[08 - THE MANIA OF A SYCOPHANT]

♁

I don't trust Orion at all. Ever since he became the heart of my suspicions, I have had this obsessive fear that he knows something about me that I don't. Or won't.

He has likely tracked me down with an ulterior motive, and I don't want to check all his boxes to find out. Orion is a red-blooded megalomaniac with an agenda, even his conniving schmaltz-talk doesn't make for the long shadows his cruel labwork cast in our marriage. 

Thus, before the first light of daybreak, I pack all my bags and load them back into the truck, armed with essential supplies this time. There is a bit of Mira everywhere in here—her pyjamas folded inside the booster seat, her sippy cup, her toys—and Orion will sniff out the evidence back to the source. I have to keep my eyes and ears peeled now. It's life or death for my baby girl. 

I almost forget to observe the impassive, suited man who covertly shadows me to report back to his boss. It's outrageous to think. A man like Orion doesn't need a security detail. He's an esteemed scientist, nothing worth the household name. Although, he's more affluent than he appears. 

I walk up to his hulking SUV with a deep scowl on my face. "Hey!"

"Ma'am," he greets flatly. "Is there a problem?"

I catch myself before I snap at him. He's got his phone on a bracket in front of him, virtually reconnoitring my every move. I notice the ever-present comms in his ears, and I want to forget about it and drive off.  But I have to get my uncontrolled ex-husband off my back. 

"Tell Orion..." I take a deep breath to collect my thoughts. "I'm onto something big. I need some space to think about everything. And that I will find him after my work is done."

He's barely interested as is. "So?"

"Don't come after me," I demand in a hasty exhale. "My job is extremely sensitive. You on my tail could ruin my good rapport with these tribes."

He hesitates. 

"Please," I resort to imploring. "I need this project. It's hard for female divorcees to stay employed, you know. I'm not as well-off as your boss."

The depth of my misery must be significantly exaggerated because he truly believes I'm helpless to my liabilities. Except that pertains to different matters. Once I'm back on the road, there's nothing in my rearview mirror but the open highway. 

"Good riddance!" I sing my relief. 

To my surprise, Appa howls a note with me from the passenger seat. 

I laugh aloud, and it's become an unfamiliar sound to me. I am in such a good mood. I want to roll down my windows, blare a tune out from the AUX, and revel in my single status now that I'm reminded of it. I've spent all of my twenties bound to someone else only because I was scared to end up alone, and now that I've unravelled that part away, I can't figure out what to do with the split ends. Now I am independent, and not all the intensities would add up to this. I've never wanted this more.

So what comes after my baby heals? I still have some funds stowed away for us. It's not much, but it's enough to restart our lives. Mira wants to live by the sea, and I don't want to surrender our Japanese passports... we'll move to Okinawa then. She'll love it there. I'll get us a small house on the beach, and we'll have a verandah facing the ocean. I'll walk her to school every day. Maybe I'll get a teaching license and work there. My prospects excite me. 

Appa licks up my elbow, wanting my attention. I keep one hand steady on the steering while I scratch his ears. 

"Do you want to come with us?" I ask Appa. I can't leave him how much ever I want to. Mira will be devastated. How could she leave her best friend behind?

I make it to the beach before midday, thanks to the location I've pinned on my maps application. I scale down the windows and inhale deeply. The chilly ocean breeze, the waves beating up on the shore, and the seagulls squawking—I'm looking forward to more of this in the future. 

As I stroll to the forest's perimeter ready to sink my toes back into the sand, I'm unsurprised to see Namor waiting there, the literal picture of health. He turns his vacant gaze from his vast sea to me, a sudden vigour flickering in his dark eyes. 

His entire face shifts when he graces a smile. "Took you long enough."

I attempt not to dwell on the fact that he's been waiting for me. I fold my arms across my chest and come to a stop by his side. Am I allowed to? Do I dare? It is challenging to be accustomed to his status as a living god. It feels like I am missing out on some greeting convention here. 

"I knew you'd come back. You seem like the tenacious kind," he continues. 

