❝Everything will change
Nothing stays the same
Nobody here's perfect
Oh, but everyone's to blame.❞

Chapter Ten:
Post-Magnificent-Sex
(cont'd)

My ears perked up in interest. I looked between the two gentlemen, curious as to what they were discussing. I settled for pointedly staring at Hans till he filled me in on what this was about, and I couldn't tell if he was genuinely so fixated on his telepathic conversation with Jasper or if he was avoiding meeting my eyes. Nevertheless, I trusted him. Hans would tell me what I needed to know when the time came, and even if he was avoiding it now, I'm sure he had his reasons.

I stood up, grabbing the attention of the two who only then remembered that I was right there. Smiling, I said to Hans, "I'm going to go freshen up, okay?" He nodded with a smile back. "Jasper, it's been a pleasure as always." I swooped down and gave him a kiss on the cheek, earning a deep chuckle from him.

"Marry her," were the words I heard him say to Hans, half-joking, half-serious as I walked down the hall and toward his room. Today was a Sunday which meant I wouldn't have to go to work. No work, meant more play. But as things would turn out...

The door to the bedroom opened and Hans walked in. I turned around, mid-way through buttoning open his shirt and smiled up at him.

"Hey."

"Hey." He stared at me for a bit, looking somewhat disoriented then added with a smirk, "Please, do continue."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Too early in the morning for a strip-tease now, isn't it?"

"It's never early with you." The smile disappeared as he ran a hand through his disheveled black hair. "I have to go out for a bit with Jazz, though." He mistook my silence for disappointment and rushed to add, "Sorry. I really loved your breakfast but-"

"Calm down," I laughed, waving my hand at him to snap out of it. "I'm not mad or anything."

"Sure?"

I smiled at how sweet he was being, and nodded. "I'm sure. I hope it's okay with you if I just lounge about here though."

Hans grinned, dropping his hand from his hair. "Does that mean I can count on you to be here when I come back?"

I stood up and crossed the length of the room, wrapping my arms around his waist. Beaming up at him, I answered, "Definitely."

He pressed a quick kiss to my forehead, smiled, and then whizzed out the room after throwing on some clothes. I flopped on the bed after hearing the front door shut with a gentle click. Staring up at his ceiling instead of mine, the spurt of happiness that bloomed inside my chest made me realize just how much I loved how things had turned out. Hans had transformed from an escort to blackmailer, unofficial boss to fuck-buddy, friend to lover. Just going through the journey of the past year in my head made me want to cry, laugh, and smile all at the same time. It had been...something.

Slowly getting up, I perched myself on my elbows and looked around at the room, delighting myself in just how much I loved being in here and not just for that reason. You can tell a lot about a person by the way their room looks. The color the walls are painted in, the posters pinned to them, the books lining the shelf in that one corner or the pictures stuck to the window frame. But for Hans, the item that spoke the most was the shelf near the door, stacked with dozens upon dozens of vinyl records. Hans had walked in on me looking at them once when he had given me that soft smile of his.

"Those belonged to my mother."

That was as much explanation as I had needed. They meant the world to him; and each record had a message written on the cover from his mom. He had gone on to tell me that his mother had been an avid lover of music herself, and that her job at the cabaret was inspired from her very own passion for the art. Whenever Hans spoke of Anya, he transformed into a whole other person and I would listen to every word, hanging onto the memories he shared. The fact that he had opened up to me, of all people, was still a mystery in my eyes. But I was happy that he had.

I propped myself up on the bed and stretched, a smile lighting my face at the memory. I wanted to do something productive while waiting for Hans. For a start, I could clean this room. Clothes lay scattered on the floor, pointing to a wild night of...activities. I giggled at the thought and started picking each article off the floor, holding Hans' underwear a safe distance away with my mouth screwed up. Sure, I thought the guy was hot but undies-duty wasn't really my thing.

Muttering to myself about how this might have been a bad idea, I bent down to pick up a sock that had run off underneath the bed. My wrist hit something else, something hard. Swooping down, I peeked under the bed, my eyes squinting at the lack of light. I reached out, my fingers skirting over the edges of what felt like a small, cardboard box. What was it doing under the bed, of all places? Curious, I pulled it out.

A thin layer of dust coated the top which was slightly open. I bit down on my lip, wondering if it was a good idea to go through his belongings when he'd hidden it somewhere as inconspicuous as under his bed. Sure, we had gotten close but not close enough for me to go through his stuff without his permission. I shook my head and rolled back on the balls of my feet, ready to push myself to stand when something caught the corner of my eye through the open portion of the lid. A picture. Carefully, I opened the box and took the picture that was peeking out.

It was of me. It was the one Innovus had taken on my very first day, to keep it in their staff records. The light hickeys along my neck were visible, and the look on my face was priceless. My hair fell over my face, slightly tussled and the thin-lipped smile was an angry one. I still remember how confused the photographer had looked when I refused to smile for the photo.

I laughed out loud. The fact that Hans had a copy of this was slightly amusing but I decided not to question his choices as I set the picture back inside with the intention of shutting the box, and leaving it where it belonged. I should have done that. I should have pushed it far away, and never looked at it again but what's once seen cannot be forgotten. Not so easily.

