Chapter 4 When Love Looked Like Charity.

Luna found the next morning, piercing and bizarre. Bangkok had never been so cold to mornings. The light always ran thin and even all over the town. Now, it sliced through the apartment's half, glazed door in thin, calm strips, and streaked dust into brittle fingers of light. Lost in thought, she sat and sipped on a tepid cube of tea and twiddled her wedding ring, which caught a faint shimmer from time to time when her hand shifted. Her skin underneath it felt dense and heavy, as though the putdowns hurled at her by her family the day before had lodged themselves in her bones.

She thought the pain would pass, that the dagger she felt the day before would continue to dull. However, today, it felt sharper and embedded itself in her bones in a silent ache she would not stop feeling.

Ethan turned out from behind the counter, flinging kids of his tie in perfect sequence, humming softly to himself. It wasn't any music Luna recognised. It didn't sound like anything she'd ever heard on the radio. It was just him. Unfussed, unflappable, making the very nothingness of the apartment seem stable and subversive. Luna watched him, feeling her love for him fill her so suddenly that she was surprised. The man they had made her marry out of charity. The man. Inevitable is pathetic. NO hopes, no dreams. Grounded and fearless in a way that makes the outside world seem to get all wobbly by comparison.

"You're thinking about them again," he said, staring into the middle distance in front of him just like he had since they met, that same non-authoritative tone...

Luna smiled. "Is that how obvious they are?"

"Only because you are frozen," he said, standing at last, he looked at her. "For your hurt."

She placed her mug on the cup stand and rubbed her thumb around the rim. "Everyone says I married you because I was grateful," she said. "That I was tolerant. That I married the dullest, safest person alive because I was irresponsible with everyone else."

Ethan made a few long steps in order to get next to her. He held her tender hand, then made her come down a little before the first spiral. "Love is not charity," he said. "And it is not convenient."

She pressed into him. Her forehead rode under his stomach belt. She sat back down on him. His pulse node is raw. Luna shut her lids and let it lull her. "If they could see how I did."

"They won't," he said softly, pulling her hair away from her face. "Not if it makes them happy. Only what comforts them. Not what is real." She ran her finger gently around the edge of her mug, letting the heat radiate into her skin as her gaze skimmed over the city's lights and all to remind her of the world that silently judged her. Even in that warm illumination, Bangkok was a silent witness; every honking and shouted insult a reminder of how much they watched and disapproved. The wedding band hugged her finger more heavily than the ring, a heartbeat of resistance to the dark whispers that she married for safety and gratitude and not for love. Luna exhaled another breath she'd been holding, pressing her cheek to the cool, smooth curve of the mug to ground herself. Ethan sat by her side; his presence was that grounding, as steady as his pulse, as reassuring as the hand that brushed hers and spoke from the silence in his mind. Outside, the shadows drew out long and slim like silent threats, and the courier's envelope blazed something hot and unstoppable in her mind: Marcus. Just the name spun a cold chill up her spine as she felt it curl its icy fingers around her chest. She looked at Ethan and faced the suspicion in his eyes, and found no trace of it there,, only a quiet certainty. "Whatever comes," he said softly, quietly, "we will face it side by side." And for the first time, Luna believed in him.

The apartment held its breath. He bowed his head and pressed a soft kiss to the crown of her head. Luna relished the cooling sensation and wished that the surrounding silence and certainty of the moment might be sufficient.

Then the knock sounded.

And it rented the apartment in halves.

Unhesitating, the knocking smashed the peace to painful glittering fragments. Luna froze. Instantly, she thought of Vanessa, or one of her cousins, who would ask a biting question just loud enough to hide the acid beneath it. When she opened the door, a man stood there with an envelope, normal, resembling any other. No writing on the front. No address.

"I'm for Miss Harris," he said.

Luna's fingers prickled as she accepted the envelope, which was unnervingly colder than it ought to have been. She ripped it open and pulled out its eight-word message, whose text could only have been written by Marcus: Charity is one thing. Convenience is another. Meeting tomorrow, Luna.

Her stomach heaved. Marcus.

That single word was enough to cause the icy grip to take hold. Ethan was at her side, staring at her face and not the note he held. "He will not lay a finger on you," he said evenly. "We will see to it."

Together. The one word had her composure back, as if by magic.

The day wore on oddly. Luna and Ethan ran smoothly around the confines of the tiny apartment, tending to each other's needs in a quiet, tacit familiarity. She eats and eats. The dishes tinkle softly as Ethan puts them away. Luna mops the counter as Ethan dabs at the bathroom mirror. They work so smoothly, she grows so anxious. "The world is out there watching us cry and eat until noon," she thinks suddenly. "They are watching and laughing."

Halfway through the afternoon, she heard a voice from the corridor. Mrs. Supattratra stalked over the balcony, railing, smile gleaming, eyes frozen with suspicion. "Luna! So sweet, tempered you are," she called. "Choosing to abandon the luxuries of the West upon your marriage. That takes guts."

Luna's shoulders flinched. She thrust her shoulders back. "I married him elinaid," she concluded d very loudly.

Ethan drew nearer, nigh with a firm arm supporting her around the waist. "Hear what gives people the edge," he sighed. "Nothing to do with it all."

But the rumors were everywhere. At the market. In the lobby. In pointed eyes that burned into her back. By dark, Luna was exhausted. Worn paper, dulled by the nagging sensation that her love was cheated.

Ethan and Luna sat on the chair, her legs sleeved together, his flushed in the dying light, and now the sun was settling low. He kissed her temple, her cheek, then crispered, steady and rock, Luna listening to the fragile beat of his heart. You loved me'cause I loved you.

She laid her hand on his chest, her palm feeling the strength within. The still fire he carried. For just a moment, nothing else mattered.

Then her phone chirped.

Tomorrow. Let's visit that vagrant.

Cliffhanger (again: Marcus). Luna imparted these words to Ethan, who gazed on her with an uncompromising eye. "We will be safe," Ethan instructed her by half, and by half an invocation. "We will be safe together."

As sunlight slit through glittering flickers on their balcony, Luna looked out over the city beneath her, trying to breathe while nearing horror and unmendable, both poised to flatten their love before either of them had a hope of fully living it. Tonight, Luna reminded herself, love wasn't enough.

However, it was not.