With his laughing face before me, it was possible to find humor in a world where Zach was hailed as a deity. I chuckled along with him. “Yeah. Does that mean you’re too famous for public school?”
“I start back tomorrow.”
“Aw, thank God,” I sighed. “Or, should I say, thank you?” Finally, I could return to the cafeteria. No more lunch hours spent in the library under Phil’s watch. “I’m guessing there’s no chance you’ll be picking me up for school?”
“As a matter of fact, I’ve got Mom’s car.”
“Why on Earth would anyone give you a car after that catastrophe?”
His mother looked back at us over her shoulder, quirking one brow. Zach led me away, whispering, “She says it’s safer to have hers. More airbags. Bigger frame. At least next time, I’ll be the winning car.”
A shadow lingered near the edge of the window. Even if I couldn’t sense him, I could guess that unnaturally tall figure belonged to Phil. His anxiety made my own heart clench and race and choke me up with nausea. Willfully forgetting to change my schedule, I faked a grin up at Zach, “I think I’m going to head toward gym. See you tomorrow?”
“Absolutely.”
I blew him a kiss so he wouldn’t notice that I didn’t hug him before I stomped out into the hall and into Phil’s line of sight. As much as I cast him accusatory scowls for stalking me, Phil didn’t seem the least bit ashamed. Only…unsure.
“What do you want?”
He didn’t speak. The elegant length of his fingers reached out to me, wrapped around something purple. Lavender?
Serenity.
I frowned, moving out of the way of the office window so I wouldn’t have to explain myself to Zach or the administration. “So, are you claiming I am serene? Or is it that I need serenity? Or are you wishing to pass your serenity onto me?”
He looked from me to the flowers and then back again before he let his head crack against a locker. “It was supposed to be purple hyacinth.”
I’m sorry.
My lip threatened to inch upward. “It’s lavender.”
“Serenity?”
“Yup.”
Smacking his head against the wall again, he held them out to me in offering. “In that case, I wish you serenity. I think you need it.”
I rolled my eyes but took the flowers. “Tell me about it.”
Phil opened one eye, head still buried in the tile. “You’re avoiding me.”
“And you’re following me.”
He shrugged. “If you won’t go to class, I thought I could at least give you a ride home.”
I crossed my arms. The mix-up of flowers might’ve given me a moment’s amusement but that didn’t mean it would make me forget. “Thanks but I’ll have to pass.” Sidestepping him, I started down the hall. Maybe I would go to gym. Where else was there to go?
He threw himself in front of me. “Or for burgers and shakes. You know, wherever you want to go. We don’t have to go to the store.”
“It’s not the destination I’m opposed to.”
“I see.” He nodded, head dropping. Out of masochistic habit, I sniffed out for his disappointment but Phil didn’t exude anything but determination. Bowing low, he swept me over his shoulder. “If it’s the car you’re opposed to, perhaps this might be more to your liking.”
“What the hell, Phil?” I growled. As I nearly caught the eye of a secretary through the office window, I lowered my voice. “This is kidnapping. You can’t do this!”
“Stop me.”
The chilly winter air bit even harder than I remembered. It reminded me of a patchy jacket in a locker down the hall; it might as well have been a million miles away. “I’m cold.”
“You’ll live.” Nevertheless, he tucked me deeper into the crook of his shoulder, arms wrapping tighter around my thinly-veiled flesh.
“If you give me a cold on top of this headache, I will rip your throat out with my teeth.”
“Promises, promises.”
“If you think this is going to make me forgive you, you are woefully mistaken.”
He scoffed. “So stop me, Eden. You’re strong enough to knock me on my back.”
Maybe I would’ve been if not for this ceaseless hunger! Even though I knew I’d lost the battle, my legs continued to flail. I pushed needlessly against his chest. “How about I slap you in the mouth? That’s the part I have the biggest problem with anyway.”
I glimpsed the corner of the car windshield over his back before I was unceremoniously stuffed into the front seat. By the time I’d righted myself, Phil had already rounded the hood and pulled himself in beside me. He fastened my seatbelt. “Where to, then?”
