The Real Thing

by Marina Simcoe

  Well, I was relieved to see Evan in good spirits. Mom kept making it sound like he was depressed and devastated, but he seemed to be taking it all in stride, which was more like my brother anyway.

  “What are you going to do now?” I asked.

  “I want to work as a sound engineer one day.”

  “That’s what you studied for in college, isn’t it?”

  “Yep. I had a second interview for a sound technician job yesterday. They pretty much told me the job is mine. They just need a couple of days to check references and stuff!”

  “Really? Evan! That’s so great!” I hugged my sandwich to my chest, happy for him and for all of us for that matter.

  “Yeah. It’d be cool,” he agreed. “Money’s much better too. Oh, by the way, can you keep a secret?”

  “Well, if you don’t know by now —” I smiled.

  “I’m saving for a ring for Lily,” he announced, without waiting for me to finish my sentence.

  “What? You’re going to propose?” My eyes went big with excitement for him.

  “Well, she doesn’t want to get married right now. She doesn’t like wearing jewelry either, but I think she will like the ring,” he said with a huge grin on his face.

  “So, does it mean you’re going to get married soon?”

  “I’m gonna give her the ring and ask her to marry me. The rest is up to her.”

  “Wow! My baby brother is all grown up.” I didn’t tear up, but there was a tang of sadness mixed in with my happiness and pride for him. He did grow up. We both did. We both had our own lives to live now. “I’m so happy for you.”

  “Not yet, butthead! She hasn’t said yes.” Evan laughed.

  “She will. She loves you, doesn’t she?”

  He nodded, and the grin on his face got even bigger.

  “Absolutely.” His voice was confident. “And I love her too. She is my rock. She helped me so much. She believes in me, Angela, more than I could ever believe in myself. Just her being there for me makes me feel like I could do anything. I wanna be the best man I could be… For her. You know.”

  Oh, my God, he sounded like he was about to tear up himself! I put the rest of my sandwich into the plastic container on the bench next to me and hugged my brother’s shoulders. He didn’t shrug my arms away as he usually would. Instead, his arms went around me, returning the hug.

  “Lily doesn’t always say the right thing, you know,” he continued, “but she always does the right thing. Especially for me. I can’t wait to give her the ring. This job will help pay for it sooner. I only have a few more payments left to Mom and Dad for the rehab. After that, I’m buying it!”

  “You’re paying them for the rehab?” I let go off his shoulders and moved back to see his face.

  “Sure,” he shrugged again and shoved the last piece of the hotdog in his mouth.

  “Did they ask you to pay them back?”

  “No. You know they wouldn’t. They didn’t even want to talk to me about it. But it’s my mess, and they shouldn’t pay for it. I’ve been making payments ever since I got out and found a job. It took a while, but I’m almost done now.”

  23. The Amulet.

  I knew something was wrong the minute I opened the door to my apartment after my night shift at the store. All the lights were off, but I heard the sound of a heavy labored breathing coming from the living room. I left the door to the apartment open and quickly turned on the lights.

  Marcus was lying on the couch, wearing his stage costume and boots. When the light hit his face, he groaned and threw an arm over his eyes.

  “Marcus!” I tossed my purse into the corner and ran to the couch. “Are you okay?” His skin was burning hot when I touched his cheek. “It’s happening again!”

  It was Monday after his week off. He was supposed to have a show that night, which would have ended over an hour ago. He should have been fine.

  “The show has been cancelled… technical malfunction at the venue,” Marcus rasped. “They’re fixing it.”

  “Oh, Marcus!” His skin felt feverish, but at least there weren’t any seizures yet. “It’s happening too soon. I just saw you yesterday!”

  “We didn’t do anything yesterday,” he reminded.

  True, we just had breakfast together, and then Marcus took me to work. In fact, we hadn’t done much beyond a chaste kiss and a friendly hug here and there for a while. My thoughts were too preoccupied with my family lately, and I found it impossible to feel sexy.

