"and for a moment

Cassius's apartment was a strangely plain-looking one. Almost one as cosy-looking as Luce's from the outside.

I don't know what exactly I had been expecting. Maybe something like the Hawthorne mansion? But how would I know? Cassius probably wanted a normal life here. And maybe he did get one.

"Are you okay?" I turned around from the receptionist guy after retrieving the closed apartment keys. They were still under Cassius's name even if Cassius had left this place a long time ago--according to the landlord.

"Yeah." Alastair was already looking at me, his voice and his eyes both so unsure.

It'll be okay, I wanted to tell him. But how could I be so sure? We didn't know what exactly we were going to find in Cassius's apartment. We didn't even know what we were looking for in the first place.

"Okay." I briefly nodded before holding up the apartment keys in the air. Alastair took his time to take it from my hand. "Let's go."

When we reached upstairs to the apartment door at the furthest end of the hallway, we both stopped in front of it. Alastair seemed to be holding his breath, and if not for that, I could see his anxiousness with the way he seemed to be dragging his hands through his hair, messing it up even further.

So I took his hand and held it tight. He squeezed back for a brief moment before reaching out and unlocking the door.

I waited for him to enter, then followed him.

The apartment was as plain-looking as any other. Like I said, I didn't exactly know what I was expecting. My eyes flitted across the slightly messed up state of it. That seemed to give the only hint of someone living here before leaving it abandoned. Like the worn-out looking afghan sprawled on the couch. Or the dirty pair of boots near the front door. The dirty dishes in the sink too. It was all so comically opposite from Alastair's clean, tidy apartment. I nearly smiled at that.

I noticed when Alastair's hand slipped away from my own as he walked slowly towards one of the tall glass windows. There, I saw, was a photo frame sitting on the sill. Alastair picked it up and I faintly recognised it as a family photograph from the distance.

I turned towards the tiny kitchen and saw a handful of unopened mail on the counter. Slowly drifting through them, most were bills and payments and mortgages. The one at the top, however, was from a package delivery site. Not thinking twice about it, which I maybe should've done, I opened the envelope and pulled out the letter. My eyes scanned through the words and all I could understand was that Cassius had shipped some sort of package to--

"Knightsridge," I whispered in surprise.

--and the shipping company was saying that due to some minor error, the package had gone missing. I stopped reading after that.

"It never reached Knightsridge." I continued, thinking and thinking and my eyes widened. It was the package that got delivered to Luce's apartment. But how?

"What are you looking at?" Alastair asked me. I turned around and saw that he was not standing by the windows anymore, but behind me.

"Just a few mails." I shrugged. "Complicated. Did you go through the bedroom?"

He blinked and stuffed his hands inside his leather jacket. "I don't...I don't think I want to go in there."

I stared at him but I didn't push him. "Okay. Do you want to...head out?"

He merely shook his head at me, his brows furrowed just a little, almost as if he did want to head out of here and never come back. I couldn't imagine what must've been going through his head right now.

"Let's sit down then." I suggested. He looked over at the couch then nodded slowly.

When we both were seated on the couch, I gave him the bunch of unopened mail. "Look through this," I said. "Maybe you'll find something that'll help us."

He took it from me, just as quiet as before, and it worried me. I wanted him to say something. I wanted him to tell me if this was too much for him. How else would I know if it was getting too much for him? Not until it breaks. Not until he breaks.

"What is that?" Alastair's voice broke me out of my panicked thoughts.

I followed his gaze to the small coffee table in front of us and saw a cardboard box, with no lid, filled with papers.

So I took it out.

"Looks like..." I trailed off, rummaging through them. "Oh. Letters."

Cassius's writing was rushed and scrawny, almost exactly like the state of his apartment. I started reading them and passing them on to Alastair.

Most were old and chalky for some reason. The words on them were either smudged or fading. The only ones that made sense were the ones that felt too heavy. As if he was here. As if Cassius was here and speaking and alive.

"Read them out." Alastair nudged my shoulder, refusing to take it from me. He had his hands stuffed in his pockets again.

So I read the first one. Which also happened to be the last one Cassius wrote.

"Alastair," I read, pausing for a second before continuing again. "I'm scared to see you again. I know that's probably foolish of me. But I haven't seen you in...years. And you don't remember me."

I stopped and looked at Alas. His expression was pained but he didn't say anything.

"It feels a little empty when I think about that. About you not remembering me. I know you don't remember, but I always hid in your shadow when we were kids. You kept me safe because the world was scary. Still is. And you kept me safe from Mother and Father. But now it feels empty because we're not kids anymore. And you don't remember me."