"When it comes to my daughter," I point out, amused. "Otherwise, I'm loving this new getup. Christmastime down in Talokan?"

He laughs in a deep baritone, shifting weights to another side. "I'm simply blending in."

It is quite the look. Namor has traded his armour, jewels and tunics for a pair of dress pants and a battered shirt left untucked. It's all amiss: he's still got his jade earrings and septum ring, and the opaline wings from his ankles play peekaboo from the hem. 

He's visibly uneasy in it. The shirt barely contains his muscles, the snow-white fabric straining from the tight stitch, even with the buttons open to reveal the smooth expanse of his chest. I know—I know I should not find this uncharacteristically sexy. It's diabolical to merely think about it. But I am human, subjugated by my hormones. 

So I look away, containing my morbid creativity. "No one here to care," I murmur. 

"You're here."

"I don't—" I gulp down a stutter. "I really don't mind. It's fine."

"Perhaps I'll let you take them off."

I glimpse my chagrin at him when I hear a smile in his voice. There's a shadow of flirtation in his eyes, which means he's clearly teasing me. I roll my eyes and stroke at the hot skin on my neck. Thank god no one can see me blush. 

"Are you married, Kinara?" he questions aimlessly, but I can sense his intentions from a mile away. There's only so much I can emotionally endure. 

"It doesn't matter," I hedge.

"I'm not."

"Congratulations."

Namor leans closer until his emanating heat is the only sensation I'm aware of. "Why do you evade me?"

"Because I don't like talking about him," I say with a sour edge in my voice. It is now that I realize my brain-to-mouth filter has disappeared. 

His lips twist to a victorious smirk. "There is a 'him'."

I sigh. 

"Is he dead?" he asks, still amused. 

"No."

He hums in playful disapproval. "Do you wish he were?"

I snicker at this. "It fluctuates."

He waits patiently for me to explain. It seems I have no choices left.  

"We're separated," I admit in a whisper. Unthinkingly, I roll the diamond ring around my finger. "Before Mira was born, we signed a divorce. And that was it." 

"He's her father," he muses aloud. "Why'd you leave him?"

"It's not important."

"Do tell. It might help me understand Mira better," he reasons. "If that's really what you want."

I purse my lips to smother a groan. 

I can't believe I'm about to address my divorce to someone—the king of new world power, no less—for the first time in three years. That being said, I did not have the luxury of therapy while caring for a frequently unwell baby. One day or another, I'll have to face the music with Mira. One dreaded day, she'll ask why all the other kids seemed to have two parents growing up. 

I struggle to find the words. To start. Maybe it will get better as I go on. A cognitive purging. 

"I married my husband when I was... very young. Barely legal, no family, stuck in university, and so madly in love. I wouldn't say we were impulsive, nothing ever is with Orion. He's rather practical."

I look at Namor, hoping for a reaction, but he remains impassive; listening. I want him to interrupt, this will not work if I don't break away from my bottomless headspace. 

"He was convinced we'd spend the rest of our lives together," I say, breathing hard.  "And I was just so wound up by his commitment. I made myself believe him." I realize I still get smitten by his charisma. I shake it off and go on. 

"Cut to post-university, we're somehow still making it work. We made a bright little world for ourselves. Just getting through. And he was making a name for himself in the scientific field. He wanted more, more, more—and I just wanted him."

"I thought children would divert this... mania." I stroke my forehead, feeling a migraine coming on. A hopeless pain I can't avoid centres in my mind. 

"I told him I want a family."

♅

Orion peeked at me from the edge of his newspaper when I blurt it out. I know he didn't care about the information, he was only conscientious about beating my hand at sudoku. Judging by the wrinkles around his eyes, he was losing again. 

His expression changed—abruptly. He was grinning his darned ears off. "Are you joking? No, wait. You can't take it back. You said it yourself."

I cocked a brow. "What're you telling me? No?"

"Baby!" He was dashing out of his stool, breathlessly laughing. He towered over me, his long arms crushed me close, and his lips pressed mine for a sound kiss. 