  “I’m so sorry!” I dropped to my knees by the couch and took his hand.

  “Sorry that I don’t turn you on anymore?” One navy-blue eye glistened mischievously at me from under his arm.

  “Well, it couldn’t be that bad if you’re still making jokes!”

  Thankfully, he didn’t look as sick as he did the last time when he showed up in my bed, burning with fever. He wasn’t having seizures this time, but he was still scorching hot to the touch, and I knew that a wave of pain would hit him soon.

  “Horrible, I feel horrible, Angela,” he teased with deliberately exaggerated drama. “I’ll die if you don’t kiss me right now!”

  His voice was playful but strained — it cost him a visible effort to speak, no matter how hard he was trying to hide it.

  A deep feeling of compassion flooded my heart before the lust could ever come. I cupped his face and touched his burning hot lips with mine tenderly.

  “Please don’t die, Marcus,” I whispered, gently blowing air at his temple and then placed a line of small kisses along his burning cheekbone. “I’ll kiss it all away…” I dug my fingers into his hair and pulled him closer to me. “I’ll make it all better,” I promised, feeling my heart speed up as his hand slid down my neck. The metal of the rings on his fingers almost burned my skin.

  “You always do, my ice queen,” he whispered in reply.

  He sat up on the couch and pulled me into his lap, making me straddle his legs. His fingers tugged at the small buttons in front of my dress, and he peeled the dress off my shoulders then slid the bra straps down.

  I moaned into his hair when his mouth landed on my breast, and I moved my hands under his vest, up along his burning skin.

  I could feel his fever subsiding from my touch already. His muscles relaxed under the palms of my hands. His breathing was still heavy, and his heart thundered against my hand, but it was for different reasons now. I pushed his leather vest off his shoulders, and he shrugged it off completely as his hands slid up my thighs and under my skirt.

  His teeth closed over my nipple, and I cried out from the sparks of pain and ecstasy that shot through to the very core of my body. My thighs enclosed in nylon stockings slid easily along the black leather of his pants, bringing us closer, and I rocked my hips against the growing bulge in his pants, searching for more contact.

  His tongue continued to play with my nipples without skipping a beat, but I felt his fingers brace on my thighs. He then slid me back slightly, moving my pelvis away from his.

  Before I could fully apprehend his maneuver, though, Marcus quickly got off the couch — taking me with him — and flipped me onto my back, making me squeak in surprise. He then positioned himself between my bent legs and pushed my knees apart. My stockings and garter belt stayed on, but my panties had literally melted away under his heated gaze.

  “You won’t get much sleep tonight,” he promised with a cocky grin. “Better come up with an excuse for your office now, to use when they catch you napping on your desk tomorrow.”

  ***

  A day later, I woke up when Marcus got into my bed in the morning. Like it had become the norm by now, he wrapped his arms around me, getting ready to have some sleep before the time came for me to get up.

  Despite being tired, I couldn’t fall asleep again. I listened to Marcus’s even breathing at my back and watched the numbers on the clock approach my most hated hour of the morning, but sleep evaded me.

  Even though his last fever was a little less than
the first time I ever witnessed it, I couldn’t stop worrying about it. Worst of all, no matter what he said about my touch calming his fever and pain, I felt powerless to help him properly because I knew nothing about it. I had no idea why it worked. I also worried that it might stop working one day, and I didn’t know if I could prevent it.

  Trying not to wake Marcus up, and not to disturb Lannister who slept on our feet every single night now, I quietly got out of bed and tiptoed into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Even after the worst of Marcus’s fever had been gone, his body temperature often remained elevated for days. Sleeping in the same bed with him was like having a hot furnace next to me, and it made me thirsty.

  On my way back to bed, my foot stepped on something hard, and I winced in pain, bending over to pick it off the floor. In the dim light from my bedroom window, I recognized the thin silver chain that I had seen many times around Marcus’s neck.

