“Exams”

 

Coming home after eating lunch with Aiden is the right choice because Ryan didn’t come home even when it’s time for dinner. I had to request Do-Hyun to get me some takeout because I’m not sure how to order them to his address. I can’t leave Aiden starving. 

Plus, I don’t even know when Ryan will be back.

I take a bath with Aiden after we play with his toy for a little while. It’s almost time for his bed now.

While playing with him in the tub, someone knocks on the bathroom door. My hands pause from scrubbing Aiden as aI turn to the closed door.

“Evan, are you in there?” Ryan’s voice travels through the door.

“Yeah, I’m in here,” I reply to him while wondering why he is asking.

He doesn’t say anything other than “okay” and I hear his footsteps walking away. I turn to Aiden with my brow furrowed but he only returns a blank innocent stare. I end up squeezing his cheeks and feel that we have stayed in the bath long enough.

Drying Aiden doesn’t take long at all and he’s cooperating when I put on a cat onesie on him. I make sure his hair is dry before letting him slide into his bed. I pull out a book to read for him out loud and finally, wait until he falls asleep after I finish reading.

I walk out of his door quietly while feeling glad that the door doesn’t make a loud sound when closing. I find Ryan standing by the balcony staring into space with his hand holding an unlit cigarette.

“You’re not smoking it?”

Ryan turns to me when he hears my question. He shakes his head before replying, “I want to but smokes are bad for children so I’m planning to quit.”

“That’s good,” I say as I walk to stand next to him.

Ryan stares at the cigarette between his fingers before putting it back into the box. He then passes it to me.

“What?” I raise my brows at him because I can’t raise an eyebrow.

“You hold it for me and if I ask for it, say no,” Ryan says and I smirk hearing that. I take it off his hand and examine the box. 

“Sorry about earlier.” Ryan lightly bows his head at me to show his remorse.

I snort and turn away from him to continue looking at the box as I play with it.

“I think it's unfair that I get to know you but you don’t know much about me.” Ryan stares at me with an unfathomable gaze.

My hand stops fidgeting with the box and I return his gaze without any expression.

“I started hunting them years ago.” He starts to flashback to the past. “They took someone important to me. He was like my father and my brother at the same time. You see, I had absent parents growing up. They’re never home and they ended up hiring Kaitlyn full-time to babysit me.” He trails off at the mention of Mrs Roberts. 

I stay silent since I can’t come up with anything to say to him.

“She wasn’t much older than me. Neither was Chris but they both ended up becoming the people I look up to and respect…” He pauses again and takes a breath before continuing, “Chris… He passed away and he was only 28 that time.”

Ryan clenches his fist while clenching his jaws as his lips curled. His eyes are staring at an empty space. It’s as if he sees something that I can’t.

“He was killed.” I can see his eyes turn moist as he looks at me. “Someone murdered him because apparently, he got too close to the truth. I…

I saw red. All I wanted to do ever since that day was to avenge him. I never stopped. I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop.” His voice trembles.

I shove the cigarette box into my trousers pocket before completely facing Ryan’s shaking body.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say softly.

“Don’t apologise. It’s not your fault. It’s just that I felt… It was my fault. I was the one who got him in that mess. If I didn’t hang around those people he didn’t approve of, maybe he wouldn’t have found out about those... things.” He says the last word through gritted teeth.

“It should’ve been me!” This time a tear fell from his eyes and I can’t bear it anymore.

I reach to hug him because I don’t know how else to make him feel better.

“If it was you, I wouldn’t have met you.” Only after I speak that I realise that I’m also crying now.

Ryan hugs me back and pulls me into his embrace tightly. He buries his face on my nape. The two of us remain like that for a long time.

When I feel like he has calmed down, I say to him, “Thank you for telling me.”

Ryan moves to look at my face and his eyes are red from the tears. “Could you just stay with me for the night?”

I agree without thinking too much and allow him to lead me to his bedroom.

It’s not until he closes the door that I realise the current situation is too ambiguous.

Luckily I recall something, “Won’t Aiden look for us?”

Ryan also seems to just remember the existence of his adopted child.

“Then, shall we sleep with him on his bed?” He asks and I quickly nod my head so we can head out from the room right away.

