"Place your bets, people," Selena called out in her low, sultry voice; lavish notes melting over her bones. The miniature gold chains that dangled from the edge of her bottle-green cropped top clinked against one another, as the upper half of her voluptuous body continually rotated in her rush to attend to numerous outstretched hands. "Who'll be the next couple to tie the knot? Hamilton has twenty dollars on Gill–"
"Father, are you insane?" the ice blonde berated his plainly jovial parent, naturally furrowed eyebrows creasing even more in his blatant disapproval.
"He hasn't even got a girlfriend," the ever-blunt Luna pitched in unnecessarily, fifteen dollars worth of fern green paper crumpled up in her miniature hands.
"And whose fault is that?" poor Hamilton pouted, staring at his beloved son with pitifully adoring eyes. All he got in return was a dour scowl.
The wedding of Calvin and Phoebe had the town's people speculating about who would be next to walk down the aisle. Selena had cleverly taken a tip out of the business-savvy Luna's book, monopolizing on their wedding reception as a means to begin a little gambling den of sorts. Her magenta hair glowed furious maroon in the soft autumn sunshine. "Fifteen from Luna for Candace and Julius," she announced, a hostess at an auction.
"Really?" I questioned Luna disbelievingly; her chosen pairing currently not even on speaking terms with one another.
"Haven't you ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy?" she glowered, bristling in return. The azure sky painted her baby blue eyes with a speckling of cottony clouds.
"Don't be jealous, honey," Selena chuckled alluringly to me, raising a graceful hand to reveal an envious amount of emerald green cash resting in between her elongated fingers, clenched fist unwrapping with an elaborated flourish. Dance was in her soul; even her day-to-day body movements were works of art to be drank in. "You and your sweetheart seem set to be the winning couple. Barbara and Simon put down twenty-five, Hamilton has another twenty on you two-"
"Your loyalties are certainly disconcerting, Father," Gill frowned indignantly. The stout little mayor grinned back sheepishly, coy chuckle thrown in for good measure.
"Maybe we can cut out the illegal bookmaking and focus on the actual reason that we're here?" I cut in derisively – Chase's mincing tongue rubbing off on me – causing everyone's eyes to fall onto the newly married couple coming towards us. Phoebe glowed with a quiet elegance I had never seen before on the ever-bumbling inventor. Calvin looked at her like he finally understood what a home was. Tipping his trusty Stetson at us in greeting – as I'd suspected, the hat never left his head, not even on his wedding day – a sprinkling shower of congratulations quickly rained down upon them; a confetti spray of secondhand exhilaration.
"Congratulations and everything, but what on earth are you wearing?" Luna spat out thoughtlessly; the filter, that most people were taught to keep on their mouths growing up, had never quite developed on hers. "Luna," Shelly chided her youngest granddaughter in hushed tones, shooting Phoebe an apologetic grandmotherly look that nobody could refuse. The creased corners of her kindly eyes: the folds of a blanket.
"I think she looks perfect," Calvin beamed unstintingly, lacing their intertwined fingers even tighter together, "She wouldn't be Phoebe if she were wearing a massive gown and high heels." You didn't need to read between the lines. The unspoken words leaped out from the gaping spaces: she's perfect the way she is.
Barbara's head tilted to the side, as her hand – crinkled lines scattered across her palm – came to rest against her heart in a moment of unadulterated joy for her daughter, who had managed to find somebody who knew what she was like: from her unquenchable thirst for discovery to her exasperating tendency to drift off into her own world, and who loved her, not in spite of those things, but because of those things as well. I could have sworn I saw Barbara's eyes glisten momentarily from touched tears being held back.
"Molly," I heard my name whispered over my shoulder. Swiveling my head around, I was met with Calvin, who had seemingly manifested out of thin air behind me, while everybody else went back to their own conversations. His notes were discreet and raspy, "I wanted to thank you for talking some sense into me that day. I was crazy trying to do what I did. I know I would've regretted it."
"Don't worry about it," I assured him, chestnut locks tickling my cheeks as a heady pinecone-fragranced autumn breeze whisked past us, "I don't think you would've done it anyway, even if I hadn't come along. I mean, look at you guys. This is the happiest I've ever seen you two."
"I think I could say the same about you and Chase," the explorer smiled benevolently, the blinded whirlwind romance that had once existed between us well and truly dead. Skeletons decaying where that infatuation had once lived.
My eyes unconsciously darted to search for Chase in the sea of villagers that flooded Celesta Church Grounds. Robins crooned melodiously from where they sat, perched gaily atop toasted marshmallow brown branches. The electric energy in the spice-scented air twirled, alive.
As if right on cue, I suddenly felt svelte fingers digging firmly into my fleshy waist, pulling me ever so slightly away from Calvin. Amethyst eyes glared sourly at him; Chase's rose lips: thorns.