  The pendant on it turned out to be a small long piece of what looked like dull amber; it was shaped like a narrow, upside-down cone that reminded me of an icicle, except that it was slightly bent, making it look more like a claw or a canine tooth of a mystical animal. The wider top part of it was enclosed in a silver setting that appeared to have darkened to the nearly black colour with time. The chain was thin and delicate; however, the pendant’s setting appeared to be crudely made and looked worn and ancient.

  The pendant must have been in Marcus’s pants pocket because he never wore it to bed. It must have fallen out when he took his pants off earlier that morning.

  “They said it was on me when they found me.” Marcus’s clear voice startled me in the quiet of the night.

  “Do you remember anything? How old were you?” I asked.

  “About two or three. Too young to remember.” His eyes were even darker in the night than their usual navy-blue colour as he looked at me from the pillow. “A priest found me in the church. I was the only one sitting on a pew when everyone had left after the mass.”

  “Somebody just left you there? Alone? As a tiny little toddler? Or do you think you teleported there from somewhere else?” My heart swelled with sorrow from the image of a little boy sitting all alone in an empty church.

  I fisted the pendant in my hand and sat on the bed, facing him.

  His eyes flickered to my naked breasts for a second, and he cursed under his breath, “This is the most infuriating habit of yours!” He grabbed the top sheet off the bed and wrapped it around me tightly. “How am I supposed to focus on anything around here?” he grumbled.

  I smiled and brushed a few long black strands away from his forehead.

  “Do you think your parents were like you?” I gently set the pendant on the nightstand.

  “Hardly,” he scoffed at the very idea. “I think that’s why they got rid of me in the first place — because I was nothing like them.”

  “Why would you think so?”

  “Because everybody else did the same, Angela. Every time one of my foster parents noted anything freaky about me, I was moved to another home.” His voice wasn’t bitter. He stated it as a matter of fact. That made it that much worse for me: he had accepted it as a norm that people considered him a freak.

  “You wouldn’t know it for sure as far as your biological parents are concerned. Have you tried to look for them?”

  “No,” he replied sharply. “I never even knew where to start looking. I don’t remember anything other than the foster homes, and I never had any means for a search either.”

  “Would you consider looking for them now?”

  “Now wouldn’t be a good timing, don’t you think?” he snapped. “If they didn’t want me as a dirty, hungry kid then, why would I want them now when I’m all grown up and can take care of myself? Even if they found and accepted me now, how can I ever be sure that it’s not because of the money and fame?”

  There was a clear irritation in his voice, and I continued cautiously.

  “I just think that it would help you to know your own history.”

  “What for?” he shrugged.

  “Well. Maybe they are like you. Maybe they can help you find ways to manage your magic better, to stop it in time from building up to the point of hurting you?”

  I would do anything to find a way to stop him from being hurt by fever ever again!

  “I’ve already found a way,” he pulled me to his chest and kissed my forehead. “The most delightful one ever.”

  “See? We don’t even know why I can calm it like that. And then, what if I’m not around, or you can’t come to me in time?”

  “There are a couple of other things that work too,” he argued. “Besides, I’m not planning on your not being around. Are you?”

  “Not if I can help it,” I sighed and took his head in my hands. I traced his long black eyebrows with my thumbs, willing the worried crease between them to disappear. “Don’t you want to have some answers, Marcus?”

  “I don’t think it’s possible to get any answers now, Angela. I was told I was found alone. My birth certificate is blank where my parents’ names should have been. And the agency that handled my case initially had long since closed.”

  I thought about what he said for a second.

  “Still, there should be something. Even if they have closed, they should’ve moved everyone’s records somewhere. There should be reports with the name of the church where you were found —”

  “Angela —” He straightened on the bed, moving out of my reach. He was definitely irritated now, and his voice held a warning.

  “Would you mind if I looked?” I interrupted him.

  “I don’t want to know,” he said firmly, and the muscles in his jaw flexed.