I sighed and tried to read the rest, but the graphite pencil was already smudged.

Except for the few words in the end. "What I mean to say is, I'm terrified to see you. And not because you might not recognise me. I know you will. But because I think I may not be able to..." I cleared my throat, a little horrified at the next few words. "...I think I may not be able to hold onto the broken strings anymore."

Did he know he was going to die?

The letter finished and I glanced at Alastair. He had his head tipped back against the couch. He still didn't say anything. So I moved to the next letter. This one was addressed to Alastair too.

"I found the book Ma used to read to us," I read. "I know you'll remember this. So beautiful and sad, like music."

Alastair's tattoo, I realised. I leaned a little against Alastair's shoulder and moved on to the next one.

"Ma gets a little scary when I visit her," I continued. "She talks and talks and she keeps reminding me of Father. I visit her almost every day. I tell her that I forgive her but I think she doesn't believe me. I think she knows I'll never forgive her or father. They made you forget me, Alas."

I skipped the next few, not wanting to read them. They weren't written sadly. Most were of Cassius recalling some of his favourite memories. And perhaps that was the most upsetting thing.

I picked up another one at the bottom this time, and read, "I remember the first time Ma let me play on her piano. You were so excited when you heard me play. You wanted me to teach you how to play that one melody. And I did. Father wasn't happy when he saw you playing it. He wasn't happy with me because I taught you. I guess he was never happy with me anyway."

I stopped, inhaled deeply, then took the last one. "Alastair," I read. "Do you think just because I can't see the colours in people, no one else can see them in me either?"

"Father used to say that. I think he wasn't right. You told me he wasn't." I finished reading it and pushed it away.

The next few seconds went by in total silence. When I pulled away from Alastair, with the box of letters still on my lap, I faced him and saw that he had his eyes closed, his head tipped back, his hands still stuffed in his pockets.

I opened my mouth to say something but stopped, my heart nearly breaking when I saw a small tear running down the corner of his eye.

"Alas," I whispered, reaching out my hand to brush it away from his face. He opened his eyes and held my gaze. I saw so much, so many, in his eyes. I didn't say anything else. I didn't think it would've mattered. But I held his gaze and I held onto his hand, just so he'd know I was here. I'll always be.

He sniffled and nudged our intertwined hands towards the box on my lap. "What about the others?"

I looked down and started pushing all the similar letters aside. There were a few larger ones at the bottom.

"Diagnostic reports," I murmured, pushing a few aside to take a better look.

Alastair straightened up and eyed me, waiting.

I read the only words that seemed to make any sense."Monochromatism. Achromatopsia." I think I knew what that meant.

"That's..." Alastair started but trailed off, his eyes a little wide.

I swallowed uneasily. "Cassius was colourblind."

"He could only see black and white and...grey." His voice broke and my heart raced. "I...the visions I used to have, Ophelia. They used to be all black and white."

I felt my eyes stinging so I looked back down at the reports. God, this was way more complicated than any of us thought.

One of the reports were highly detailed. I kept reading and reading and felt sicker as the seconds went by.

"Physical and mental abuse," I whispered, then looked up at Alastair. "He went through physical abuse his whole childhood."

******

Alastair told me that he wanted to leave Cassius's apartment, not too long after I read Cassius's diagnostic reports to him.

We locked the door and we left everything inside. The letters. The reports. The unopened mail. Every last thing that belonged to Cassius.

Alastair told me that he had to go somewhere. He didn't tell me where. And even though I wanted to push him, ask him to tell me what exactly he was planning to do, I didn't. I gave him space because I knew he needed it.

And when he stopped his car in front of my house, I turned in my seat to face him, parting my lips to ask him something. He looked at me and there was something in his eyes that told me he really needed to go. That he needed to do this alone.

"I'll...I'll see you later then," I told him unsurely. "You'll call me, right?"

I was scared. Maybe even terrified. I didn't want him to do it alone, whatever that he was going to do. He'd leave me, a tiny voice spoke in my head again and again and again until I couldn't help but believe in it a little.

"I will." His expression softened and he reached out to brush the back of his knuckles against my cheek. So soft. Just like a whisper gone too soon.

When the silence between us stretched and stretched into a cord too thin, I decided that I'll trust him on this one and left him in his car, going inside my house and watching from the lounge windows as he drove away.

"Not joining us for dinner then?" Mum asked me as her gaze drifted to the car driving away from us in front of our house.

