0 7
legato
[It.] : Played smoothly without separation.
ADELAIDE APPARENTLY TRUSTED me enough to leave me to my own devices on the days I visited Kaden. She was no longer at the beach-house when I came over the next time, bearing two large boxes of pizza that I had bought at a diner two bus stops away from school. Millie had gotten me the pizza at a discounted price since she worked there.
Parker, who had chauffeured me to the beach-house, left as soon as he dropped me off because he had to go back to work. So the house was empty save for Edwin and Kaden – empty halls and empty corridors and empty rooms; it all seemed somewhat depressing to me, extravagant as the house was.
Edwin eyed me in amusement when I staggered through the doorway, juggling the pizza boxes, my bag and several books in my arms. He immediately took the boxes for me. "Mr Bretton has been rather restless all day," he said as he led me up the stairs, "he's been asking to see you for several days now."
My eyebrows rose in surprise. "He's been restless? Has he spent all day cooped up in the house?"
"Days," Edwin corrected, sombrely. "Mrs Bretton doesn't allow him to leave the house until he's fully regained back his sight."
I felt something in my heart pull as I remembered Kaden sat by the window, always looking out and never in. Pushing that thought aside, I leaned against the railing along the stairwell and continued to chat with Edwin. Within minutes, I'd already learnt plenty about him - that he had a son who worked at Nolan's company, a daughter whom I reminded him of and who had just given birth to a baby several weeks ago.
I was just about to ask about the gender of the baby when the door behind us clicked open and Kaden stepped out, hovering by the doorway with a disgruntled expression on his face, his mobile in his right hand.
"Evangeline," his lips flattened into a tight line, "what're you doing having pizza with Edwin outside my room?"
My eyebrows knitted in confusion. "How did you know – "
"I'm just blind – my auditory and olfactory sensory systems are functioning perfectly well," he returned in an almost sulky manner, and I resisted the urge to laugh because he sounded a lot like a small boy who wanted food he couldn't have. "Come in. And Edwin," the tone of his voice now seemed almost respectful and kind, "you're off for the next few hours. I'll call you if necessary."
"Thank you," Edwin said, nodding at me before leaving. He disappeared into a small room to the left of the first floor, which I presumed was where he stayed since he seemed to work round the clock.
Gathering my things, I followed Kaden into the room, setting the pizza boxes down on the coffee table. Kaden had returned to the phone call I presumed he was having before the interruption, his tone crisp and professional. It was definitely a business call and was proven right a moment later when he told the person on the other line to send in the report by Monday before ending the call.
"I can't believe you're still working," I said in disbelief, flipping up the flaps on the pizza boxes and laying out the napkins properly. "Aren't you supposed to be recuperating?"
"The stocks for the company will fall if I'm not there to monitor it," he returned seriously and I did believe him, because as the head of the company, Kaden clearly had a lot on his shoulders. Not to mention that Bretton was one of the largest companies in the country and held a huge share of the stock market. "I can't afford to go on breaks; my father thinks the company will disintegrate if I do."
"Well, you did the other day, remember? When you were watching Doctor Who with me and talking afterwards," I pointed out, going over to him and taking his arm. He seemed to relax under my touch and I led him over to the settee, slipping a napkin and a slice of pizza into his hands. "And the company's still thriving. Eat while the pizza's still hot."
He did as I ordered, taking generous, hungry bites of the pizza. "You didn't have to," he told me after awhile, "I could've ordered them for us."
"Don't worry about it. It was on the way and I just saved you a lot of delivery charges."
"Delivery charges?" He looked appalled. "You think I actually concern myself with delivery charges?"
"Well, us mere mortals do," I quipped, sitting beside him and taking a slice of my own. "Besides, I do delivery sometimes when I don't have classes to attend. All in a day's work. It's honestly not too difficult – "
"What kind of delivery?" He asked abruptly and there was something different in his tone, something shrewd, the kind that was meant to cajole me into divulging information that I belatedly realised I wasn't supposed to give. A couple more meetings and my time with Kaden was going to be over. I couldn't tell him anything that was informative about me.
