3|Shiny Packets

My throat is as dry as a desert under the scorching heat of the sun. It’s painful to quaff down air. My mouth can’t even produce its own moisture to relieve the searing pain caused by the dryness of my throat.

I didn’t know how my night turned into this embarrassing nightmare. First, I heard my fiance fuck his secret lover and promised to divorce me five years after our marriage so that they could be together. Second, I am acclaimed to be an excellent climber and almost fell 40 feet because of my weak gripping. Third, I am facing Xavier, fiddling like an uncomfortable idiot. I feel so small that I wanted to shrink into his gray sheets.

“Uhm…” I cleared my throat, setting the empty rock glass on his bed, reaching for my phone inside my dress pocket as I stood. “I better leave, E must be waiting for me.” As I fished out my phone, the condom I packed and aimed to use tonight spilled out as well. All five shiny packets landed on the floor, scattered around my reddening feet.

What did I do in my past life to deserve this humiliation?!

I lifted my eyes from the floor, eyes almost bulging out from the socket of my skull, to look into Xavier across from me. His eyes darted from my face down to the ground. The edge of his thick brows lifted in a questioning twist. His lips remained pressed in a thin line.

Only then did I get to study his features.

It has been five years since the last time I saw him. Back then, he was lost like me at that time from losing Nadia. His physical appearance changed, that is for sure. His chest and biceps made the gray shirt he’s wearing look as if they belong to a teenager ten years younger than him. The way his jeans hugged his obviously well-defined legs made me swallow even harder.

When his eyes, reflecting the shade of a copious field of grass, lifted from the floor, blatantly gliding along my bare legs to my physique and reached my eyes, my world shook in tremors. He’s studying me the same way I was regarding him, and I can’t look away.

It seems like everything around us stopped moving. I held my breath, holding on tight on my phone under his scrutinizing gaze. A strand of his chestnut hair, straight and seemingly soft, fell on his face. I wonder how it would feel to thread my fingers through his locks.

What the hell, Zia?

I drowned in his eyes that I almost forgot about the condoms shining on his carpeted floor.

I chuckled awkwardly and drew my gaze from his alluring stare. “Do you want to use them?”

My hands shoot up to my mouth.

Oh, my freaking hell! Kill me now!

Xavier’s brows knitted together, his eyes squinting, yet his full lips tugged in a smirk.

“I-I mean, if you want these,” I gestured to the subject matter of this monologue of mine while I stood uncomfortably, pulling my dress down, running my fingers through my wavy disheveled hair, “you can have them. My fiance already had his ‘fun’, I got no use for these anymore.”

Xavier nodded his head. I sighed, thankful that he didn’t want to make this monologue as awkward as it already is.

“We can use it.”

My eyes snapped, looking at him, shocked. I could practically feel my jaw brushing the floor.

He chuckled, shaking his head from side to side. “Chill, Zia. I’m kidding.” He stood up from the couch, walking towards the bar for a refill. The way he moved with so much finesse mesmerized me, his muscles flexing under that fitted clothing of his.

I shook my head, pushing these thoughts aside - which would only lead to inappropriate concepts. This must be the effect of everything I’ve been through for this night.

“Zia,” I realized Xavier was regarding me with a worried look. “Come here, have a drink with me.” He motioned me to sit with him on the bar, giving me his familiar smirk, the kind that made girls fall all over his feet.

Oh, I got the playful X back.

I smiled, sighing in relief as I neared him, passing over my glass.

He ruffled my hair, the same way he did before… before Nadia.

We were close, the four of us, Xavier, Calvin, and my older sister Nadia. Everything changed when my sister died, OD’d at a party, that’s why my parents never allow me to go to parties.

Nadia and Xavier were supposed to get married that year. Two weeks before their wedding, a funeral took place instead.

“How have you been?” I asked, releasing the tension within me. We drifted apart - Xavier drifted apart from me and Calvin after the accident. He traveled around the world, cut off his communication with everyone, and never came back since.

