Page 83 of Monarch

The rock is in my mouth now, swelling and blocking my airway. A scream so violent it will rip my throat raw is pushing its way out as tears form in my eyes. I look for a cushion to grab, but that’s when I see movement. I stop and stare as Mari comes into the room.

They’re half-asleep, rubbing their eyes as they stumble closer. They don’t see how I’m on the cusp of ripping myself to shreds just through sobs and yells.

“Lex?” they ask.

I drop my hand, pray the tears in my eyes evaporate, and turn to face them.

“Yeah?” I croak.

“Are you okay?” Mari asks, and it’s the first time in ten long, tragic years that they’ve asked me that without a fragment of scorn or disdain or pure hate in their tone.

And that tiny revelation pushes the rock back down my throat and into my guts. That minuscule crumb of hope makes me smile.

“Yeah, just couldn’t sleep,” I say, moving to sit up on the couch. I pull my T-shirt down. It’s a men’s XL, and I am wearing underwear underneath, but I am aware of my bare legs, and theirs too. “Was going to do some painting.”

Mari studies me for a moment. It’s long enough for me to think it hasn’t worked. They’ve seen right through me. They can see that rock. They can see the moisture in my eyes. They know me. They’ve always known me.

“Okay,” they say eventually with a slight nod of their head. “Can I watch?”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Mari

“Aren’t you tired?” xe asks me.

“Sure, but I’m awake now and I…” I pause. For the first time since I entered this room, I feel that defensiveness that Lex prompts in me. But then I look in xir misty brown eyes and I push it back down. I’ve never seen Lex look like this. Never. Xe looks so fragile and small and vulnerable. And maybe it’s sick of me, but I want to know why. “I like watching you work. I always did.”

Lex’s eyebrows lift. Xe is surprised.

“You remember, don’t you?” I sit on the armchair xe normally occupies. Sure, maybe we’re having a possible bonding moment, but sitting next to xem on the sofa feels like a step too far. “When you couldn’t sleep when we were kids, teens, you’d wake up in the middle of the night and sketch all these wild ideas that kept you awake. And I’d watch. I’d lie on my side next to you and watch your pencil or pen move quicker than should be possible, and you were so…so lost in your art. I found it fascinating.”

Lex’s eyes glaze over again, and it’s like xe isn’t looking at me but through me. I fear xe is going to cry, just like I thought xe would when I first saw xem, but then xe blinks and xe moves. Xe gets off the sofa and sits cross-legged on the floor. Xe picks up a blank canvas off the floor and rests it standing up against the sofa. Xe gathers paints and a piece of cardboard covered in smudged paint, a makeshift mixing palette. In no time at all, xe has chosen colours and has a wet brush in xir hand. Before xe makes contact with the canvas, xe looks up at me.

“Do you ever see them…or did you? When you lived there.”

I frown. “Who?”

“My family. My mum, my brothers?”

I move to the sofa so I’m closer and our voices don’t wake Roos. “Yeah, sometimes. Not often. I’d see your brothers in the bars occasionally. And your mum around town. I saw your grandma once in Sainsbury’s. We spoke for ages. I think she forgot that we weren’t,” I pull a face, “friends anymore.”

Lex’s face goes very serious. “She always lived in her own world. She believed what she wanted to believe.”

“Must be nice.” I yawn and lie down, resting my head on a cushion. I’m facing Lex, seeing only the top of xir face above the canvas.

“Yeah,” Lex says, xir voice coarse.

“Do you not speak to her? What about your mum?”

Lex puts xir brush to the canvas and starts moving xir hand, xir eyes on the movement. “We don’t talk much.”

My eyebrows pull together. That surprises me. Xe always had a good relationship with xir family and was more like friends with xir mum.

“You know your grandfather came into the studio once,” I say as the memory hits me. “It was like a year after you left. He was looking for you.”

Lex’s hand stops. “Looking for me?”

“Yeah, he thought I’d have a number or an address for you.”