"Food," I returned flippantly. It was a lie – I delivered plants and soil for the garden centre when Dad was too busy to do the rounds himself. Kaden seemed to buy the lie nonetheless and I heaved a sigh of relief. "Do you want to watch a movie?" I asked him, setting the pizza down and wiping my fingers on the napkin. Heading over to my bag, I zipped it open and rummaged through the collection I'd borrowed from Millie, since all I had back at home were romance movies and I doubted Kaden would like them. "I brought a couple of discs. I've got The Matrix, Silence of the Lambs, Memento, The Dark Knight, Lord of the – "
"It's your choice. I'm good with any movie, so long as you narrate it to me," he added pointedly, in an almost teasing manner that made me smile in surprise.
Selecting Memento from the collection, I slotted it into the disc player that Kaden had taught me how to operate the other day, before heading back to him on the settee and turning on the television. "You're going to regret asking," I informed Kaden, when the movie began to play. "I will probably mention all the massive spoilers within the first five minutes."
He shifted closer to me until his shoulder was brushing against mine. "Doesn't matter. It's always quiet when I'm watching movies because I'm usually alone. It's a good change of pace once in awhile."
I glanced over at him. He was chewing his pizza almost absentmindedly and I felt a pang in my heart at the thought of him being alone so often. Parker had once told me that Kaden didn't like crowded places so going to the cinema was never really an option for him, especially since he was so easily recognisable. It wasn't just the cinema; it was parties and pubs and every sort of social event, because the press usually made a huge deal about it when Kaden attended.
Reaching forward, I took another slice of pizza and placed it in Kaden's hands after he'd finished eating the first one. Then I leaned back, my shoulder brushing against his once again, the contact firm but fleeting. "Memento's a thriller film starring Guy Pearce, who's great in it, by the way. It follows a non-linear narrative structure. So Pearce plays Leonard Shelby, a man suffering from anterograde amnesia..."
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
I supposed I must've fallen asleep midway through the movie, because the last thing I remembered was visiting the loo after I'd finished eating and then coming back to settle beside Kaden. But he was no longer beside me when I woke up; instead, he was sitting by the window once again, his face turned towards the light.
Stifling a yawn, I shifted and sat up, belatedly realising that there was a blue blanket draped over me. My fingers pulled it aside but not before lingering on the soft fabric for a moment or two. It was an act of kindness that I knew I would remember in weeks to come. Kaden probably didn't have an easy time locating a blanket and spreading it over me, but he'd done it all the same and it meant the world to me.
"You should've woken me," I broke the silence and went over to him, pausing when I was a short distance away from his ledge. Some part of me realised that this was his favourite spot and perhaps it wasn't the best idea to intrude. So I simply sat on the floor instead and looked up at him. "I'm here to keep you company, not spend the whole afternoon sleeping."
"It's fine," he returned quietly. His face was now turned to me, a relaxed expression on his face as he leaned against the side of the wall. "You seemed exhausted because you dozed off fairly quickly."
"I had to pull several all-nighters to finish an essay thanks to a very demanding professor – "
The words had already left my lips when I realised, with a faint tingle of horror, that it wasn't a wise idea to divulge the fact that I was in university. Crossing my fingers behind my back, I hoped that Kaden had not heard it.
But it was too late.
"You're in university?" He asked almost immediately, as if he had waited for a long time for me to let slip another piece of information, and had pounced on it right away.
"Yes," I murmured dismissively, "average life of a university student, you know – essays and all. What did you study in university?"
If he noticed my sudden switch in topic, he didn't question it. "Business," he replied, before pausing, a frown slipping onto his face. "Wasn't my ideal choice, but it was what my parents wanted."