My hands paused mid-way through closing the box when I noticed the magazine article below the picture. I was on the front page, posing with a dazzling smile. I recognized it from an interview taken years back, when I was in Seattle. It was shortly after my promotion to work directly under my former boss, Deborah, and the local business magazine had asked to do me as a feature. But how did Hans get it? Why did he have it?

I pulled the box out completely, taking out its contents, one by one, and the more I sifted through it, the more my heart begun to pound in my chest in warning that I was making a big mistake. This wasn't just any box. This box was a history of my life.

Some were more recent and recognizable. There was a copy of my contract with Innovus and a picture of Hans and I together at the Innovus' party where I'd first met him. There was also a photo-strip of fun pictures we'd taken together at the mall two weeks ago. But then there were others. A magazine article, a photo of me at an industry meet, a newspaper clipping of Deborah and I, another photo of me addressing the media at a press meet... The more I dug through, the farther it went back into my past until, at the bottom of the box laid a thick book. My hands shook as I took it out.

Glossed over in a shiny finish, the cover read 'Wharton School of Business: Class of 2008' in a cursiva font, and in block letters below it: 'YEARBOOK'. There were pictures of all the different classes containing hundreds of students assembled together in a collage. It was an informal yearbook and Jacob had been in the committee for making it. I had one back home myself. Not just anyone could have it as it was only printed exclusively, by the students, for the students of our graduating year. Not just anyone...

The blood rushed through my veins, throbbing against my ears as my heart rate increased wildly. I turned the pages fast, searching for an answer and noticed that there was an edge marked down on one of them. I flicked to it, eyes widening at the pictures in front of me.

It was my class; portrait photos of each and every one of us from the 210 student batch. Most of the faces were unfamiliar, having gotten to know only a few among the vast sea of peers. My face popped out at me on the page as I beamed brightly at the camera, my lips pulled into a wide, toothy grin. My photo wasn't tampered with in anyway but the fact that the edge of this particular page had been marked down told me what I needed to know.

My feet gave out under me and I fell back on the ground with a loud thud. It wasn't the pain on my back side that registered in my head but the feeling of dread and suspicion that seeped into me. The intensity with which it hit was a shock, a direct parallel to the way I'd felt walking in on Jacob with another woman. Feeling my chest constrict, I was just about to slam the book shut and shove it aside when my eyes caught the photo at the bottom right corner of the page.

The mop of thick, unruly black hair covered almost all of the boy's face which was pulled into the most bored of expressions as he stared into the camera lens, unsmiling. His eyes were hidden behind the thick black frames of specs that stood perched on his nose, and shoulders slouched, not in a lazy but in an almost cowering manner as if he didn't want to draw attention to himself. My fingers pressed into the picture, tracing the features of the boy in the picture. I would have mistaken it for a slight resemblance to the man I'd come to know and brushed the matter aside if not for the name in italics beneath the photo, confirming the worst of my doubts.

Hans Castellan.

It was him. A part of me refused to believe that the boy in the picture could have anything to do with the Hans I knew now. They looked nothing like each other. There was no air of confidence around him, no upward tug of his lips into that classic smirk he owned. I even searched for the slightest hint of the scar on his right-brow but it was hidden by the flop of black hair over his forehead, taking out another crucial characteristic of his appearance. This Hans looked like a weakling, a pigeon-hearted boy as he cowered in front of the camera. I didn't want to believe that it was him. I wanted to throw the book away, but the longer I stared at the picture and the name attached to it, the more I found myself fighting the undeniable truth.

My hands trembled uncontrollably as I dropped the book to the floor and stared in wide-eyed shock at the scatter of history in front of me. I didn't recognize the boy in the yearbook. I had never known him and looking down at the photo-strip of Hans and I, at the man I'd come to love and the smiles and laughter on his face in our photos together, an ache convulsed through my heart as the truth dawned upon me. I didn't recognize him at all. The image of the Hans Castellan I thought I knew shattered before my eyes as my gaze switched between the two contradicting personas of the same man. Both of them were lies.

I hurriedly picked everything up and unceremoniously threw it all back into the box, watching as our photos together piled at the bottom and crumpled under the weight of old tokens. My mind raced with questions, doubts, fear. It was that fear that pushed me into panic as I quickly stripped myself of Hans' shirt and got dressed in my own clothing, grabbing my phone and my purse and every last thing that belonged to me before picking up the box and rushing out of the room.

I didn't know what I aimed to accomplish as I dumped the entire box onto the dining table. The breakfast plates hadn't been cleared and one of the glasses, half-full with orange juice rolled off the table and fell to the floor, shattering into a million pieces. The impact of the harsh clutter caused a frightened Nozomi to come running toward me from her spot on the couch. I ignored her pathetic, desperate meows for attention as she wrapped her small, warm body around my foot in an attempt to calm me. Stepping out of her embrace and without a parting glance, I left the apartment.

All I knew right now is I had to get out. The longer I stayed there, the more it would hurt. The more the pain would grow until all that was left of me was an abyss. The lies, the deceit, the unsaid truths..it was all too familiar. And with every step I took away from what I'd left behind, I felt the scars of my past reopen, to the scent of a once again bleeding, fragmented heart.

_____

Song: In My Veins by Andrew Belle

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