Perceptively sensing Chase's jealousy circling around his own neck, Calvin interjected, "Chase, there you are. I was just saying to Molly how happy she seems with you." Deliberate frankness sprang from his words.
Unable to deal with both such complimentary words from an acquaintance and the torturous discomfiture from his unsolicited protectiveness, my idiotic childhood best friend, and now almost two-year boyfriend, targeted his unease at me. "Probably because she finally has someone she can keep yammering to. Even at night, she's still talking. I swear, I haven't slept properly in close to two years," he sighed melodramatically, corners of his tapered eyes drooping to further accentuate his entirely bombastic point. His lithe hand remained firmly wrapped around my waist; the tiniest traces of a smile played on the corners of his lush lips.
"Hey, those kind of bedroom secrets should've come out at my bachelor party, not on my wedding day," Calvin joked, cerulean eyes turning to slits in his misled jollity.
"Wait, you've totally got the wrong idea," I interrupted, waving my small, coarse hands around in the air to dispel any lewd thoughts that might have been running through his mind; a fan through smog. My saucer plate eyes turned to Chase in distress, only to be met with his smug, delectable smirk.
"Thanks for coming, you guys," the new mother, and now new bride, called out as she tackled Calvin with her one free arm – Heath currently occupying the other. Heart shaped musical notes floated in Phoebe's singsong voice. Heath gurgled at his mother's euphonious melody.
"Congratulations on the wedding," Chase greeted her, in an uncharacteristic display of pleasantries, "And the baby."
"Those two normally don't come together," I added jestingly, as Heath's miniscule hands bunched up in his alice blue swaddling cloth; a plush material your fingertips could get lost in.
"You want to hold him?" Phoebe offered benignly, a maternal radiance emanating from her open pores – a result of lack of care. Calvin's marble cerulean eyes were completely entranced by his little dozing ball of perfection, his crease-strewn eyelids lowered in pure adoration.
"Really?" I checked, smile involuntarily tugging at my lips as I observed their little bubble of gleeful wonder.
"She might drop him," Chase added snarkily, finally releasing his death grip on my waist.
"I will not," I retaliated in faux offense, digging my knuckles into his arm in rebuke.
Phoebe's roughened fingers shivered as she gently placed Heath in my arms, as if a part of her went missing when he wasn't by her side. A slice of her arteries abruptly wrenched out of her chest, leaving a cavernous cavity where Heath was meant to be.
His fragile body was warm against mine, his powder soft skin – still untainted by the tribulations life had to dish out – like lily petals against my tough callouses. His sleepy eyes fluttered open, eyelids partially closed as the sun, which came down in hexagonal beams of light, attacked his fresh sky eyes. Dew drops on drooping grass blades. His little mouth, the size of a coin, fleetingly widened as he let out a drowsy yawn.
"He's so perfect," I cooed to his beaming parents, letting his velvety head rest against my nervous palm.
Chase let a tickled exhalation of air escape from his upturned lips, playfully waving a slender finger in Heath's dozy face. "He's cute," he conceded, habitual wall of sarcasm torn down in a moment of genuine weakness, "Hey, little guy."
Heath's teeny fingers, teddy bear soft, grabbed Chase's sylphlike index finger, wrapping around it, as if clinging on for all his new life was worth. Chase's amethyst eyes turned to two full moons, enchantment and emotion swirling in the craters of his gemstone orbs, as the little creature attached to him.
"He likes you," I half teased, half admired, lifting my hazel eyes to meet his. The usual stony edge to his eyes watered away, smiling and laughing and melting as they looked at me. Sweetness and softness and white chocolate cream.
The flowers in my heart beamed.
"You guys look like a family," Calvin injected into the poignant atmosphere, chuckling throatily as he did so, "We'd better take him back. They look like they could steal him from us," he joked to Phoebe, who had linked her tanned arm through his.
"I'm still taking bets, if the newly married couple wants to make some extra cash on the side," Selena announced gratingly, wide hips swaying as she made her way over to us. Her tassel earrings, reflective waterfalls of gold dangling with every flowing movement she created, swayed like pendulums.
"We're going to put forty down on these lovebirds right here," Phoebe replied laughingly, leaning her weight against her husband.
"Generous," Selena simpered, perfectly arched eyebrow raising at their extravagant bet.
Chase's honeyed voice broke into the conversation, so unnaturally quiet that my ears strained themselves to hear him, "Put me down for fifty."
I hadn't known that it was possible for eyebrows to climb so high up one's forehead, until I saw Selena's long magenta arc disappear into her cascading fringe. Large yellow-tinged teeth appearing in her grin, an arsenal of cruel mockeries stewing behind them, she placed a supple palm on her plump hip. "What was that I just heard?" she goaded Chase purposefully.
