Dacre's Journal {The Claimed Duet 1.5}

Dacre

#1

Most days feel like borrowed moments strung together.

Today, I woke up, and I went through the motions, watching people perform their little routines, convinced they matter. I’ve gotten good at smiling when it’s required, nodding, and saying the right things. It keeps people comfortable, even though it’s all a performance.

Mom often says it’s the burden of being as observant as I am, seeing too much of the machinery behind the curtain. She claims I was born with eyes that see too much and a mind that processes it too quickly. She means it as a kindness, I think.

Damon feels more than I do. He always has. He burns hotter, reacts faster, and needs more. I envy that sometimes, though I’ll never tell him that. Most of the time, I just manage him, a gentle hand on the tiller while he tries to steer us into the storm. He thrives on chaos; I find it tedious.

Today, however, something changed.

I do wish this had happened under much different circumstances, not while I was balls deep in Damon’s teacher, Alicia. It was his idea. No one ever goes to the greenhouse, but the scent of damp earth and blooming things makes for a better backdrop than a cheap motel. Plus, she wouldn't have risked visiting Founders Hall. There was no poetry in it, only base, uninspired lust. I’d lost myself for a moment, which is rare, and then I looked up, and the world snapped back into a brutal, hyper-real focus.

Navira Calloway.

If I’m being honest, I thought for a moment that I was hallucinating her, that the image of a girl from a past that feels more like a dream than anything I’ve lived had finally broken through my careful, constructed reality. But it was her. Just as I remembered, and entirely different. She was taller, of course, and filled out in ways I tried not to notice in that split second - but did. Her hair was straight. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes...God, her eyes...wider and holding so much shock. For a heartbeat, I was drowning in that shock.

The world narrowed to the space between us. Alicia and even Damon ceased to exist. The scent of orchids and petrichor was replaced by the clean, ghost-like scent of her memory. The heat of another woman’s skin was nothing. In that single, devastating moment, a switch flipped behind my ribs. Something ancient and proprietary kicked in. She wasn’t a memory anymore. She was here.

I didn’t stop, of course. Stopping would have been an admission of guilt. I could tell she was even more surprised by this than by the sight of me. I kept moving, finishing what I’d started with a clinical detachment that was new to me. When Alicia finally shuddered and went still, her satisfaction was a distant, unimportant noise.

I’ve spent my entire life observing, cataloging, and controlling. I’ve mastered the art of distance. But this...this was like an anchor being dropped in the center of my soul. The word “fixation” is too weak. The word “obsession” is too common. Navira Calloway is the axis around which everything will now turn.

I know this the way I know my own name.

#2

I can barely sleep. My mind is a constant, silent film reel of her, replaying her expression in the greenhouse, the way she’d backed away before making a run for it. She looked like a startled deer, and the instinct in me was to give chase.

At least I know now that she’s real. Mom confirmed it this morning, that Navira will be attending the academy, right before telling us we needed to keep our distance for now. I’m laughing as I write that out. Distance. As if such a thing is still possible. The mere fact that Navi walked into that greenhouse on her first day is proof that the three of us could never maintain separation. The universe seems determined to press us together, no matter how hard anyone else tries to pull us apart.

Damon has been vibrating restlessly since he saw her. He wants to approach her in class. “Just to talk,” he said. Honestly, I don’t blame him. The need to be near her is a phantom limb I’m only now becoming aware of. But Damon’s approach is all fire. He’d burn too bright, too fast, and it would scare her off. She’s skittish. I saw it in her eyes.

But I don’t think that I would be any better if I got too close. Damon might burn her, but I’m afraid I’d freeze her solid with the sheer intensity of what I feel when I look at her. I would scare Navira just as much, if not more.

So, I’ve agreed to let him take the lead for now. I’ll shadow him, watch him, and keep him from going too far. It’s a delicate balance. We need to be close to her, to know her, to let her remember us, but not so close that she feels cornered.

Will that work? I don’t know.

What I do know is that I’ve waited years to have Navi back in my life. Now that she’s here, patience is a virtue I’m finding very difficult to practice.

#3

Two things have happened since I last wrote in this.

Firstly, Alicia broke things off with Damon and I. Apparently, Navira hinted that she knew about our...arrangement with the good teacher, and Alicia apparently doesn’t like being on the verge of losing her job. I’m not particularly upset about this. She was a means to an end, and that end has now concluded.

