink, before turning to face me and leaning on the counter.
“Which is?”
Alarmed by the vocal confidence that he’s spewing, my mouth slightly closes. You would assume that because we live together and have always lived together, that we would see each other often. We don’t. Brantley is never home. At least since Lucan died anyway. Up until that point, I would have been confident enough to say that he and I existed around each other. It may have not been a conventional friendship, but I knew he tolerated me. Since Lucan died, however, Brantley’s anger has only peaked, and I hardly see him now. I see him around the house maybe once every three months—if that—and when I do, it’s in passing. It’s not because we live in separate wings in this gigantic mansion, either, because we’ve always stayed on the same wing. The same hallway. There were two bedrooms on the third level of this house. One door led to his room, while the other to mine.
When I don’t answer him, he interrupts. “I didn’t hire urbane tutors for you throughout all of your homeschool life for you to not speak when I ask you something. Answer the question.”
My cheeks flare, and I watch as his eyes drop to the spray of pink now exposed over my skin. That was probably the longest thing he has ever said to me. Brantley communicates through his eyes, his body language, the way he walks and moves around the room before he uses his words. At least, that’s how it has always been with me. “I told her that I’ve been here since I was a child. That’s all.”
His fist clenches around the edge of marble, while my eyes follow down his thick arms, where purple and green veins pulse beneath his pale, untouched skin. “Did you go for a run?”
His finger taps against the counter. Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Is there something that she was supposed to say to me?”
He shakes his head, bringing his shake to his mouth and taking a swig. “Hmmm,” is all he says. His eyes move up and down my body. “What are you doing today?”
“The gardens.”
“We pay people for that.” He turns to tip out the contents, rinsing, and leaving it on the side of the drying rack.
“You know that I like doing it.” At those words, Brantley’s back freezes, the muscles beneath his skin instantly hardening.
He turns, taking the steps he needs to my chair and spinning me around until I’m facing him. I stop breathing, because he’s so close. I’ve never seen him this close before, at least not since I last cleaned the dried blood off his face when he fell asleep after I snuck into his room when I was ten years old. He never liked to talk about what was happening to him, and I never pushed him to talk.
I think I spoke enough to occupy both of us.
I think he hated me for it.
He’s so close that I can feel the warmth of his breath fall over my lips, and I do everything in my power not to allow my eyes to drop down to his own, or God forbid, his arms. They drop, because I’m not very good at this. Human interaction, that is. He knows that.
So when his mouth twitches ever so slightly, it throws me off-balance.
“What?” I whisper, hypnotized by the bow in his lip. How it swells, dips, and curves in all the right places.
“Yeah,” he says, pushing off the table while keeping me pinned to the spot with his glare. “Go get changed and meet me down here in thirty minutes.”
I’m still sitting, trying to catch the words he had said when he disappears upstairs. What does he mean, be ready? There have been few times that he has taken me out of the house, and all of those times were before Lucan died.
I make my way up to my bedroom, closing the door behind me. My room is in complete contrast to Brantley’s room, and the general aesthetic of this haunted mansion. Everything is white and beige. From my sheets, to my four-post bed, to the dresser and floor-length mirror. The curtains that cover the twin doors open out onto my little patio that overlooks the back of the house and the cemetery is the softest beige I could find. Not quite white, but not quite nude. I sleep with my doors open every night, even in the winter. I like to feel the cold while being warm in my bed.