Chapter 120: Interlude: Marai (1)

"You're living where?"

"With Auntie Mal's son, Eli."

"Eli, who lives a floor down? Broody Eli? Eli Crewan?"

"I know you don't like him, but he's pretty cool."

Marai sat back, a little blindsided. "I don't not like him."

Bel raised her brows at her, but it was true.

Eli Crewan, who'd been living for five years as their downstairs neighbor, was a corporate fratboy, though quieter than most of that type.

Marai would've written him off if not for the awesomeness of his mother.

She was a queen.

If not for the woman suddenly half-adopting all the noisy bratty kids in the building and giving Marai some peace and quiet, she was fair certain she wouldn't have passed her college finals.

She shook that brief foray into the past from her mind. The cousin sitting before her was…

"I thought you were with your college friends, not one flipping floor away."

"Mom knows my college friends. I don't want to talk to her."

"Yeah, I get that. What I mean is, you had me haul your stuff to the lobby when I could've just dropped it at that guy's door?! Your books are heavy, you know!"

"You did say you needed exercise."

She grabbed the girl's cheek, pulled gently. Elastic. "Cheeky."

"Hey." Bel knocked away her hand, pouting irritatedly.

Cute. "I get enough exercise at my job."

"Your job as a data analyst?"

"The other one."

Confusion twisted her cousin's brows for a moment, then her eyes widened. She leaned closer and her voice lowered. Geez, it's not a secret. "You're still doing the atmospheric test thing?"

"And taking advantage of their training facilities." Marai was a bit smug about that. Free flight training, hah.

"If they know about it, is it taking advantage?"

"Of course."

She watched Bel try not to frown, but Marai knew her. Those teeth worrying the inside of her lip meant Bel was concerned. She obviously wanted to say something, but didn't know if she should.

Marai reached out and patted the other's shoulder. "I'm not going to be coerced into things I don't want to do. They're not stopping me, and there's a suspiciously non-specific training clause in my contract."

She sprawled out on the bistro seat. "You're not distracting me. Why, for love of sanity, are you staying with Eli? I'm not sure what to think about this."

"We're roommates. He's better than my last one."

"The last roommate that kept stealing your shoes, low bar."

"I'm taking care of myself."

"You're sixteen."

"Should I remind you of what you got up to at sixteen?"

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"That's me. You're not me, Bel."

Her cousin was more sweet-natured. She only knew how to throw a punch because Marai taught her before she took those stupid college self-defense mandatories with subpar instructors.

"Because I'm supposed to be better?"

Marai looked up. The tone of the question was…odd.

Bel slumped against her seat, wrapped her arms around her body.

What?

Bel met her gaze, a banked blaze in dark eyes that were the exact same shape and color she saw in the mirror. "That because I do well with a few tests, I'm supposed to automatically know all the answers?"

"…Bel?"

"That I should be immediately more moral, more responsible, just more than anyone else?!"

Suddenly the burning coals of ire turned to pleading in those familiar eyes.

"I'm sixteen?"

Marai stood, chair skittering back. She rounded the table and pulled her cousin into a hug.

Because what the hell.

What. The hell.

Bel immediately tucked herself into Marai, like they were kids again, hands fisting in her jacket.

Thank god it was a slow day at the bistro. She glared the few people into looking away.

"Sorry," Marai said, when she could talk again. "I'm sorry."

Because she obviously missed something, if Bel exploded due to a single comment.

She felt Bel shake her head, forehead pressing against Marai's neck.

"It's no one's fault but mine," Bel whispered. "I knew it would disappoint them. I just…it hurts more than I thought it would."

Marai's breath caught. "Please tell me you did not get pregnant on purpose."

"I…no?"

"Bel."

"I planned to get drunk. This was just…a bonus."

Marai didn't know if she should laugh hysterically or scream. "Oh, excellent. A bonus, that's all it is, of course."

"Please."

"Just…why?"

"I'm not…good at pacing myself." Bel started. "It was bearable in school, regular psychiatric health sessions."

Marai grimaced at the reminder. Stupid mental health initiative can go drown in a tub.

"I took every module I was interested in, but they still…went by too fast? It's apparently praiseworthy when you do that."

Marai snorted.

She could see where this was going.

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She leaned back, knocking her head against the back of the seat.