We both end up slithering our way into Aiden’s blanket without waking him up. The two of us are laying on each of his sides.

Ryan whispers goodnight and I end up falling asleep not long after.

 

In the morning when we wake up I tell Ryan that I should go back home for now because I need to take one last exam at school to graduate. He doesn’t say much but tells me to call Do-Hyun to pick me up after breakfast and I do just that.

It doesn’t take long for me to eat breakfast and get ready to go home. Aiden stares at me while I’m packing. It makes me feel guilty for leaving so I promise him that I will come back as soon as I can.

Aiden doesn’t say much but reaches out to hug me. He refuses to let go until it is time for me to leave. I don’t know what Ryan says to Aiden because he whispered it to him and all of a sudden Aiden easily lets go of his hold on me.

When I reach home, I find my mother sitting in the drawing-room, reading a book. I briefly tell her about my current graduation status and she happily tells me to inform my father.

I stand in front of my father’s study room feeling nervous. Possibly because this will be the first time I have ever stepped foot in it. I decide to knock on the door after taking a deep breath. 

The door swings open no sooner after I put down my hand to wait for a response. Our head butler, Sebastian greets me politely before informing my father of my presence.

He then gives way to me to enter when my father informs him to let me in.

After entering, I watch as Sebastian walks out and closes the door quietly. I notice before he closes the door that he is holding a tray as he leaves. On my father’s desk, there is a freshly brewed tea to which he takes a sip before asking me,

“Is there something wrong? Did Ryan do anything to you?”

I quickly shake my head and deny it. “No, no. He didn’t do anything to me. I came here because I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?” He asks directly.

“Samuel has submitted my extra credit work evaluation to the school and they approved it. The only thing I need to do to graduate now is to take exams to finalise my credit score.”

“Oh, that’s great. Do you want me to call the school and have them arrange it?”

“Yes, please. Is it possible for it to be next week? The sooner I graduate, the better, right?” 

“You can take your time to graduate but if you insist, I will let them arrange that for next week. You’ll have to take this little time to study as much as you can then. Is there a reason why you want to finish it right away?”

Everyone else in my year has formally completed their studies a while back. I could not join them since apparently, I don’t have enough credit to graduate. My father liaison with the school to give me a chance so I don’t have to repeat a year. I don’t think repeating a year would do me any good either so I want to graduate as soon as I can too.

I just want to catch up to the rest, I guess.

Although that is what I’m thinking, I reply to him, “I feel like it’s best to move on to the next stage.”

“You’ve figured out what you want to do after school?” He continues asking.

I hesitate a little but I still say, “My experiences with Samuel are interesting and he did recommend for me to continue business management.”

My father smiles as he hears that. “That’s good. Your cousin, Elijah is a successful businessman. We can consider the possibility of getting you an internship at his company if you decide to pursue this. However, there is still time for you to think things through and when you’ve decided, we can start applying.”

“Th-thank you,” Hearing him giving me time to think things through makes me feel happy. I usually don’t have that option because everyone would decide for me and restrict me. I’m glad I have supportive parents.

Since that is all, I’m about to leave but my father stops me.

“Before I forget, your mother tells me that she would like to host a small birthday celebration with you. Since it will mark the start of your adulthood. Is that alright with you?”

“A celebration?” I’m not sure if I want one to be honest because I was never able to celebrate my birthday nor do I know when it is.

“Yes. She said that we’ll invite your close friends. Just a couple of our relatives and you can decide the rest of the guest list. As for everything else, she will handle it if it’s fine with you.” He tries to get my approval once more.

“I think… that’s fine. It’ll be nice, I guess,” I answer him with hesitation because I do feel like I’m looking forward to it.

He smiles cheerfully after hearing me agree and allows me to take my leave since there is nothing else he would like to discuss with me.

I walk out and close the door slowly before heading straight to my room. I immediately lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling blankly for a moment. I know I have to study but I want to relax for a moment before I head to my desk.

Not long after, I start to feel weird. I sit on my bed and look around my room. For some reason, I feel empty. It’s weird but I feel a little disconnected with my room even though I have only been away for a few days.