"This is amazing news, Kia," he celebrated. "Yes, yes, of course. Let's do it."

I shouldn't be this confused by his excitement. The only reason I wanted us to jump into the family way was because of all these responsibilities he was taking on and in plenty. He was already backing out of daily dinners. I hated that I couldn't see him as often, that we couldn't spend our routines together, and it was pulling us further apart. I didn't know if I was being selfish or safe.  

I wrapped my hands from under his embrace and pressed my nose into his neck. "Ri, I... I'm closing on my twenty-fifth birthday. It feels like the perfect"—my breath hitched when he groaned—"or not. It's not the time. We can wait for a little..."

"Don't be ridiculous," he interrupts, a playful reproof. "I've been waiting years for you to ask. I didn't want to hound you with what I wanted when this is your decision."

I looked up at him, deeply moved. I knew my husband loved me, this was his be-all-end-all. 

"Thank you."

"Thank you," he repeated, emphasizing 'you'. He cupped my cheek, and I turned to kiss his warm palm. "For trusting me to start this together. I'm so ready, Kia."

♁

"So we started trying. For months we tried." I glimpse at Namor. His jaw tenses when I shake my head. "He didn't want to us blame each other. So we took it to professionals. That's when they propose the bane of our marriage. IVF."

Namor's eyebrows pull together, his first response in a while. "What is that?"

Hysteria overwhelms me; closes my throat. I swallow down and rasp out the words. "It's the same concept, but artificial. They fertilize the life cells outside the body and then inseminate. Synthetic pregnancy."

He shakes his head. "It's impossible."

"Oh, it is. Up here, it is." I control the tremble in my lips, and I can barely hear myself. "It's more excruciating than delivery. No one warns you about it. The toll it had on me... still haunts me. Yet I went through it. For him."

"And that was Mira," Namor says, dawning on him.

I scoff at him. "I wish. It relapsed."

He exhales a soft, sharp breath.

"We were—um. I was shattered." I sense my vision blur. The suppressed sense of remorse swells to the surface. "I felt like I had no purpose. Just lost. One fucking thing I was put here to do, and..."

♅

Orion and I haven't spoken to each other in days. I didn't see the point, I couldn't bear to meet his eyes, and my mind felt like it'd been ravaged by a cyclone. It came in quickly and left me in shambles, with nothing left in the wake. If I risked a sentence it might end up creating a rift between us. We were in bad shape as is. 

He didn't try to insist either. I could tell he was hurting, too, but one of us had to act as the anchor. He was keeping his head above the water for the two of us, and for that, I was grateful. He continued to reach out to me, chattered about his work, and took me out of the house at any chance, but as much as I appreciated it, everything around me felt like a stupor. A fog I couldn't see the end of. Every day forward was a personal exertion; a struggle. 

Eventually, one night, Orion made an effort to talk to me. It was the middle of the night. The last time I'd seen him was that morning when I'd left him alone in the kitchen after losing my appetite. 

I only felt the bed dip. Soon, he drew me closer to him and folded me into his arms. On a usual night, I would've taken the initiative and rolled over to see him. I couldn't move, my nerves had gone numb. 

He softly stroked my waist under the sheets. "D'you want to travel someplace? Back to New York maybe?" He goes on when he hears silence. "Or wherever you feel like it. I'll charter a jet. Aruba. St. Kitts. You love it there."

I stayed quiet, thoughtful.

"Kia." His lips press against my shoulder. "It'll be good for you."

"I don't want to leave." My voice sounded so small.

"Look at me. Please, dear."

I shook my head once, biting my lip. 

"Fine, don't look. Listen to me, alright?" I felt him move away to carefully hover over me, holding his weight on an elbow. I sensed his shadow over my cheek. 

"You don't eat, sleep, go outside—that's fine. I don't care. But you stopped talking to me. And I'm losing my fucking mind, Kia. I don't know how to proceed. I'm scared you'll leave if I say something—"

"I won't," I managed to whisper.