When did Bel start to show that extraordinary brain of hers? Ten? Eleven?

Before that, she was just a child who was more curious than a bag of kittens, running around causing trouble with the cousins that were her age.

She started butting into Marai's age group at…six or seven years in age. Marai and her cohorts were nearly ten years older. There was no way they would let a kid join their shenanigans, even if she was their cousin.

The solution, more often than not, was access to the Internet and one of their spare tablets.

Idiots, she sighed belatedly. She and the others were idiot teenagers back then.

Then again, it was probably for the best. Bel poured her curiosity into learning everything she could from the Net, and didn't get prodigy points until it was the age people started heavy schoolwork.

Bel had time to run around with a pack of friends and family, instead of being shanghaied into whatever prodigy classes would create one of those sallow-skinned, large-eyed, delicate-boned, smug-bug geniuses that showed from time to time in the media.

"I didn't think it was that bad," Bel whispered.

The crux of the matter: Bel's parents were justifiably proud of their daughter. So proud they slung right around and proved that Bel's brilliance definitely skipped a couple generations.

They alienated the rest of the family with their idiocy.

Marai sighed. "What you get for coming back to this stupid city."

"I missed everyone."

Marai hugged her tighter.

Of course. She came back, and found that her parents had put on her on a pedestal and demanded others worship her, and the cousins that used to run around with her now looked at her differently.

She felt Bel's pregnancy bump press against her. She loosened her arms.

"One day, you'll tell me his name."

"No. It was an accident."

"Dumbasses."

"It was my decision. I—"

"Didn't take the abortive meds when you found out," Marai finished. "Because you wanted to shove in your parents' faces that you're just as fallible as us mortals."

There was a short silence. "You're mad at me."

No shit.

"Because you went about the matter in the most idiotic, irresponsible, moronic—"

"I get it. That...that was the point."

Marai laughed into her cousin's stupid hair. It was a low, humorless sound, furious. "You realize the responsibility you brought on yourself? This baby, it isn't a one-time effort. It'll take over your life, for the rest of your life."

"I know." Bel pulled away. She smiled, for some reason. "This is…I need something to focus on, apart from myself and the things I want to do. An anchor, I suppose. To slow me down."

Marai stared at her. "I'm fair certain that's worse. It's not even logical."

What. The. Hell.

Did all prodigies think in ways that were so 'amazing'?

"Don't worry, Marai. I'm looking forward to being a mother. It will be an incredible journey."

Marai resolved to check in with her cousin more often. Obviously, genius did something to the brain that made people insane.

At the same time, she could ask Eli who the hell he thought he was, keeping the fact that he was housing her cousin from her?

*

"I did tell you," Eli motherloving Crewan, told her, blinking in confusion, after he let them in his apartment.

"No."

"I sent a message."

He'd sent her only one message in the last two weeks. "The balloon animal pic?"

She re-checked, just to be sure she remembered.

"It's a baby balloon," explained the idiot, so earnestly that she knew he was trolling her.

"That was a baby?!"

There was a snicker to the side.

Marai turned to Bel. So did Eli.

Bel raised her hands at their scrutiny. "I'll just go…lie down."

Marai didn't stop her. Instead, she turned her attention to stupid Eli Crewan, but then paused at the look he was discreetly sending a retreating Bel.

There was no heat in it, just evaluative, almost concerned.

Her question came out less harsh than intended, "Why would you think I'd understand that?"

He gave a small shrug, almost a twitch of the shoulder. "I imagined, if you were looking for her, she'd be the first person to come to mind when you got a baby-themed message?"

She stared at him. "That is so meta, I don't even. Next time pick a better image."

"She's self-sufficient, your cousin."

"I know that." She didn't stop staring.

He stared back.

She didn't relent.

"She's welcome to stay, as long as she likes."

"Not sure about that."

Even if Bel gave the impression that she'd moved in. Marai was apprehensive. Eli Crewan had abruptly changed a few parameters she thought were inviolable parts of his personality.

That didn't happen out of the blue.

He was better now. She was happy about that.

As someone who had been watching him spiral down a familiar-looking path, she was relieved.

It was just…the shadows in his eyes were darker. From what she'd seen, he dealt with them healthier now.

Or did he?

Leaving her cousin with a potentially unstable person was definitely not a thing she was doing.

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