"Say anything else and starve for the rest of the season," he shot back, scything tongue lashing out in tactical defense. A sickle hacking against intrusive weeds.
His normally fair cheeks paled in contrast to the electric crimson blush that glowed luminously all over his face. His eyes darted back up to mine for the tiniest fraction of millisecond, before scuttling away in immense bashfulness; a timid squirrel that had been caught staring for a second too long. I laced the fingers of my free hand through the one that he bumped subtly against my thigh, his invisible nudge for me to hold it.
My childhood best friend: who had splashed around with me in the squeaky inflatable pool in my backyard – we had ended up popping it by accident; on whose front lawn I had fallen asleep next to a countless number of times, because we had both tried to resist the dreaded see you tomorrow that inevitably loomed when the sun set; who had danced my very first slow dance with me.
Who had played house with me – he had been the daddy, and I had been the mommy. We pinky promised that night, before we parted ways with leaves in our hair, laughter still warm in our hearts, that when we were all grown up, we would be a family for real. No more goodbyes. Just goodnights.
That millisecond of eye contact, his now amethyst eyes – no longer the translucent naïve lilac they were as a little boy – boring into my soul, said everything my pride-filled boyfriend couldn't – could never – say out loud.
I'm betting on us.
My fingers intertwined with his, each space between his talented fingers etched out so mine nestled comfortably in the crooks, as if they had developed with mine between them, molding around my fingers the way vines grow around trellis – I suppose in a way, they had – said everything he didn't even need to hear from me anymore. He already knew.
I'm betting on us too.
"No, child, you're doing it all wrong," Yolanda's stentorian berating voice rung through the Brass Bar's glacial air. Ice scratching against chalk.
"Granny, I can't do anything right if I don't even know what is right," Maya wailed tearfully, her normally gravity-defying amber-orange pigtails presumably sagging in despair.
"Tell me again why we're hiding out in a closet? In your workplace, no less," I whispered accusatorily to Chase, whose lean body was entirely pressed up against mine, as we stood cooped up in a walnut wood storage closet towards the back of the bar. His usual languid breaths had morphed into tense, anxious ones that were timed with the beat of his audibly palpitating heart. My eyes having hastily grown accustomed to the engulfing darkness, I could make out the shadow of his wild peach locks falling out of his trademark bobby pins, messily caressing his angular cheekbones. It was probably driving him crazy.
"Because I live for the thrill," he shot back, words drenched in unalloyed sarcasm. His willowy fingers laced around my waist as he pulled us closer together in the cramped closet. It smelled of newly stained mahogany and maturing liquor.
"That'd be a lot funnier if I had the option of sitting down," I retorted, leaning myself into him, pressing my cheek against his apron-covered chest. He smelled like himself; Chasey – without the odours of his kitchen clinging onto his skin, the aromas of his mouthwatering dishes leaving lipstick marks on his clothes. He smelled of freshly picked oranges and baking vanilla beans.
Chase and I had been the only people in the Brass Bar twenty minutes ago, until Yolanda and Maya had barged in, Yolanda reluctantly attempting to impart some of her many years of cooking knowledge on to Maya – keyword being attempting. Chase had pulled – read: dragged – me into the closet with him faster than I could say 'wha-' and barred the two of us in.
"You think they don't have a kitchen at the inn?" he replied in muted hisses, absentmindedly running his fingers through my hair, "Yolanda brought Maya here because she wants me to do the teaching. And that's synonymous with vomiting blood." Sensing my incredulity, even in the blinding blackness, he elaborated, "What, you think I'm kidding? The last time I had to eat one of her cakes," he blanched, seemingly reliving the awful nightmare-come-true, "and believe me, calling that thing a cake is an insult to all other cakes out there, I know I saw some blood when I hurled it up."
Chase's large palm covered my mouth in an attempt to stifle the giggles inexplicably escaping from my lips. "Shh," he shushed me, palm dropping slightly to my bouncy cheek when the threatening laughter had dissipated, "If they find us, we're done for. I don't want to have to eat one of her concoctions again. I've still got so much to live for."
The charred smell of smoke crept in through the cracks below the closet doors, slithering its spindly, bony fingers into the enclosed box of black. "You smell that?" I questioned, hazel eyes widening in terror.
"Dammit," Chase cursed, drawing me even closer to him, "If we come out now, we're going to have to eat that charcoal disaster. And if we don't, we might get burned down with the rest of the bar. Honestly, the second one sounds more appealing."
The sound of crackling fire drifted into the closet, sending shock into my ears. Yolanda's frantic and exasperated cries of, "How did you burn that?" and, "Out of the way, child, out of the way," assured me that we were, in fact, not going to go down in a tragic blaze.
