Project LOSS

Chapter 6

Lani stumbled into Joe’s—her favourite coffee shop—arms laden with bags full of cleaning supplies. The plastic handles stretched taut in her hands, almost to breaking point. They retracted and crumpled like ribbons as she dumped the shopping by the closest table and slid into a hard wooden chair.

Meredith and her group of CDA lackeys sat in her preferred seats—the soft-cushioned ones on the balcony.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Jack greeted with a broad smile, popping up from nowhere and seating himself in the chair opposite. Lani had missed Jack since losing her administrative job in the CDA office even though she’d found him annoying throughout most of her time there.

“The usual?” Stan shouted over as he cleared a teapot, cups and crumb-spotted china plates from a nearby table. Lani smiled and gave him a thumbs up, flashing a plastic silver card between her middle and index finger.

“You have a class A privilege card?” Jack asked, mouth agape.

“No... it’s Kai’s.”

The mention of the name Kai pricked up Meredith’s ears, and she was at the table in mere seconds, looming over Lani and Jack, her long pigtails brushing the table top.

“Kai gave you his privilege card?” Meredith asked.

“Well, I didn’t steal it...” Lani glanced around, hoping that was explanation enough. It wasn’t. Meredith stayed put, moving her hands to her hips.

“I do most of the shopping. I can only get eggs with the silver card. Plus, Kai doesn’t really need it.” Lani explained.

“Does he know you use his card to buy fancy coffees?”

“Well...,” Lani thought for a moment. “Erm....”

“Come on Meredith, there’s no reason to be jealous—everyone knows Lani is still head over heels in love with Vrethie,” Jack interjected. He looked back and forth at the women. “What? ... What?”

It was true. Lani was still very much in love with Vrethie and everyone knew it. Why this would matter to Meredith was not so obvious.

With a tut, Meredith turned on her heels and strutted back to her friends. Lani and Jack exchanged looked and giggles she hoped were drowned out by the hiss of the milk steamer and rumbling of the coffee bean grinder.

Stan appeared with her cappuccino, complete with chocolate dust and mini biscuit. It was the highlight of her day... after seeing Vrethie. She sipped the molten liquid slowly as Jack filled her in with the goings on in the world of Jack. He always had some embarrassing or awkward tale; today was no different.

“So, Mr Raz from the library was giving me such a weird look, and I did not understand why,” Jack was saying, “until I got home.”

Lani looked up from her coffee.

“Then I realised I’d accidentally picked up a porno instead of the car repair manual,” Jack revealed.

Lani laughed, “An easy mistake to make, I’m sure.”

The giant heart-shaped clock read 12:45. No, is that the time?

“I’ve gotta run, Vrethie will kill me if I don’t clear up the front steps before he gets home,” Lani said. She hugged Jack, shouted a thank you to Stan and grabbed her bags. She could feel Meredith watching her as she ran past the window, so she upped her pace to get out of her view, down the street and around the corner. Breathing heavily, she slowed as the front porch came into view. Lani managed to clear away all the cigarette ends and leaves, get upstairs and start cleaning the floor with lemon-scented wipes before Vrethie arrived.

He is perfection, Lani sighed inwardly as she watched Vrethie sauntering about the kitchen, preparing a pot of tea. The pain of yearning for him was almost physical—an ache that was sometimes bearable. And sometimes not.

After dating Vrethie for just a short month he’d grown bored with her and ended it. It had been a low point in her life, losing both Vrethie and her job, but being as kind, gracious and insightful as he was, Vrethie had offered her a lifeline. She had been more than happy to grab it with both hands, with the not-so-secretly harboured hope of one day winning Vrethie’s love. It was clear her dreams would never be realised. However, being close to Vrethie, serving him in any small way and being part of his life had become enough to give her a sense of purpose.

I’d happily make that for you, Lani thought—a little too loudly—and Vrethie flashed her one of his pitying smiles. He strutted past her and back into the living room, no doubt aware that Lani’s eyes followed his every move around the pristine open plan apartment. Returning to her work, she gathered the crumbs—why were there so many crumbs! —and placed them in the bin before wiping every surface until they sparkled like new.

When Kai returned home, trailing in mud and dumping his jacket and boots where he stood, Lani cleaned up his mess wordlessly and without so much as a disdainful look. Kai’s face was lightly marked with the veins that popped up all around his eyes when he became angered. It was not a good idea to irritate him further, if only because doing so would not best please Vrethie.

As Kai looked at her, face like thunder, Lani wondered if Kai really would mind her borrowing his card for coffee. He probably wouldn’t, and if he did... so what? For all Kai’s strength and power, she was not afraid of him. She wondered if her ill will towards him was more to do with jealousy than a hatred of his messy habits; jealousy over his extreme closeness with Vrethie and immunity to his mind reading.

Kai flopped onto the sofa and leaned his head on Vrethie, who had to lift his cup of tea as not to spill it on his brother’s head. It wasn’t uncommon to see the pair curled up on the sofa together like lovers, legs entwined.

“Why do you always cuddle up like that? Hasn’t anyone told you it’s weird for brothers to be so close?” Lani asked.

“We’re gay incestuous lovers,” Kai quickly replied without looking at her.

“We have almost as much lion DNA as human, relaxing this way together just seems natural to us,” Vrethie told Lani with a kind smile. She found it hard to believe because of the lack of anything cat-like in their appearance other than the fangs, which were a typical feature of both infected and non-ordinary humans (counterintuitively termed the Normies), but she would never have the gall to accuse Vrethie of being a liar.

If Lani was to compare Vrethie to a creature of the animal kingdom, it would be the peacock. Magnificent, majestic and standoffish, he knew the dazzling beauty he possessed and could display his glorious colours for all to see or walk coyly out of reach. On the other hand, if she were to compare Kai to an animal, he would be something annoying and smelly, like her grandmother’s oldest dog; a black Labrador who was overfed and should have been put down years before he was. Bernie was one of those dogs who would sit on a person’s foot and refuse to budge, because he was too lazy or just too stupid to realise what an inconvenience he was.

If only Vrethie had lived alone, Lani’s situation would have been perfect, or at least as perfect as any one-sided relationship could be. She cleaned up after him, obeyed his every whim and was ignored, much like her mother had done for her father back in the days before the event. Lani had always told herself that she would never end up like her mother and that willpower was stronger than genetics, but time had tested that theory and found her wanting.

After clearing away Kai’s mess, Lani retreated to his bedroom to clean what had no doubt descended into a pig sty since her last visit. Tissues littered the bedside cabinet beside the plastic bin; as usual, the bin remained empty. One time she had plucked up enough nerve to comment on the proximity of the rubbish pile to the bin, Kai had been quick to remind her she wouldn’t have a job were it not for his lack of hygiene standards. Milo made very little mess and Vrethie was a borderline germ freak. She loathed to admit that he had a valid point, but still hated the musty smell that lingered in his room no matter how she tried to eradicate it. She scrubbed every surface with a lemon-scented spray then sat, cheeks resting in lemon-scented hands, and pondered for the millionth time, what’s wrong with me?