I shook my head. "Not tonight, Mum."

I spent the rest of the day pacing and stressed and panicking out of my mind. Alastair didn't call me or text me and soon night came by. Mum was convinced something was going on with me when I barely ate anything at dinner.

"What's wrong?" Dad asked me as I glanced at the windows for probably the umpteenth time, hoping I'd see Alastair's car. Or maybe just him. "You've been looking through those windows for almost an hour now."

"Nothing." I waved him off with a short, nervous laugh. "I'm just...waiting for someone?"

Dad raised his brows before patting my shoulder. "Okay. But your brain might burn up if you keep thinking and worrying too much."

He was right. By the time the clock ticked ten pm in my bedroom, I was exhausted out of my mind. I hadn't done anything about my homework, which was fine since I had a day off tomorrow anyway, or done anything productive at all. If overthinking was counted as productive, then yeah, sure.

So I laid down on my bed and I kept thinking about Alastair and Alastair until my eyelids drooped and sleep tugged at me, enveloping me whole.

I slept restlessly, falling in and out of weird, bizarre dreams, all until I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing.

I didn't think twice before answering it.

"Alas!" I spoke up in a gasp, relieved.

"I'm here." His voice came from the other end, soft and a little unsure. "I'm at the...at the beach."

"The what?" I exclaimed in a whisper. "Alastair--"

"I just needed some time to think." He cut me off, sounding a little irritated. "I called you to tell you...well, I knew you'd be worrying still."

"I am."

"Don't then. I'm fine."

I blinked into the darkness of my room. "But you're not really fine, are you?"

I heard the sound of water and waves on his end. It sounded much closer than I would've liked.

"I'll be." He told me.

I wanted to go over to the beach right at this moment, see him and make sure he was fine and not hurting and not breaking apart. I wanted to go there. But the beach, well, I avoided that place usually. The sea and the waves scared me a little. The huge, slippery boulders too. Whenever we used to go there as a family, I used to stay far behind in the sand, too hot or too cold and a little scared. Water scared me sometimes. The sea more than the rest.

"Will you be careful there?" I asked him.

"Of course."

"And...and don't go too far into the waves. Or the rocks. They're sharp and slippery." I told him. "It kind of gets scary during winters. Especially at night time."

There was a beat of a pause. "I'll be careful, Ophelia."

"Okay," I said.

"Okay." He repeated. And I think he was smiling.

"Alastair, about Cassius--"

"I don't wanna talk about him." He cut me off with a sigh. A tired sigh. "Ophelia, not right now. Please."

I blinked twice, shrinking back on my bed until my back hit the pillows.

"Oh. Okay. Sorry, I didn't mean to...to sound so insensitive." My voice fell down to a whisper.

"It's fine. I just...can't think about him. It's messing with my head a little." He told me and he sounded as open and raw as the sea around him. Maybe that's why the sea scared me. It was too open. "And," he added slowly, softly. "I need a little time because...all I can think about is how I let him down."

My breath hitched in my throat. "You didn't."

He laughed and it came out scared and strained. "Yeah, I did. So badly, Ophelia. And now it's messing with my head because for so long...so fucking long I was aware of this--this emptiness inside me. Like something was ripped apart from me. And I always thought it was foolish. I had everything. But now I know. I didn't have Cass. He was my...he was my twin. And I was supposed to be there for him. And now that I know he's gone, God, I can feel the bloody emptiness again. It's horrible, Ophelia. It's horrible because I don't know...how to breathe when it feels like I'm the one who's dead."

I fell silent at that. He did too. And once again, just the sound of crashing waves.

"He never gave up on you, Alas," I whispered.

Alastair didn't reply. If it wasn't for the sound of the water behind him, I'd think he hung up on me.

"How can you be so sure about that?" He asked me.

I wasn't, I wanted to say. But maybe it was the fact that Luce had gotten that unknown parcel at her apartment, or the fact that I kept hearing that sad melody multiple times in Oak Valley, or just that Hawthorne family photograph. Something hadn't let me rest until I had shown Alastair that photograph. Until Alastair remembered his twin.

And he had remembered. Back in Oak Valley. Alastair had known. And it wasn't just my doing. Or his aunt's. Or even the old house worker, Mr Smith. It was Cassius too. He had wanted Alas to know. Just that and nothing else.

"I just do, Alas," I told him. "Cassius never gave up on you."

---------------

happy new year guys!
can't believe i still didn't finish this fucking book *cue the sobs*

(but we're almost at the end so there's that) ❤

Crystal Xx