“Do you love him?” Mystique asked, stirring her cereal around in the bowl. She had to have noticed the empty couch the moment she stepped in the door. There was no way she wasoblivious to what her daughter and Erich had together after all those years.
She knew much more than she showed, and likely guessed it would happen the second Erich and I showed up on her doorstep.
I didn’t answer. I hadn’t lifted my spoon to dip it into the bowl of milk and Frosted Flakes, becoming soggy with time. Why answer someone who knew more than she said and understood things before they were brought up?
“He’s fragile. He feels more than he can ever show or say.” She continued once she realized I wasn’t going to offer my own thoughts to this conversation. “He will never be happy if he can’t learn he’s not the villain in his own story.”
I didn’t want to stare at her. If I looked into her eyes, she would read every memory and feeling I had of him. Like she didn’t already do that when we met. She would read me like a book before turning me to stone.
“You are good for him.” She scooped up some of her cereal, swallowing before she continued. “You are what he needs and the kind of woman I hoped he’d find.”
“Not your own daughter?” I asked, the sharp pain of envy shooting through my veins as I mentioned Olivia. I didn’t mean to sound aggressive toward Mystique. She didn’t ask for that kind of hostility. Yet she didn’t seem bothered by it. Whatever she read from my tone, she accepted and understood to be harmless toward her.
“Olivia does more harm than good.” She spoke. Her lips twitched up, but the dimples dulled at the lack of glee. “I once thought otherwise. I thought they found one another to fix each other’s problems. But while she pressures and prods him to do the wrong thing, putting herself in a dangerous position with Erich, he only learns to feel for the wrong reasons. She thinks she needs adventure, a wild card… much like he is right now.They both need a steady and healthy life, or someone who can convince them to have one. That’s not something they’ll get from each other or on their own.”
Mystique sighed, resting her chin on the palm of her hand. “I can tell that you have some kind of unresolved trauma. You’ve been hurt. But you haven’t let that take away your ability to communicate or show affection. Erich has.”
I began to slowly eat my cereal, unsure of how to continue the conversation.
“My daughter isn’t the kind of woman I would want my pseudo-son to date.” She mused. “I want better for him than what she can offer. Even if that does sound harsh… But I want better for her as well. One day.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “Why not tell Erich what he needs?”
Mystique’s eyes were haunting. I’m not sure I had ever seen a lighter shade of hazel until I met her. Unnerving, but breathtaking.
“That young man doesn’t want to hear anything I have to tell him. He’ll continue to do as he wishes and let Olivia pull him in the wrong direction.” She paused; her eye contact was powerful. I couldn’t break free. “He’s wrapped around her finger while she’s in the picture. While he’s in this house, he is trapped.”
I mindlessly continued to play with my cereal in the bowl, moving the spoon around, drowning the soggy flakes in more milk. “He doesn’t see me as anything more than a kid sister,” I said softly.
Mystique nodded slowly. “To make up for Steven, probably.”
Yes. I knew a little bit about Steven. Yet I didn’t feel I was much of a replacement for him—unless it was more of a conscious one.
She continued, pausing to eat while also keeping the conversation going. “Erich has gotten better about not giving Olivia what she wants.” Her eyes wavered toward the empty couch through the doorway to the living room and then back to her cereal. “But… he’s not quite there. Whatever walls he builds are knocked down shortly after. She knows how to get under his skin.”
No need to remind me. Thanks. I thought to myself.
“Here’s my suggestion.” The cereal in her bowl was minimal; she was almost finished. I had barely made a dent in mine. “He will listen to you if you want to leave. He wouldn’t let you go on your own. He cares too much about your well-being. You tell him you need to get out of here today, and he might try to give some excuses. Hold your ground.” Her earthy eyes burned into my skin. “Take him and get far away from here. From Olivia. Show him how you feel. Stop letting him treat you like a child and demand to be a woman.”
Mystique had a certain intensity in her voice, and it caused a chill to run through me. Everything about her was eerie, yet I didn’t feel like I was in danger around her.
I nodded slowly, my hair falling into my eyes. I nervously brushed it aside.
“How?” I asked, my voice coming out as a whisper.
Mystique’s soft smile turned into a wicked smirk, but before she could coach me any further, a door opened with a loud creak. I opened my mouth, about to demand more answers from my unsuspected mentor, but she got up from her chair, already back to being warm and motherly. “Good morning. How did you sleep? Let me get you breakfast.”
She winked at me, and with Erich’s entrance, our conversation was over.
Erich was only wearing a pair of light-washed jeans. I had never seen him without a shirt—but a lot of what I had imaginedwas confirmed. He was athletic, toned. I never expected him to have tattoos, but he had what appeared to be an upside-down cross on his right side, just above the curve of his hipbone. It wasn’t done professionally. It looked like one of those stick-and-poke amateur tattoos people did in basements at house parties. His hair seemed darker, unkempt, with serious bedhead. I tried to burn the image of Olivia’s fingers running through it as they rekindled their teenage love on her quilted bed.
“Not horribly,” he answered, pulling out the chair and sitting next to me. I shouldn’t speak. I was about to be short with him. I was furious with his nonchalant attitude. I wanted to slap him across the face and shake some common sense into him—ask him how he thought any part of his actions was okay.
It took all of my willpower to keep myself composed. My cereal was getting mushier by the minute as I studied his behavior.
The faint smell I could only describe as being him was covered in Olivia’s now-sickly familiar vanilla and sandalwood perfume, ripping me from the present. To make things worse, dwelling on the thought of the two of them together forced me to remember my older brother and our last interactions. I hated the fact that he was making me connect him—the one person who grounded me from that memory, the one person who comforted me—with the one memory that kept me up some nights.
My heart rate quickened, and I fought my racing thoughts as they told me to run. I had to hold my ground, as Mystique advised. I wanted to hyperventilate as I remembered the details in slow motion. I wanted to think I was getting good at shoving panic attacks deep in my chest to prevent making a scene, but the agony in my chest told me it might be the day I let it loose.
