Aftertaste (Sin #2)

XXIX.

Alexander and I lay in the bed in the evening, watching the stars through the window above us. I have my head on his bare chest and his hand is caressing my arm. Up and down in calming moves. None of us is talking, both of us too busy in our own thoughts.

I can feel Alexander's thinking about something heavy because his heart is beating fast and he's not relaxed. He's miles away in his mind. But so am I.

I break the moment by turning my head to look up at him, keeping my head on his chest. "What are you thinking about?" I ask him.

He looks at me, giving me a small smile. "You. Always you," he says.

I smile, but I know it's not the case. Or at least I doubt it's only me. "Charmer," I reply.

He takes a deep breath. "I was thinking about my sister actually. Zoe."

My body involuntarily tenses up. Alexander never talks about her. He has never really opened up about her and whenever I asked him about her, he shut down completely. This is the part of him that remains locked inside and he doesn't want to let it out. "What about her?" I ask him, trying to keep my voice neutral. I don't want to sound too eager, even though I am. But I really don't want to force him to talk.

"I don't ... I don't remember much about her, I guess. Just some little things. She liked looking up at the stars. We slept outside in our backyard once on just a blanket, placed on the grass. She was asking me about all the stars and I knew shit about them," he confesses.

My heart squeezes when I imagine him with his little sister back then. Although he wasn't like that with Amelia at the beginning, he changed and started acting differently. I know he was just afraid of losing his sister again because he blamed himself for what happened to Zoe.

I nuzzle my head against his chest, not saying anything because I don't know what to say. It's one of the rare moments he opened up and talked about her and I don't want to ruin it by saying something meaningless.

"I dream about her sometimes," he admits quietly. "I don't know whether I dream about things that happened or they're just dreams. It's blurred sometimes and it pisses me off that I don't remember more about her." He sighs. "I truly, truly adored her, you know? She was ... I've wanted a sibling for so long and when she was born ... she was perfect. Annoying at times, but still perfect. I miss her so much. I often wonder where she'd be today, you know? Or later in her life."

I squeeze my eyes shut because I'm going to start crying and I don't want him to stop talking. But I can't listen to him without feeling anything. The emotion he tells me this with is so strong ... It makes my heart break. It's so unfair what happened to him – to her. It makes me so, so sad.

He sighs again and squeezes me against him, placing his lips on top of my head and resting his head there. "She would've adored you," he says, changing the direction of the conversation suddenly.