The second, and infinitely more important thing, is that Navira was inside our apartment and once again, we came face to face with each other under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Damon, in his infinite wisdom, thought it would be hilarious to deceive her into thinking my room was the restroom. He sent her to my door, and she walked in on me with Julia.

I’m embarrassed, irritated, and angry, at Damon for the juvenile prank and at the cosmic joke that seems to be playing out. Why is it that every single interaction I have with Navira is stained by something tawdry and messy? She deserves better than that.

I think what’s truly staying with me, though, is that she was inside our space. After she bolted, and Damon was wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, I walked back into my room, and I could still smell her. Navira has quite a lovely scent, something sweet, like fresh peaches with a hint of something floral. Maybe honeysuckle? For a few moments, her scent was stronger than Julia's and what we’d been doing. It was like an imprint of her presence had been left behind in the air. I stood at the door, breathing it in. It was the closest I’ve been to her in years.

I know Damon is going to ride me about this for weeks. He “forgot” to let me know that he’d made progress with her and they are now partners for some project. If I wasn’t so excited about the fact that this is a good way to have her near us, I’d wring his neck. He has all the self-control of a rabid dog, but sometimes, I have to admit, his recklessness gets results.

I’ll take it.

#4

Damon and I fought.

It happened late last night, after a party. He pushed her too far, as I knew he would, and predictably, Navi ran. The unfortunate part is she ran into the arms of Alex fucking Nash. I had to watch her leave that party with him, watch him put his hands on her, knowing it was my brother’s idiocy that drove her there.

Our living room looks like it hosted a small war. A table is shattered, glass is ground into the rug, and the drywall has a new fist-sized dent. Neither of us came out unscathed. Damon has a split lip and a bruise forming on his jaw. I’m nursing a deep ache in my knuckles and a cut on my forearm where he threw a piece of glass.

We haven’t spoken since. He’s holed up in his room, and I’m out here on the balcony, watching the lights of the bay glitter like scattered diamonds. I don’t like fighting with my brother. It sits wrong in me. We’ve always turned outward, not on each other. We’re two halves of the same whole, and even disagreeing with him feels like tearing myself in two.

But I hate, hate, that this happened. Whatever ground we gained and crack we had made in Navi’s careful little walls, Damon blew it to pieces with one drunken, possessive display. He was supposed to charm her and draw her in, not scare her away. I should have known he couldn’t handle it. The closer he gets to something he truly wants, the more he resembles a cornered animal, snarling and striking out indiscriminately.

Anyway, I can’t turn back time. The damage is done. Alex Nash is a placeholder. He can’t possibly understand her. He doesn’t have the context or history that we do. He doesn’t know who she is.

I do.

The plan needs to change. Patience is a virtue, but so is knowing when patience has failed. If my brother can’t control his impulses, I’ll handle this situation myself. I’ll take control of this. I will make Navira see.

Unrelated, I find it quite funny how Damon and I have only fought twice in our entire lives and it’s even funnier that both times were over Navi. She’ll either tear us apart or bind us together tighter than ever.

Right now, I’m not sure which.

#5

Mom knows.

She came visiting today and found out we fought. After giving us a lecture that would have made a drill sergeant weep, she left, only to run into Navi on her way out.

We haven’t quite spoken about it yet, but Damon and I are expecting her to bring it up. He’s probably prepared to argue with her, but I am not. Frankly, I don’t care what she has to say on the matter. Navi may not remember us, but she wants us. She’s admitted it.

How do I know? I drugged her.

Now, I realize that on paper, that sounds awful. So please, spare me the lecture. I’ve already had one from Damon. I know it’s not the most...ethical way of getting someone to tell the truth. But I needed to know. I needed to cut through the fear and the confusion and the years of lies that have clouded her memory. I needed to know if we were wasting our time.

So, I did it. I slipped something into her drink when she came over to work on the project with Damon. A mild sedative. It was nothing dangerous. Just enough to lower her inhibitions, to let the truth slip out. And it did.

I asked her if she wanted us. She admitted to it. Her eyes were glassy, her words slurred, but the answer was clear and unhesitating. She imagines us, she told me. She begged me to touch her.

The memory of that moment...shakes me more than I expected it to. I can still feel how hot her skin was under my palm, the way she leaned into my touch, the soft, desperate sound she made. It was a confession ripped from her by chemicals, but it was no less real. She was vulnerable, and she wanted me.

Us.

So, you see, I have no patience for my mother's warnings or any of the other obstacles being thrown in our path. Navira wants us. The only question is whether she’s brave enough to admit it to herself when she’s sober.

I’ll have to find a way to make that happen.