AGE ELEVEN
“Over there?” Xan points at the path between the trees.
“Yeah,” I say without smiling, even though I want to. Badly. “Go fetch her.”
“Luna!” he calls for our cat as he disappears behind the trees. “Come out!”
His voice slowly fades, and I huff, throwing green M&M’s into my mouth. I’ll leave all the other colours for Xan.
Luna isn’t there. She’s at home sleeping by the fireplace – his, not mine. Mum would kill me before allowing me to have any pet.
But Uncle Lewis let Xan have Luna and after that, she became our cat.
She’s not missing, but I told Xan to come look for her because he was being a meanie. Since he hates the cold, I brought him out when it’s about to snow.
I sit at the rock at the entrance to the forest and grab a stick, then twirl it on the ground as I wait.
Earlier, I told Xander how much I hate being Mum’s daughter and that she’s stopping me from eating my favourite food.
“Ignore her; you’re beautiful,” he said while he was watching Kirian sleeping.
“I am?” I asked, staring at him with wide eyes.
His cheeks turned red before he nodded. “You’re the most beautiful girl I know.”
“Even more than Silver?”
“More than anyone.” He clutched Kir’s finger and my baby brother curled his fist around it.
That couldn’t be true; he was lying to me. Everyone says Silver is a Barbie doll with her golden blonde hair and pale blue eyes. She’s always elegant and majestic, while I’m just…me.
Fat and ungraceful. And I have some blemishes that won’t go away.
“You’re lying.” I pouted.
“Why would I lie to you, Green?”
My face heated and I twirled a strand of my hair. “You don’t think I’m fat?”
“No.” His sky-ocean eyes met mine. “You just like to eat and I like it when you eat.”
I hit his shoulder with mine. “Can you go with me to the grocery shop?”
“Later. I’m meeting Aiden and Cole for a football game.”
“But you did that last week.”
“We do that every week, Green.”
“But why? Who will keep me company?”
“You have Kir.”
“He’s a baby and I don’t think he understands when I talk.”
“I have to go.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Of course I can.” He pulled his hand from Kirian’s fist. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Green.”
I frowned, my forehead turning painful. He’d been saying all these things lately that made me want to punch him.
Since that day Mrs Knight left and never returned, Xan and I had become best friends. We had done everything together and had shared all our lives with each other.
Then he decided Aiden and Cole were more important than me.
“You can go meet Silver,” he said, watching me closely.
“Who I meet is none of your business.”
He pushed me out of Kirian’s room so we wouldn’t wake him up. Outside, he crossed his arms. “What are you being so angry about?”
“You don’t know?” I threw my arms around.
“No.”
Stupid tosser.
I wanted to be with him, but he wanted to be with his stupid friends. In that case, he could go to them and leave me alone.
I stormed to my room and slammed the door shut. I flopped on my bed, fuming, and attacked a bag of crisps I hid under the covers after Mum came to check on my room.
A moment later, a knock sounded on the door. “Open up, Green.”
His voice was steady, pleading even, and it almost made me want to let him inside.
I didn’t, of course.
Not until he knew what he did wrong.
“You’re being a baby,” he said.
“So leave me alone.”
“I don’t want you angry.”
Then don’t go to your stupid friends.
Whenever I was alone, my house felt so empty, like a horror film I had watched with Silver the other time. Ghosts had come out and had tried to suck the life out of any human in there.
Xan was the only one who kept those ghosts away when Dad wasn’t around. I didn’t want to be alone with Mum. She always looked at me as if she wished she’d never given birth to me.
Being with her was the worst, most real nightmare I’d ever had.
“I handpicked green M&M’s for you.”
My mouth watered, but I didn’t reply.
“I’ll leave the pack in front of the door. I’ll come back later, Green. We’ll watch a film together, okay?”
Don’t go.
The words slipped to the tip of my tongue, but I bit down on a mouthful of crisps to stop them from escaping.
I jumped up and watched him from the window as he headed to Aiden’s house down the street.
He really left.