"Good, okay," he said quickly. As if that's all he needed to hear. "Tell me what you want to do next."

"Next?"

"I haven't lost faith." He ran his fingers through my hair, all the way from the root to the ends. "I'm not going to. You deserve to be a mum, Kia. I want to be a father. We deserve this."

I squeeze my eyes shut. "And?"

He sucked in a deep, anxious breath. "And I want us to try again."

♁

Namor's head snaps up. "Again," he echoes flatly. 

I nod.

"At that point, I believed he was romantic." I brush away the tear tracks on my cheeks. "Orion didn't want me to give up hope. He wanted a child, and he wanted it with me. So I complied. And truly," I laughed darkly, "we were grasping at straws here."

I take a moment to collect my scattered wits and my breath. I shudder when I draw in some much-needed air. Even the beautiful view ahead of me offers no comfort. Against my better judgment, I persist with it. I am still breaking new ground, and I'm allowed my misery. It's been a long time coming.

"I ended up doing the treatment three more times," I whisper, horrified at myself as I confront reality.

Namor entirely cringes, his face contorting, and he doesn't hide it. It's a tremendous wake-up call. How stupid have I been to allow myself to be used as some container? I can blame it on my inexperience, senseless coercion; on love. I should hate Orion, I should loathe his very existence. To even think I let him touch me and get away with it last night... my blood boils over. I want to answer Namor now: I wish Orion were dead.

I unthinkingly rub the underside of my abdomen, still at a loss for words. I try to start again. 

"The same sad cycle, again and again. By the second try, I was so weak. Unwell all the time. I didn't feel the happiness of becoming a mother. I was losing myself, and... I told him. I told him maybe we should try another option."

♅

"We don't have options here, Kinara!"

We were both yelling now. "How could we not! I am tired, Ri. I am breaking inside. It's like my body is some sick, empty vessel. I move, and I feel like I'm making noise. I can't take it anymore, I really can't."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"This! This is what I mean! I don't feel your love anymore!" 

"I love you. I just don't understand what's wrong."

"No! No... I touch you, and you're gone. I don't know how I'm supposed to... You have to help me, Ri, please. Please help me."

He sighed, utterly disgusted. "You can't be serious. I just wasted four months working on this for you."

"Orion." I sniffled. "I'm so unhappy. So deeply unhappy. I'm scared and... cut off from you. When I fall asleep, I hear cries. These baby's cries... I don't feel right anymore. I'm seeing things and—I really think I've lost it."

We had a week before our third IVF treatment. We attended a prepping appointment today, and certain words the doctor had said got to my head. And not once has he asked me how I felt about it. 

The minute I'd started to put my foot down—a transition from his favourite yes-woman to whatever this was—Orion couldn't fathom it. Our arguments progressed, mine was purely from the disturbance within me and my exasperation, and he was too pigheaded to compromise. And as the fights thrived, they spanned from presumptive to biased. 

"Fine. Alright, Kia." He stared me down. But he wasn't serious, he was only humouring me for decency's sake. "What other options are there?"

"Adoption, obviously," I exclaim. 

"Yes, because that went terrific for you. Running out of foster homes and all. Let's implement that on another needy, unwilling child." He threw his hands in the air. "Parents of the year!"

"We're not those people, Orion! They were awful to me. Trust me, we won't be like that. We'll be good parents. We'll be giving a lovely child a home." 

"Not yours. Or mine." He scoffed. "Someone else's. It's barbaric."

I furrowed my brows. "What's the matter with you? The child is still a child. We have a chance to be parents at least."

"This is exactly what my research is trying to end." He tapped the side of his forehead as if I was the one who was the idiot. "Imbalanced design. A natural process, Kinara. That is all I ask for."

"Well, I can't do it! It's just not viable anymore!"

He rubbed the side of his temple. "Where is this coming from, huh? And mere days away from—when this was your choice! Your choice to give it another go!"

"Ours," I whispered, heartbroken. "Our choice. Together." 