It seriously feels weird because I’m already thinking about going back to Ryan’s place even though I’m not sure when it will be.

At this time, my phone rings. I look at the caller id and see Abby’s name written clearly. Oddly, I feel slightly disappointed but it’s always nice to talk to Abby so I perk back up right away.

“Hey, Abby.”

“Hey darlin, just thought I’d call you to check up on you. How are you today?”

“I’m great. Thanks for asking. How are you?”

“Oh, I’m peachy. The views are amazing!”

“Really? Maybe I can go and see it with you someday.”

“That’s an amazing idea! We should plan it sometime in the near future.”

I chuckle, “Yeah, definitely. Oh! I’m about to graduate if I can pass the exams.”

“REALLY?! That’s amazing. I’m so proud of you!!! I know you can definitely pass the exam. When is it?”

“I told my father to set it for next week.”

“Are you sure it’s not too soon?”

I shake my head and stop when I remember she can’t hear me. “No. I just wanted to finish it or else, it won’t be any different than repeating a year.”

“There’s no rush you know. There’s time for everything.”

“I guess... You say the same thing as my father.” I laugh a little.

“Really?”

“Well, you two said similar things.”

“Well, I suppose I can be as wise as him then. That’s why it’s good for you to listen to me sometimes,” We both laugh at that.

“Uh, Abby?”

“Yeah?”

“My mother plans to host a birthday celebration for me. Are you able to come back for it?”

“Birthday celebration? Hmm… that should be in a few weeks from now. I don’t think I can make it.”

Hearing that, I feel slightly dejected but I still act like it doesn’t bother me. “That’s alright…”

“Sorry. I’ll make it up to you when I get back,” She promises.

“Yeah. That’s fine by me too.”

“Okay then. I have to go now.  Goodbye, my beautiful friend~” She says jokingly.

I laugh while saying goodbye to her as well. I put down the phone to see the screen changing back to my wallpaper. I turn to look at my desk and sigh before rolling my body off the bed.

I walk to the desk and start pulling out all the books for me to review before next week. So far I haven’t done any studying these past few days because of everything that has happened.

I’m not too worried because I’ve been doing mock exams provided by Sam and some of the questions often repeat themselves. Hopefully the exam I’m taking will also have repeating questions from previous exams.

 

The days are now repeating themselves. 

In the morning, I will exercise with Do-Hyun and have breakfast after. Then, I’ll head into my room to study until I’m called for lunch. When I finish lunch, my mother will drag me to walk around the garden so I can take a break before I go back to study. When dinner comes along, my mother will nag me to sleep early but I will always end up sleeping at midnight. 

The day will restart from there.

So far I’ve only been in contact with Ryan through the phone. He knows that I’m about to take the exam soon. He mentions that he won’t be bothering me too much and our communication only happens once a day but no more than that.

I make a point to ask about Aiden and Ryan always informs me that Aiden misses me. It ends up with me making promises that I will sleepover at his place as soon as I can. I have yet to tell him about my birthday celebration because I feel like it would be nice to invite him the next time I see him.

I’m hoping to see him after the exam since we rescheduled the meeting with Zander to the day after I finished my exams. I hope to learn what it is that he wants to tell me. I barely know him but I can tell he’s not the type that would request to talk to someone for no reason.

I search the coordinate that he gives on the map but it doesn’t provide any clue as to what he wants to tell me. All I know is that this location is quite far into the woods.

Seriously, I feel like I have a close connection with the woods at this point. I grew up in the woods, taken into the woods, and now, I might find answers in the woods...

I brush these thoughts away because there is no point in thinking about it. I might as well focus on the current thing which is the exam and with a blink of an eye, the day of judgement has arrived.

The school has arranged for me to take the exam in an unused prep class. I’m the only one there and the other person will be the exam invigilator. 

I take a deep breath before finally taking a step into the classroom and taking a seat.

I’m glad I told my mother to not send me to school because I needed that time alone so I could calm down and be ready. She makes sure I have a full stomach before I leave the house. I smile remembering her nagging voice showing her concerns for me.

“Are you ready?” The invigilator asks me.

I look at him as I adjust my emotions before nodding my head.

“Then you may start now.”