Xan returned a while after and asked if I forgave him. I said yes, if he’d find Luna for me.
Which brings us to now.
Walking outside in the cold is his punishment for leaving me earlier. Once he spends some minutes out there, I’ll forgive him.
Silver said she came around here with her dad and that it was so freezing, she felt the cold and even sensed ghosts.
I grin.
Ghosts are good. Xan will be scared and –
Oh, no.
Ghosts.
Ever since Xan disappeared with Aiden and Cole three years ago, he doesn’t like to be left alone in unknown places.
I heard Uncle Lewis talking to Dad back then, and he said bad people kidnapped them. It took Xan two days of walking through an unknown forest until he could come home.
He snuck into our house through the servants’ entrance, got into my room, and slept with me for a month after that.
Although he didn’t like to talk much about that time with others, he told me how much it scared him to be alone out there.
That he called for his Mum’s help, even though he knew she wouldn’t come for him anymore.
I cried for him then. I just wrapped my arms around him and cried.
His pain is mine.
I feel it worse than he does because while he was simply telling the story, I felt every lash of cold against his skin and every tear he shed while he called his mother’s name in that unknown dark place.
I might have also kicked and screamed in my head at the people who took him to that place.
That’s how much I’m connected to him.
Why did I think it was a good idea to bring him to the cold and expose him to a situation similar to the one from that time?
Jumping to my feet, I follow the path he took. Twigs crunch under my shoes and I flinch as if someone grabbed me by the shoulder.
“Xan,” I call, keeping a straight line.
The more I walk into the forest, the colder it becomes, just as Silver said. Or maybe I’m imagining it.
“Xan, come out! Luna is home.” My voice breaks and I swallow.
There’s no trace of him, no matter how deep I get in.
“Xan!!” Tears fill my cheeks and my chest squeezes so hard, I’m afraid it’ll burst. “I’m so sorry! I won’t do it again. Please!”
I’m running now, my feet moving of their own accord as I cover all the road I know and even into a road I’ve never been on before.
There’s no trace of him.
I stop in the middle of the forest, tears streaming down my cheeks and slipping into my mouth. My unsteady legs barely carry me as I watch my surroundings, empty and desolate, and without him.
“Xaaan!”
What have I done?
After what seems like half an hour of fruitless searching, I go back home. I don’t know how I do it, but I manage.
Uncle Lewis parks at his driveway the moment I reach our street. Mum went out for a meeting with her agent, so it’ll take her a long time to return.
Not that she would care.
“Uncle! Uncle!” I run up to him and he meets me halfway, a frown creasing his brow.
“Xan is in there and he didn’t come back. He’s…he’s…” I’m breathing so harshly, I’m skipping over words and unable to form a coherent sentence.
Uncle Lewis grabs both my shoulders with his comforting hands and watches me with a calm, soft expression. “Take a deep breath, Kim, and speak slowly. Let’s try it, in, out. In. Out.”
I follow his instructions, inhaling and exhaling as slowly as I can. When I can speak, I blurt, “Xan disappeared into the forest, Uncle. I can’t find him.”
“Disappeared how?”
“He was searching for Luna,” I sob. “But she’s already home.”
“Okay, I’m sure he didn’t go far. Breathe, Kim.”
I nod frantically. “Please find him.”
I’ll do his homework for a year. I’ll give him all my M&M’s and even clean his room.
As long as he comes back, I’ll do anything for him.
“Angel?”
My breath hitches at Dad’s voice. He crosses the street as his driver closes the door.
If Dad is already home, that means it’s getting late.
Uncle Lewis straightens as Dad reaches us. My daddy is tall with sandy blond hair and rich brown eyes and he looks like the models from Silver’s magazines. He’s wearing his perfect suit that Marian spends a lot of time perfecting.
“Daddy!” I hug his waist, ruining his suit with my tears. “Please find Xan.”
“What happened to Xan?” His gaze strays from me to Uncle Lewis. They exchange a look I don’t understand as I repeat the gibberish from earlier.
