BRANDON
I’m a creature of habit.
Neurotically so. In every sense of the word.
Without my carefully laid-out routine, I’d crumble and crash into a million irreparable pieces.
Without my punctual set of actions, I’m nothing.
So every day, I wake up at five. No exception—not during holidays, not after a night of drinking or partying or doing whatever is expected from a uni student. Five. Always. Every single day.
Then I put on my clothes, do a smoothie, and go for a run at five thirty. Back at seven. Shower. Breakfast. Wallow in my studio for another hour or two. Then school. Then I go to practice with the lacrosse team. More wallowing. Talking, smiling, laughing, caring, texting, liking, being.
Existing.
Day in and day out, I have to exist. To be out there and fucking stay there. In the middle of people with blurry faces and names and personalities.
All day, I tell myself that I belong with them and that I’m not in fact battling with incessant nausea that saturates my lungs with every breath. That’s what I do best.
Pretend. Swallow it all down. Smile.
Again and again and fucking again until I can crawl back to my studio, stare at my soul in the form of a blank canvas, then shower longer than necessary. I scrub myself clean, turning my skin as red as a tomato, and that’s the only way I can tune out for the day.
Then I have herbal tea and go to sleep at ten thirty.
That is, if I’m not dragged to a party by my friend Remi, who likes to have fun on an everyday basis.
Sometimes, I can shoo him away and keep to my sleeping schedule, but other times, he’ll be armed with our other friends and I can’t say no.
Rejecting invitations constantly doesn’t fit well in the pretending agenda, now, does it?
My inconsistent sleeping schedule scratches at my neurotic side like an unreachable itch, but I deal with it.
Logically.
By waking up at five the next day and resuming the cycle.
That’s why I nearly lost it after that godforsaken initiation I shouldn’t have set foot into.
That event was a major deviation from my usual habits, and it took me more than just waking up at five to get over it.
But I did. Eventually. Because I’m in control.
The whole ludicrous experience is in the past.
Or that’s what I thought.
Another unexpected event just slammed into my steel wall, putting a dent in it and sweeping my perfect cycle into a ditch.
My feet come to a halt as I peer back at the waste of space of a human whom I’ve been trying to bleach out of my mind.
And I did.
I succeeded.
Until he spoke just now, that is.
My lungs heave in quick succession, chest rippling against my shirt as if hoping to escape from my own fucking skin.
Alternative rock keeps playing from my sole earbud, the loud beat pounding in my ear, but I can’t hear anything over the constant static thumping in my skull.
Like whenever my carefully built life experiences a hurdle.
Nikolai isn’t only a hurdle. He’s a fucking wall that I can’t seem to shove out of the way.
He doesn’t notice the clusterfuck he’s brought on with his mere presence and stands there grinning like an idiot.
Half naked.
Only a necklace with a bullet dangles on his chest.
His white shorts hang so low on his hips, one wrong move would bring them down.
A map of extravagant tattoos spread over his chest, shoulders, arms, and all eight of his abs. He’s stupidly muscular in a very unnecessary way. His thick mane of hair is tied in a messy ponytail which highlights his sharp jaw, harsh features, and unhinged eyes.
I thought the bloodied mask made him seem monstrous the other time, but no, he doesn’t need a crutch when he can pull off that intense and entirely unpleasant energy with his revolting face alone.
He strokes my AirPod between his fingers—definitely disinfecting that later. “Is it just me or are you looking at me like you really missed me?”
I barely manage to stop my upper lip from lifting in a snarl as I snatch my AirPod. “I don’t even know who you are. Run along, boy.”
There.
I threw his insult back at him. Not that I was thinking about that retort, or something similarly obnoxious, hours after the initiation.
I turn and start jogging again, hell-bent on finishing my run and going back to the schedule we all know and love. By we, I mean me and my unstable brain.
Once again, my plan plummets to the deepest pit of hell.
The damn twat catches up to me, jogging at my pace, his shoulder nearly touching mine. “It’s me, Nikolai. We met the other day at the initiation… Oh, right! I was wearing the yellow-stitch mask, so you didn’t see my face, but it’s me! Much hotter without the mask, don’t you think?”
I was intending to disinfect the AirPod before I used it again, but I don’t have the luxury. I push it in my ear and blast the volume to the max and run faster, the trees lining the road blurring in my peripheral vision.
Order. Habit.
Control.
I always run the same path on the same pavement, pass by the same park, and look at the same buildings.
It’s intensely infuriating when they have areas of construction on some roads, and I have to take pedestrian diversions. Right now, there aren’t any.
I’m a fast runner—the fastest on the team, which is why I play midfield to perfection.
Nikolai and his ridiculous size can’t keep up with me.
Now I can get back to my rhythm and forget this entire thing happened. Like I thoroughly forgot about the initiation—except for the fact that my baby sister was there.
I couldn’t exactly text her, ‘Hey, little princess, for the love of fish and chips, please tell me I was seeing things and you weren’t at the Heathens’ initiation,’ because that would give away that I was there. Although, she did do a double-take, so she could have recognized me despite the mask.
Either way, it’s absolutely not happening.
My love language is shielding those I love, my precious sister included, from the mess that is my existence.
So there’s no way I would’ve voluntarily divulged I was there. I did text and meet up with her and she seemed fine. Aside from the fact that Killian Carson, another member of the Heathens, posted a picture of him kissing her—or, more accurately, eating her face.
I must admit I was alarmed and Lan lost his damn mind over it. Killian, coincidentally Nikolai’s cousin, isn’t the type of guy we want our sister with.
But she assured me it’s okay and that she knows what she’s doing. Lan definitely didn’t listen to her and made me join him when he went to threaten Killian and give him a deadline to leave our sister.
Of course, I had to apologize on his behalf when he was rude to Killian’s cousin, Mia. Despite being Nikolai’s sister, she’s nothing like him.
She accepted the apology and invited me over for pancakes and gaming.
Not Lan. Me.
I really didn’t want to go to the Heathens’, but Mia insisted, and I wanted to see Killian for myself, so I went.
Fortunately, Nikolai wasn’t there, but Glyn came along and I could see how she was longingly looking at Killian the whole time.
After that, I was a responsible brother and reminded her to be careful and tell me if anything happens. However, giving any sort of advice always makes me feel like a massive fraud.