It wasn't much of a surprise to me. From what I knew about Kaden so far, it seemed like his parents had already mapped out much of his life out for him. "What would you have studied if you had a choice?" I questioned curiously, "if you could live again, without decisions being made for you this time, what would you choose?"
He exhaled. "I don't know. I don't generally like to think about things I could have done because it'll only lead to regret." Leaning up, he stretched, his legs spreading out on the ledge. One of his toes collided briefly into my shoulder by accident and he quickly withdrew. "Are you sitting on the floor?"
I almost flinched at how aghast he sounded. "Well – "
"What the hell are you doing on the floor?" He sputtered in disbelief before shifting aside and making space for me on the window seat. "Come over here."
Gingerly, I sat, making sure that I wasn't taking up more room than necessary. It was a nice spot. I could feel the sun streaming in from the windows and bathing the room in its warmth. The scenery from the window here was breathtaking and the beach outside seemed to span vast distances, stretching farther than my eyes could see.
It was a gorgeous sight, but I still couldn't understand why Kaden fixated on the view outside when he couldn't see a thing. Turning to glance at Kaden, I let the question slip past my lips carefully. "Why do you keep looking out?"
He was silent for a moment too long and when he spoke again, he sounded almost defensive. "What?"
I tapped the window, making sure he could hear the sound of my nails against the glass panel. "You're always on this seat and you're always looking out." He didn't answer and I began to wonder if it was the best idea to push. "Do you miss going outside?"
"That's – one of the reasons," his lips flattened in a tight line, as if admitting it bothered him more than it should have. When I kept silent, he sighed and continued, "mostly, though, it's the only indicator I have that tells me if I've regained my sight. If I can catch a glimpse of light from the sun beneath my shut eyelids, I think it means that my sight's back."
"You could always open your eyes to check," I suggested, feeling rather confused. It seemed like a much simpler indicator that way.
He let out a low laugh, but his lips were hardly smiling and he sounded almost frustrated. "Do you know what it feels like to open your eyes and see nothing but darkness?"
It was a rhetorical question and I didn't answer. Instead, I hugged my knees to my chest and waited for him to continue.
When he spoke, his voice was barely audible. "It's frightening the first time, confusing the second, frustrating the third. Then, eventually, it got depressing because it feels like the world's been ripped away from you, leaving you with nothing but sounds and smells to go by. When the doctors saw that I was driving myself crazy blinking and trying to get my sight back, they put the gauze around my head to prevent me from putting unnecessary pressure on my eyes. So this window," his hand reached up to knock the glass softly, "the sunlight outside – that's the only thing that keeps me sane. It reminds me that this is temporary and that I'll be able to see again."
I reached for his clenched fist that was resting against the window and tried to uncurl his fingers from their position. It surprised me, however, when his fingers uncurled and automatically intertwined themselves with mine.
"Just bear with it," I said gently, my eyes staring fixedly at our hands. His seemed larger than mine; an all too familiar feeling. It seemed like just yesterday when he'd taken me by the hand and danced with me. "It's only for a few more weeks and then you'll be able to see."
"And you'll have to watch Memento with me again," he told me.
I turned to him in surprise, my breath hitching when I saw the corners of his lips lift hesitantly in a small smile that seemed to soften his features marginally. This was a first. I hadn't seen him properly smile before, not when we were face to face anyway.
"I didn't really get it even with your narration," he teased.
It was the hope and promise in his words that made something in me tug painfully, because I knew all too well that this would not become a fulfilled reality. Kaden would open his eyes and I wouldn't be in his life by then. I was a ghost, coming into his life and leaving fleeting interactions that he'd probably forget with time to come.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I brushed the pad of my thumb gently against his hand. "You'll understand it when you watch it again," I said instead, shutting my eyes and picturing the look of wonder on Kaden's face when he finally understood the movie through his own eyes alone, without me to act as his visual aid; the moment when he saw how the black-and-white sequence blended in perfectly with the coloured shots to make a complicated, but beautiful, picture. "You'll love it when you finally see it."