Chapter Seventeen
Michael
I know very well there is a high chance I will never see Han ever again. The sad thing is, I ship out tomorrow. So we only have tonight. I hug her around the waist and press her back to my chest. I feel her stomach go up and down with her breaths, as my hand rests on her stomach, my fingertips brushing the edge of the bed. I feel her breath on my forearm as she rests her head against my elbow.
“Do you think they’re alive?” she asks, breaking the silence between us.
“Who?” I say.
“Sar, and the others. And our parents. Well, my parent…” she trails off, staring blankly at the wall ahead.
“Sar and them are definitely alive. My mom and stepdad, well, they’ll manage,” I answer. Though I’m dying to know why she uses singular ‘parent’, I don’t ask. Maybe that’s the reason she wakes up screaming, nearly everyday.
“You’re wondering why I only have one parent,” Han says observantly, looking up at my face.
“I mean, I wasn’t gonna ask…” I smile down at her.
“Are you sure you want to know?” she says, her voice wavering.
“Absolutely.” I absentmindedly rub my thumb around, over and over, from her bellybutton to the mattress.
“Well, it was a week before I left for the cruise…” she begins. “It was 12:39 in the morning. I was reading a book for English. I left my room to see if my mom was awake. She wasn’t. My dad was ‘working’.” She makes air quotes. “And then I heard it. The scream. It came from my little sister’s room.
When I ran in there, a figure with a hood on had her at knifepoint. She was already bleeding. And then, without a word, she was dead. Me, being the idiot that I was, attacked him.” She lifts up her sleeve and shows me a nasty, jagged scar. “I got this. My dad went to jail, my sister was dead, and I was left with my alcoholic mother. Sam paid for my trip. She knew everything.” I open my mouth, and snap it shut. I don’t know what to say.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter into her hair, which smells of lemon. Han curls up and hugs her knees. She is surprisingly small.
“Stay away from knives,” Han says, and I feel a tear drop onto my forearm.
“Your sister was stabbed…” it is not a question, but an observation. “And your dad was her murderer…” I stop myself from saying anything else.
“Mich.” Han shifts so that she is facing me. “I love you.” I smile out of the corner of my mouth.
“I love you too.”
Science Fiction
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