“It’s my fault,” I cry. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t say that, Angel.” Dad strokes my hair behind my ear and kisses my forehead. “Let’s find him and I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”
“I’m sure,” Uncle Lewis echoes with a smile.
The three of us go back to the forest and search together. We go to where Xan and I were and try to cover the directions he could’ve taken.
All the way, I cry as Dad and Uncle Lewis tell me it’s okay and that we’ll find him.
We don’t.
The late afternoon turns into dusk and soon enough, the night starts to fall.
I don’t stop crying. Every time the tears begin to dry up, I think about the amount of fear Xander must be in and then a new wave hits me.
What have I done? What have I done?
“I’ll take Kim home,” Dad tells Uncle Lewis.
“What? No!” I shriek. “I’m not leaving until I find Xan.”
“Maybe he went to his house.”
“Ahmed would’ve called Uncle Lewis if he had,” I insist.
Dad hugs me to his side as he addresses Uncle Lewis, “Call the police. This could be another case like the other time.”
“I doubt it. He wasn’t the target back then, Aiden was.” Uncle Lewis sighs, his gaze straying towards me. “But yes, take Kim home. It’s getting cold.”
I struggle against Dad as he tries to drag me away. “No, Daddy. I have to find him.”
“You can’t, Angel.” Dad’s jaw tightens under the late dusk sun and I don’t know why that makes me cry harder.
I wiggle free from his hold before he can trap me in again.
“Kim!” he calls and his footsteps sound behind me.
No idea where I’m running, but I don’t stop.
I trip and slide down a small hill. My knee burns and stings, but I stand up and continue running.
“Xaaan!” I scream at the top of my lungs. I’m crying and running and heaving.
It’s almost like that time when Nana left me and I knew I’d never see her again.
Only, now, it’s worse because I’m the reason behind his disappearance.
I’m the reason he’s lost somewhere unknown while he’s cold and alone.
“Xan!” Something cuts into my ankle, but I keep running and calling his name.
Is this how he felt when his Mum got into that car and drove away? When she never looked behind as she left him?
A sob tears from my throat as I stand there, my chest heaving so hard, as if my heartbeat will come to halt any second now.
Just when I’m about to stop and let Dad catch me and take me home, I spot a figure by the cliff.
The denim jacket and the golden hair, the tall body and scrawny build.
It’s him.
At first, I think he’s staring down the cliff. But instead, he’s facing me, a hand in his pocket and his expression blank, haunted even.
His blue eyes are the emptiest I’ve seen since the day he lost his mum. He’s cold and so hollow, it’s scary.
“Xan!” I sprint towards him, tripping twice, but I manage not to fall to my butt.
I wrap my arms around his neck and hug him so close, I think I may suffocate him. “I’m so sorry, Xan. I didn’t mean to. I’m so, so sorry.”
He places a hand on my chest and shoves me away. It’s so angry and strong, I reel back with the movement.
I deserve that. I’m the one who put him into this in the first place.
I also deserve the deadly glare he’s giving me. Maybe I’ll have to do his homework for two years?
“Stay away from me.” His voice is thick, the harshest I’ve heard him talk.
Okay, so I’ll do the homework for three years.
“I’m so sorry, Xander.”
“Don’t say my name again.” He glares at me. “Don’t talk to me ever again.”
“Xan…” My voice breaks, and I approach him slowly. My heart is on my sleeves and I sniffle as I reach out a tentative hand and clutch the hem of his jacket. “Don’t make me. I’m sorry, okay? I’ll do anything as long as you forgive me.”
“Don’t touch me. You’re disgusting.” He shoves me so hard, I fall on my butt on the solid ground.
It doesn’t hurt.
Or it does, but it’s nothing compared to the pain of his words.
Or how I feel when he turns away and leaves, without a glance, without offering me his hand.
He left me.
And never looked back.
That day was the last day I called Xander my friend.
A week later, Luna was hit by a car and died.
Seven years later, the loss of them still beats under my skin, loud, hard, and unbearable.