He slid over the glass; the refill wafting inside the crystal as I caught it with both hands.

“Better.” He lifted the glass on his lips while I seamed my thumb over mine. “What’s your plan now?”

My wedding with Calvin is supposed to take place in ten days. Maybe it’s the reason Xavier came home.

I sighed, wondering the same thing.

Most people at this age would think that arranged marriage is so overrated. It is in a sense, but I never argued nor protested against it. I love Calvin - so much - and we’ve been together since we learned we are to be husband and wife when I reach the age of twenty-one.

I never asked for the reason they betrothed Nadia to Xavier, or did I ask why I was betrothed to Calvin that same year after she died. We trusted our parents’ choice, and now I might need to ask them why.

“I can’t marry him, X,” I threw him a glance before tilting the glass to my lips, downing the alcohol as if it was water.

He hummed, refilling our glass again.

“D-did you love Nadia?” his glass paused mid-air, hanging in there for a second before it continued its path to reach his lips.

Xavier chuckled, as if my question is a stupid one. “Why do you ask?”

I shrugged, “just curious,” waving the question because it was an impossible shot.

I didn’t wait for his answer and refilled my glass before downing it again. He’s watching me. I can feel his gaze, but I need to get drunk. It’s good to talk to him, but the pain of Calvin’s betrayal is gradually sinking in.

I can hear them, they’re going at it again like bunnies. Blocking the sound of their moans and screams of satisfaction is impossible. I can’t pretend to be oblivious because that’s just not who I am.

On the tenth refill, I slammed the glass with enough force to crack it to tiny specks. I stood from my chair, the stool wobble, ready to make my presence known to my fiance and his lover.

“Nadia and I,” Xavier spoke then, forcing me to glance at him. He was looking straight into the shelves of expensive liquor behind his minibar, bask by rich yellow light. “What we had isn’t love.”

His words rendered me speechless. Honestly, I never expected him to talk about Nadia. No one from our families ever talks about her, even my parents. Her death took its toll on everyone - the significant and sudden loss of the talented and well-loved Nadia Walker.

I slumped back in my seat, realizing what he’s trying to do. I reached for the bottle of bourbon and refilled my glass again. “She’s my best friend.”

The sudden urge to slap myself sipped within me. We remained silent, the sound of sex coming from the other room long forgotten as we both reminisced about what Nadia meant to us.

“She was mine too,” I said, reaching for Xavier’s hand, pressing it gently. I released a chuckle, shaking my head, pulling back my hands. “I miss those days,” I added, “when the two of you would tag me along in your supposed to be dates, I was always the third wheel.”

Xavier glanced at me tellingly, but he masked it with a smirk, ruffling my hair once more. He knew it annoys me to death when he touches my hair. “X,” I grumbled, swatting his hands. “I better leave.” I grabbed my phone and tried to look straight into the screen. My sight was wavering and when I stood up, the floor seemed to turn into marshmallows.

Powerful arms wrapped around my waist, keeping me steady. “You’re drunk.”

I shook my head, placing my hands on his shoulder. “Nope. Me is good.”

“You’re definitely drunk,” Xavier pointed out, taking the phone from my hand.

“I need to call, E. He can catch me if I jump.”

Xavier laughed. The sound is so familiar and soothing. “Come on.” He scooped me in his arms after tucking my phone in his pocket. “Did you take the secret passage through the forest?”

I hummed a yes, wounding my arms around his shoulder. “You can’t carry me out, my parents will kill me.”

“Don’t worry.” He was already walking down the hallway. “I got your back.”

I giggled, “you have my entire body.”

His intake of breath surprised me, but I remained silent, savoring the feel of being in the air until we reached the passage where we came in. “X.”

“Hm?”

I toyed with his shoulder length hair, enjoying the silkiness between the gaps of my fingers. “Is my boobs not big enough?”