Deciding to exaggerate the severity of what must have been an extremely comical situation transpiring outside the closet, I pleaded dramatically to Chase, "If we die, just know that you were the love of my life. Everything else was just background."
His velvety rose lips found mine instantly – instinctively – in the darkness, pressing ardently against them as one lithe hand went to cup my cheek, and the other wrapped around my fleshed out waist. His sweet exhalation of breath – nostalgia and childhood and friendship and love – breathed wind upon the flowers he had planted in my heart, which had flourished into a full-fledged, effervescent garden. Laughter and smiling until our cheeks hurt and intertwining hands that had been that way since we were little. His wispy eyelashes flickered against my eyelids as he rested his forehead against mine.
"I love you, like crazy," he confessed in the embracing darkness, just bright enough for our eyes to map out the already memorized contours of the other's faces. Both his svelte hands gently cradled my face, his amethyst eyes gazing tenderly into mine, warmth radiating from his cheeks, "You idiot."
"You're blushing," I teased mercilessly, poking his slim cheek for good measure, in the spot just below his sculpted cheekbones. His embarrassed skin scorched lava red against my rough fingertip.
"Shut up," he murmured softly, lightly wrapping his fingers around my raised wrist. His fingertips against my wrist; the blood that flowed through my veins. "So are you."
I pressed my lips against his, and they kept finding one another again and again.
The rust-coloured liquid that flowed through my heart finally knowing where it came from, and what made it beat.
People believe in the theory of parallel universes: that for every action you take, all the other possible choices that you could have made don't simply dissipate into nothingness. Skeletal leaves vanishing in an inexorable gust. Instead, they swing open doors to universes where you ate that sandwich instead of fried rice that one time, and as a result, you end up a billionaire.
What I'm saying is, maybe there's a universe out there where this didn't happen. Where I was too oblivious, my gut didn't tug at my suspended heartstrings, telling me to look where I did. Where I simply slid into bed with the love of my life and we found one another in dreamland and woke up with our bodies fitting together, limbs entwined like a network of branching veins.
In that universe, things would have been much simpler. Maybe Chase and I would have dated for a while longer, gotten married, fulfilled every childhood dream we had ever dared to wish for on exploding stars, had a family and lived happily ever after. Simple.
But, this was this universe.
And life was not that simple.
He always slept on his side, one lanky arm slung over his brow to shield his jewel eyes from the inevitable piercing light that would attempt to pry them open before he was ready. His head would tilt down ever so slightly, bared vulnerability and fragility; shimmering still waters. Sometimes, I thought that if I crawled into bed too clumsily, he would shatter. A mirror teetering precariously on the edge of a shelf.
I tiptoed as light-footedly as I could into Chase's house, having reached later than his work shift had ended. My eyes struggled to familiarize themselves with the heaving darkness, her blanketing weight resting on my tense shoulders.
People call it gut feeling. Intuition. Instinct. Maybe it's because people are drawn to trouble – to things that will only destroy them in the end.
I felt it boring its eyes into me from Chase's trashcan – a rectangular crosshatching of wicker – a lone, folded sheet of paper resting above the rest of his garbage; neatly creased into three sections, crisp, delicious manila envelope discarded next to it.
If I hadn't picked it up, if I had simply left it there to rot and be taken away the next day, forever, my life might have gone a lot differently.
But I picked it up.
Sometimes I wonder, if I could go back in time and stop myself: would I?
The words whispered faintly in the dimness of midnight. My optic nerves pulled taut as my pupils tried their best to drink in the barely discernible font penned formally onto the paper.
The words finally jumped out from the sheet, attacking and scratching and yelling at my corneas: honoured and culinary fellowship and prestigious and opportunity of a lifetime. One in one million chosen.
My eyes darted hungrily across the paper, heart quivering to the beat of a racing horse's gallop. Why hadn't Chase told me about this? Why was it in the trash? My eyebrows furrowed, forming a deep crumple in my forehead. I had so many questions for the peacefully sleeping boy who lay in his bedroom, mere feet away from the living room I kneeled in.
This was truly the opportunity of a lifetime for Chase. Every dream he had ever harboured about becoming a world-class chef and having the entire world salivate over his cooking could be coming true. Endless questions dashed through my mind, forming a hazy tornado of confusion. Murky question marks ricocheting off the walls of my brain.
It turned out that I hadn't needed to ask him anything at all. It pounced out at me – the word that would simultaneously answer all of my questions and bring my entire revolving world crumbling down with it.
France.
Author's Note: Please forgive me for what I'm about to do to Chase and Molly. Trust me, nobody loves them more than I do. I could seriously write about them forever, but the story must go on! Please like/follow/review and let me know what you think. I always love hearing from you, thank you so much for all your support!