"Of course." He snorted in disbelief. "I should've known you'd blame me. Go ahead, baby. I bet you think this is me all along. I'm the one who can't give you children."

"I never—"

He got up in my face, hissing through his gritted teeth. "Okay, let's review our viable options. How about that blonde fellow from work? Did you think about fucking him instead? At least he'll get the job done."

I'm too shocked for words to react better. This is a side of him I'm witnessing for the first time. It's that gut-wrenching sensation of wasting years on your favourite person to realise they were really just a disguise. 

"What..."

"Oh, yeah?" He laughed, this bizarre, overconfident sound. "I've seen the way you look at that righteous dick. Think he's better than me?"

"Ri!"

"But, I don't care, Kinara. Go. Leave. Have all his defective bastards. I'm seeking something so much greater than that anyway. But, you?" He pointed an accusing finger at me. "You can't leave, can you? You can't abandon me. I'm all you've got. Me, and all those pretty diamonds, dresses, and homes. You need me and my money that got us—"

A loud whack reverberated between us. Orion's head jerked to the side, and he stumbled away from me. He held his jaw in horror. 

I shook the stinging out of my fist. He was lucky I'm not left-handed, my ring would've clipped him. God, that felt good to let out. 

The silence lasted a good moment before I inhaled a deep breath. It was all bare bones to me, and it felt so good to let that out. I only wish I'd done it sooner. The soaring rage powered me to continue.

"You got your wish." 

"Kia," he rasped, still struck in the disbelief of the moment.

"I'm going to leave you," I said, ending it all. "It's about time I did."

♁

I am too pathetic to fight off the itch that assails my skin. I rub my forearms to deter the chill, and I speak the truth under pressure.

"I went through with the last treatment before I signed the divorce," I confess with bated breath. 

Namor's face is wild with worry and frustration. His gaze grows speculative like he has figured this out. His forehead creases. 

"The last one," he realizes.

A spasm of fear shoots up my spine, and the blurry scenes start to cast their long shadows on my mind. I purse my quivering lips, unwilling to move. I am more than humiliated, I am afraid Namor would disapprove of my daughter because of this.

When I glance back at him, I discover that I can't deceive a god with secrets. I know why he's asked me about this, it's the same reason why the doctors were curious about congenital diseases. Sometimes I think about how Mira came to this world as a morbid reminder of what has been. I insensitively chose to keep my baby just to feel an ounce of love and satisfaction that seemed to evade me every time. I brought her pain to cure mine. Perhaps the sins of her parents caught up to her.

"He doesn't know that you kept her," Namor voices, dawning upon him. "That Mira is alive."

My air is choked off when it hits me. "No."

The flash of images I'd seen in that lab, the offshoots, the test tubes, the brutality Orion disregards—his fucking obsession! Money was no object, and apparently, neither was I. So caught up in success he couldn't see what he'd done. So lost in our battle of wills. Rotten, vile, despicable...

A pain twists in my gut, I can tell it is immense terror, and I immediately feel horrid. My head spins, my tongue's too big for my mouth, and I stagger away from him. I don't even have the strength to balance. It's worse than a panic attack, it's knowing I have exhausted every other option. 

"I can't lose her," I mumble to myself, but it's strangled. 

"Kinara?" I can't hear Namor, his voice is fading. 

I shove his supporting arms away, too occupied to bother with politeness. It's like a sonic boom has travelled beneath my feet, his touch only undoes me unconditionally. 

Despite my contempt, Namor is gently holding me. One warm hand on my face, the other winding around my waist, crushing me close to him; to reality. Until all I see, all I feel, all I hear is him. He pushes the hair out of my face, and I manage to focus on his eyes. They're dark, deep and strained—piercing me.

My knees start to shake when I attempt to explain it to him. But it's a mess of mercies, each word growing to a distressing cry. 

"I can't lose her, I can't lose her, I can't lose her—"

Namor shakes his head fiercely, and his voice is unmistakably heartfelt. 

"You won't," he promises. "You will not lose your daughter."

∞

brb, crying my fucking eyes out—