The Sacrificial Bunny

Chosen by the Luarian Prince

Andrea Caster

He took off his hat, presenting a face too attractive to ignore. He was obviously mixed race with curls in his hair, and powerful hazel eyes that held me bound. His face was properly defined and too regal to belong to a shoplifter. He was the kind of man you found among royalties.

He held me trapped in a trance state as I continued to ogle at his marvelously sculpted countenance, searching for the reason behind its questioning familiarity in my mind.

I noticed every twitch in his detail. From the way his eyebrows flickered, to the maneuvering density behind his eyes. It hinted at recognition.

“You look alarmed.” His velvet voice had a soft rasp to it.

“That's because you look suspicious.” I stated.

His eyes grinned like I just paid him a compliment.

“Isn't that where the thrill lies?” He smirked mischievously. He was teasing me.

His words made me feel uncomfortable instantly. Yet, I got a warm buzz from the familiarity of his voice. At the same time, I worried about my safety.

“Who are you?” I asked, losing my patience for his mind games. “I noticed you hovering around for a minute now without buying anything.” I accused him, reaching beneath the counter for pepper spray.

“Five years is all it took for you to forget me?” A flash of disappointment crossed his eyes.

He reached within his coat and I reacted by jumping back, pulling the pepper spray out of impulse.

He snorted. “If I did have a gun, that distance nor the pepper spray would have done you any good.”

He drew out a charcoal black business card, engraved with gold letters. It had a simple illustration of a name and a contact number beneath it.

“Call me when you remember. I want to repay the debt of suffering I left you with...” He said, holding my eyes for a second longer before turning around to leave.

My fingers trembled as I flipped the card over. The letters blurred at first, but when they came into focus, my heart plunged to my stomach.

Durian Cothe.

Blood roared in my ears.

No. It couldn’t be. Not him.

Not the boy who—

I tried to reunite the last image of Durian and the man who just walked out of the store.

There was no way they could have been the same person. He was bigger. Taller. Bearded.

Durian Cothe…A boy I once loved from my past. I called him Duri, and he called me Drea.

According to him, he was a transfer student from an international college in Europe. He arrived at Boston University in my sophomore year to do a semester program and decided to stay in the dorm for the ‘experience’.

This was after I had found out that he was a kid to some billionaire parents in Moldova.

We sparked a connection in the same dorm hallways, walking past each other and catching each other's eye. Sometimes, his eyes will linger a little longer on me.

It became an everyday thrill for me. It was like we created our own secret bubble in the midst of the noisy straight male performance around us. As a closeted young latino man back then, it felt like the purest high.

Durian Cothe was the mysteriously tanned regal guy with hazel eyes and natural dirty blonde curls. He made it easy to fall crazily in love with him.

Getting lost in each other's eyes turned sneaking into each other's rooms for overnight cuddles. He was a complete fantasy the way he lived. He took me on dates that made me question the depths of his pockets and gave me the best Christmas gift ever. A necklace. I tossed it in the sea the day he disappeared on me and never returned.

Up until now.

I stood an extra fifteen minutes outside the store, staring down the street as people strolled in cardigans, cuddling themselves from the chill November zephyr. It was around this time five years ago when we met.

Goosebumps broke down my back at the realization.

The thought of this man consumed me so much, I had no idea when I strolled into my apartment. Durian has always had such a hold on me.

It dragged me straight back to the way he vanished. No warning, no goodbye. He just disappeared. One ordinary March morning, his calls stopped reaching me. I tried again and again, clinging to hope, until three endless days later, the line went cold. His number didn’t just stop working. It was erased, like he’d never existed at all.

It broke me completely, and even more when I found out he had traveled back to his home country without a goodbye or a word.

I lost my mind, realizing everything he had told me was either the fracture of a truth or an entire lie.

I deleted our memories and pictures out of madness and rage. I had to lock him out and bury him deep in my mind to move on with my life. I accepted his silence with a severed heart.

So Durian had no right walking into my life again. Expecting me to recall his face and be full of joy.

My mind suppressed the very thought of him so much, I didn't place his face until he walked out the door.

I tossed the business card nonchalantly into my side drawer, falling into my bed and fading into a much-needed rest.

Alas! Even in my dreams, I wasn't free.

Durian haunted me, leaving me soaked in sweat and precum by the time it was morning. Of course, simply seeing him again after five years would trigger a wet dream.

I took a shower to wash the thought of him away.

I was surprised to find Mandy sleeping in a beanbag in my living room. She was hugging her backpack.

I figured she must have crashed in after the concert since she was the only other person who had the key to my apartment.

Mandy was beyond a friend at this point. She was a sister. During my finals, my parents decided my sexuality was their breaking point and not the pedophile of a brother that they sheltered.

They cut me off brutally.

Mandy took me right in after my finals. Her more conservative family somehow still had more love to give than my Christian-loving one.

I made pancakes because they tasted like the warm hug I needed right now. Mandy eventually woke up some minutes after I was done, and had already begun eating. She dragged her feet into the hallway leading to my bedroom, clearly dealing with a hungover.

“Good morning to you too!!” I yelled after her.

Her sloppy steps faded before she returned for the steaming cup of coffee I made for her, exiting the room again without a word. “Let's see if it's the morning grinch or a hungover?”

“Or both!” The caffeine in my system was working overtime.

She returned with a towel around her shoulders.

“Shut up, man…I love you though.” She looked like she was going through it.

Mandy picked up a piece of pancake. “You should have started with this.”

She took the mug and a piece of pancake into my bedroom again and returned holding a black card.

“Uh…” Mandy wiggled her fingers in my direction to get my attention. “Who did you have to blink your pretty eyes at to get this?”

She flipped the rich charcoal business card. The gold engraved into it glimmered in the morning light.