Page 131 of The Encore’s Crown

Kasia gives Rafe a look. “You don’t need to announce it like I personally invented medicine.”

“You save people’s sight,” he says. “I’m allowed to brag.”

“That is extraordinary,” Radhika says, and she means it. “How did you choose that? It must have taken years of schooling.”

The doctor effect. Actors can win awards. Musicians can sell out stadiums. None of it survives the introduction of someone who can cut into an eye without ruining it. Kasia begins explaining, and I glance back toward the couch. Natalia is listening to Rithy with her arms folded. He says something that makes her almost smile even though she's fighting it. I wonder how often this happens to her. How many rooms she enters beside Kasia only to watch everyone turn toward her sister with the same expression Radhika is wearing now.

The brilliant older sister. A surgeon. The woman Rafe Ashton fell in love with and can't stop bragging about. Then Natalia beside her, beautiful enough to build a career from being looked at, which probably only makes people assume there's nothing else worth finding. All that humor, fire and intelligence lost beneath dismissal. I know all about that comparison. Rithy is the cofounder. The guitarist musicians study like homework. The one who writes the line that brings an arena to its knees, then steps forward and plays something that makes everyone forget how to breathe.

He sings, writes, makes the guitar sound like an extension of his soul. I pluck the strings. I hold everything together while the others make people feel something.

It isn’t the same.

I know it isn’t because I've spent most of my life standing beside him while people prove it. I look toward Natalia again. This time, I catch her staring. Her eyes meet mine for less than a second. Then she looks away so quickly it's almost violent, turning back toward Rithy and crossing her arms tighter over her chest. I pull myself back into the conversation and catch Rafe’s eye over the women between us.

I raise my eyebrows in question.

How the fuck did we get here?

Rafe looks at Radhika, then Kasia, then back at me.

His eyebrows lift and he gives a small shrug in answer.

No idea.

It should feel good. Radhika is beside me again. Her hand occasionally brushes mine. Her laugh still pulls memories out of places I thought I'd buried them. But all I can think about is Natalia sitting across the room, pretending she doesn’t see me. My feet itch to go over there. To tell her she isn’t alone, that she belongs here, that I see her. That I understand. But I know I’m the reason she’s sitting apart. Why she keeps her eyes on everyone else.

Radhika slips her arm through mine. I smile down at her because any bastard with sense would know how lucky he is to have her here. Then my chest pulls hard in the direction of the woman sitting across the room. I look at Natalia once more and wonder when I’ll become more than the thing that happens to people.

Chapter 46

To The Fuck Ups

Natalia

“What draws you to him? My brick wall of a brother?” Rithy asks, gesturing towards him.

I look down at the glass. The question should be easy to mock, make shallow. He' s rich, famous, arms so perfect I kind of hate him. All of it's true, but none of it's the answer. I bite the inside of my cheek.

“He’s still,” I say.

The party is noisy around us. Music, laughter, glasses clinking, stilettos on marble, fake kisses landing beside real knives held behind backs. I keep staring at my drink.

“On the inside,” I add, quieter. “I don’t know, he makes me feel calm just by looking at me I guess. Like everything will be okay? I don't know, it's stupid.”

I glance over. Rithy's staring at me, like I've said something in a language he didn't expect me to know.

“What?” I snap, because tenderness makes me mean.

He blinks, then nods, slowly. “Yeah.” His voice is different now. Softer, but not sweet. Rithy doesn't do sweet. “Yeah, he’s like that. Underneath all the movement, muscles and terrible choices.”

The ache in my chest gets worse.

“Everyone thinks I want the muscles.” I say.

“Don’t you?”

I huff. “Obviously. I’m not dead.”