Page 34 of Deranged Imposter

It doesn’t matter. I can be patient for just a little longer; I've had fifteen years of practice.

Waiting for the reality of Zico’s death to pass the acceptance threshold is within distance.

Catching her quivering jaw in a steely grip, I discern the bruises and dust coloring her beautiful skin. There is a voice in my head that urges me to squeeze, to spring tears from her eyes again, but I’m not the weak boy anymore.

I don’t listen to vile voices or believe gruesome sights.

“Get on,” I say while spinning my back to her.

Her trembling arms fly around my neck, wet cheeks smearing on the nape of my neck as she exhales shakily. I adjust my hands under her ass and haul her farther up my back. She sniffles, quietly whining as her shaking body latches onto my back securely.

There is a moment when I start walking that she stops breathing, or rather, she doesn’t dare to while I sigh. I’m not mad at her, but I see how my action gives off unintended condemnation.

“I’m sorry,” she chokes, never lifting her face from my neck, which wandered toward the side.

She wants to crawl into my body with the way she flinches and curls her smaller frame. Her heartbeats are screaming against my shirt, plunging ominously into my muscles and uniting with mine.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she murmurs after a sniffle. “I’m really sorry.”

“I know,” I croak as I follow the dim yellow light above the rustling trees.

“And I didn’t mean to invalidate your feelings,” she continues, hot breath fanning my ear as she shifts.

She said some hurtful things during the heat of the moment. We have our moments, so an apology is enough to grant forgiveness.

Truthfully, I don’t recall most of her words. Too focused on the reddened cheeks and unshed tears holding onto her lashes distraughtly, I lost myself in the desire to kiss her.

“He’s your brother, but I made it sound like you don’t care,” she says, a sob fueling the tremors while the breeze sings through the leaves. “You love him so much, and I know you’re hurting.”

I don’t mind her saying that. I’ve come to terms with Zico being gone years ago. I’m more upset about her not believing she’s a member of my family. She thought I didn’t tell her immediately because it was a personal family matter.

More apologies and encouraging words fill the silence. I listen attentively, committing them to memory regarding how unimaginable my grief is.

“I love you, too,” she whispers, annoyingly platonic, and presses a light kiss to my cheek. “You know that, right?”

I do. She's said it many times, each more special than the last, and I keep them in a locked box inside my heart.

“I love you, Isa,” I purr, suppressing a contented smile. “So, don’t leave me like Zico did.”

She stifles a sob and shakes her head. With hot tears soaking my shirt, her voice winds through my limbs, forming tides of ambrosia surging in my veins to feed my ravenous heart.

“I promise,” she says on repeat until I tighten my hands under her thighs.

I slow my pace and bask in the night air. She cries her little heart out on my back, freeing years of anxiety about whether Zico was alive and held captive or dead somewhere. On a few melancholy days, Isa says she knows Zico wants to come home because he has a family that isn’t complete without him.

She never brings herself into it, another clue to her brazenly distancing herself from me.

“We’ll be friends forever?” she asks, shy and tentative.

“Yes, little crybaby,” I agree and watch the yellow glow from the cabin’s light burn brighter as we get closer. “And more.”

She tries to nonchalantly pretend she didn’t hear the last bit, but the frantic squeak gives her up. I chuckle hoarsely and squeeze her thighs.

The cabin comes into view. Four people gather by the fire, singing a popular country song as the wood crackles passionately. One of them stops singing, eyes scurrying from me to Isa, then opens his mouth.

I shake my head softly, and his lips purse white. They see her dirtied face, red eyes, and disheveled appearance. She assures them that she accidentally tripped and fell.

Another decides to speak up. “Hey, where are the other two?”

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