  “I won’t tell you if I find anything at all, unless you ask me to tell you, that is. And of course, I won’t mention your name to anyone —”

  “Angela!” his voice boomed through the night suddenly, and I jumped up in surprise. It was the first time he ever raised his voice at me.

  “I said I don’t want to know!” He got out of bed on the opposite side from me and paced the floor without sparing me another glance.

  He was agitated — if not outright furious. His eyes glistened in the dim light, and his hair whipped around his shoulders every time he turned on his heels. It made him look like a whirlwind hurricane of fury.

  “I’m not another problem for you to solve! I’m not one of your lost shipments that has to be traced back to the warehouse! I’m not a stray cat in need of a good home. You don’t need to search for a solution! I already have it! I’ve made it this far just fine!”

  Shocked by his outburst, I opened my mouth to protest — and closed it right away. He was right to some degree: I did sense another problem to solve, but it wasn’t necessarily my problem to worry about. The situation might not require a solution at all — he did make it just fine being alone in this world for over a quarter of a century since he was found. Whether or not he was happy all this time was not up to me to decide.

  “You can’t solve every fucking problem in this goddamn world!” Marcus continued to rage as I just stood there speechless, clutching the bedsheet at my chest. “Not every question needs an answer, Angela! Some are better left alone.”

  He seemed to be getting lost deep in his anger, still I ventured to ask.

  “Are you happy, Marcus?”

  Maybe this should have been the very first question for me to ask before this conversation ever started. Now my question was like a bucket of cold water, dousing his rage.

  The fire-breathing dragon folded his wings, and the man inside turned his human face towards me.

  He stood there — just looking at me — then walked around the bed swiftly and enclosed me in a passionate hug. I swayed on my feet from the sudden intensity of his embrace.

  “I don’t want to argue, Angela.” His hot whisper hit my hair. “I don’t want to be angry with you. Not with you.”

  “Are you happy, Marcus?” I repeated, the side of m
y face pressing into his shoulder. “Have you been happy all this time?”

  The silence stretched between us, and I wondered if he’d answer at all.

  “I’m content,” he finally replied. “Now that I found you, I’m more than content,” he kissed my hair gain. “Much more.”

  He continued to hold me tight, standing in the middle of my dark bedroom, and I wasn’t sure if he was still thinking about the answer to my question when he spoke again, “Is it important for you to find the answer, Angela? Would you prefer it if I came with a family? Parents, siblings, aunts and uncles?”

  “No, not for me, Marcus. You are all I need, just as you are.” It was an absolute truth. We had never exchanged any words of commitment; however, my connection with him was undeniable and — at least for me — permanent and unbreakable.

  “It’s just that…” I attempted to explain. “My family is very important to me, and it’s really hard for me to understand how someone can go through life alone and be completely happy. I’m not even talking about your parents here,” I added quickly, hoping my words wouldn’t start another fiery outburst. The last thing I wanted was to cause him any more pain. “Family can be so much more than your parents. It takes a village to raise a child, they say. You didn’t just appear in that church out of nowhere. There must have been a home, a place, a number of people who knew you.”

  He exhaled heavily then lowered himself on the edge of the bed, pulling me down to sit next to him.

  “Looking for my parents is a long shot, Angela.” His voice was low and noticeably calmer, something I realized with relief. “You will only end up wasting time. If you want to find out more about my magic in general, there may be a quicker way.”

  “What do you mean?” I perked up with hope.

  He let himself fall backwards onto the bed, and I moved to lie down beside him.

  “I got an email a few months ago, it may be nothing,” he continued. “It came to my public account, and I get a lot of spam on it, just garbage most of the time. Simon has an assistant to manage it. They keep all this crazy shit organized in folders, in case we need to file a restraining order against some nutcase or something. Anyways, nothing of any importance gets deleted, and I’m sure the email is still there. Simon showed it to me because he thought I might be interested.”