CYAN
The first thing I felt was the bill. My body was handing a very long, very expensive invoice for services rendered over the last twelve hours.
It started at the base of my skull, a sharp, rhythmic drumming that suggested a tiny person was trying to hamr their way out of my forehead, and then it trickled down my neck, settling into a dull, heavy ache in my shoulders.
I blinked. My eyelashes felt heavy, like they’d been dipped in honey.
The view was unconventional. I was looking at a vast expanse of black, perforated leather. It was cold against my cheek, slled faintly of expensive citrus and old money, and was definitely not my bed.
I was lying sideways on the backseat of the car, my pink hair a tangled ss across my vision. There was a damp patch near my mouth. I decided, with the remaining dignity I possessed, not to investigate its origin.
mory is a funny thing when you’ve been drinking. It doesn’t co back like a movie; it cos back like a bag of spilled puzzle pieces.
Piece one: Leaving Cassian’s office yesterday.
Piece two: The property consultant. The salon plans. The Numbers. The numbers were good. I liked the numbers. They were solid.
Piece three: The decision that a Monday evening was actually a Friday in disguise.
Piece four: The club. The strobe lights. The third, or was it the fifth?, negroni.
Piece five: Reginald.
I rember Reginald appearing under the neon lights of the club like a disappointed guardian angel. He had that expression on his face, the one where his eyebrows do a very specific, polite twitch that says, "Master Cyan, we are leaving before you try to buy the DJ’s laptop."
There was a vague mory of being carried. A negotiation at the car door. I think I tried to argue that I was a bird and didn’t need a seatbelt. Apparently, I lost that debate, because here I was. In the car. Still alive, technically.
I didn’t feel regret. Regret is for people who have plans they’re worried about ruining. I just felt physics. This was the hangover. It wasn’t a punishnt; it was just the inevitable result of gravity and gin.
I decided to sit up. This was my first mistake of the day.
My ambition far exceeded my current physical capacity. I bolted upright, forgetting for a split second that I was in a confined space.
THWACK.
My forehead t the roof of the car with a sound that was surprisingly loud, like a lon hitting a sidewalk. The pain was imdiate. Sharp. A brand-new addition to the inventory of my suffering.
"That was stupid," I whispered to the leather.
I fell back down. The backseat received again, rciful and soft. I lay there, staring up at the gray fabric of the car ceiling. It was much closer than a regular ceiling. I liked that. It felt contained. Like a little padded cell where the world couldn’t get to .
I turned my head toward the window.
Outside, the sky was that weird, indecisive shade of blue-gray that only happens at dawn. It’s the color of a day that hasn’t committed to being good or bad yet.
We were parked in the driveway of the mansion. I knew it without looking because Reginald is nothing if not consistent. He brings ho. Always. Even when I’m being a bird.
The front windows were cracked a few inches, letting in a draft of sharp, biting morning air that tasted like frost. There was a heavy wool blanket draped over . I stayed there, curled into a ball, watching the light change.
I didn’t want to get out. Not because I was tired, but because the backseat was quiet.
And lately, quiet was a rare commodity. Inside my head, the noise was usually at a deafening volu, a chaotic radio station playing ten songs at once.
But here, in the half-light, with the sll of leather and the cold air, it was just... a pause.
As the silence stretched, the dream ca back.
It had been visiting for three days now. Sa dream. Sa feeling. In it, I’m floating. Not falling, that would be too easy. I’m just suspended in the air, drifting like a balloon that’s lost its string. It sounds peaceful, right? It isn’t. It’s wrong. It’s the feeling of a body that’s forgotten it has weight. Like weight was just a temporary hobby I’ve finally given up on.
In the dream, I always look down. I see myself. I’m lying on a bed, or a floor, or the grass, and I’m so still. It’s the kind of stillness that happens when sothing has stopped working for good.
And the worst part? I don’t panic. I don’t try to scream or fly back down into my skin. I just watch. I’m comfortable with the distance.
I know what it ans. I’ve seen this version of myself before. It’s a warning. My brain is trying to tell that the emptiness I’ve been feeling isn’t just a mood; it’s a hole that’s getting bigger.
Other people have "goals." I watch them sotis, Noah, or the property consultants, or the people in the gym.
They talk about five-year plans and building empires and growing old. They move toward things.
Even Cassie has his goal. To kill those who wronged him.
I have the boutique. I have the money. I have the salon project. But it doesn’t feel like I’m moving toward anything. It feels like I’m just doing things so I don’t have to stop.
Because stopping is when the dream becos real.
It’s irritating. Truly. I’m not supposed to be a person who has "feelings" or "introspective monts." I’m the guy who drives the car too fast, wears the pink hair, and punches the arrogant doctor in the face because he deserved it.
I’m the beautiful, chaotic son of the Pri Minister. I don’t do journals. I don’t do therapy.
But lately, the noise is winning. That’s why I went back to XUM. That’s why I found Noah. That’s why I’m here. Because Cassian’s presence is the only thing that turns the volu knob down to a level I can survive.
Tap. Tap.
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