“I’m good right here, thank you!” My head still throbbed. My body ached, and now tenfold from the effort of fighting Phil.
“I think I know a place.”
“Look!” I snapped, reaching for the door with one hand and the seatbelt with the other. “I’ve got some killer kind of headache creeping in and would like to spend my day indoors if you don’t mind, Phil—”
He stomped on the gas, tearing out in the road. I collapsed against the window with a sigh.
“I know you’re dying to ask your questions, Eden. Can’t you be mad at me later?”
“I’ll be mad at you then, too!” Slipping back into the silence, a feeling of dismay wafted over me like a smell. An unpleasant smell. I glanced at Phil, noting that the smile I’d heard in his voice had slipped away. I wanted to kick myself for still feeling so guilty about it. “Any reason you looked so happy before?”
He lit up. “I’m happy?”
“That’s what it looks like…you have felt happy before, haven’t you?”
“Not my own. Not in a very long time, anyway. I am, though. This is happy! I am happy.”
I didn’t let the surprise ease onto my face. There could only be fury. “If that’s supposed to make me feel bad for you—”
He took my hand, forcing it away from my chest when I resisted. “Just a simple statement, Eden, no need for pity. It does feel…pleasant, though, doesn’t it? I could get used to it.”
“Can I have my hand back, please?”
“Why?”
I wanted to say that my head hurt, but Phil’s touch had the opposite effect. The headache I’d already had this morning dwindled the moment we touched. And the contact felt, unfortunately, nice. Feelings of hope and contentment bombarded me out of nowhere.
I tore my hand free. I didn’t want to feel nice things. As far as I was concerned, Phil hadn’t just lied and fed off me, he’d done it remorselessly. He’d allowed Zach to burn. And then, he’d left him to rot.
“Stop it.”
He glanced away from the road, hand moving to grip mine again until it moved just out of reach. “Stop what?”
“Stop doing that. I know you’re doing something.”
“I…I’m sorry.” He returned his hand to his lap. “It’s never intentional.”
“What is it?”
“My kind—” he hissed like a curse.
“Our kind.”
He smirked a little, then the line of his mouth sloped downward. “Our kind. We are appealing. Irresistibly so. My touch is meant to pull you in and keep you there as long as it takes to feed from you. And if you get away, it makes you want to return of your own accord. I’m sure you can remember dreams. It messes with your mind.”
I thought back to that very first moment in the shop. That very first time I’d felt his hand on mine. The ground had fallen out from under me. Gravity had shifted to string me to him, rather than the Earth.
This didn’t feel like that.
“No, not that. The happy feelings. I don’t want them.”
Phil snorted. “I haven’t fed. I can’t make you feel anything.” Fighting off a haunted look on his face, he continued. “Is it so hard to think that I might just make you happy?”
Guilt pricked at me again. But for Phil, whose feelings I’d hurt, or for Zach, who I was actually
considering betraying by confessing affections for his would-be killer, I didn’t know. And once again, I walked a line wondering which was worse. I ground my teeth. “Isn’t that what angels do? Make people happy?”
He winced. “I missed you.”
“Yeah? I didn’t miss you.” I hadn’t given myself the chance.
He smiled sadly, pathetically. “Does it make it better or worse that you’re lying to me?”
“I’m not lying! I hate you.”
“You think you do.”
I snarled, trying to distract from my rapidly reddening face. “You don’t know anything about what I feel.”
“I know that you miss me when I’m not there, although you’d be damned before you’d admit it. You feel uncomfortable around other people, even people you know. You think too much, so you need someone else to pick you up when you get wrapped up in your own head,” he mused.
I bit my tongue until I tasted blood. “I do not need you to pick me up. I don’t need anyone to pick me up.”
He pulled the car over and coasted to a stop before a barren field. In its youth, it might’ve grown corn. “I know that you love Zach.”
“Don’t talk about him.” Fight or flight seized my throat.
“And I’m sorry I could only save one of you. But I won’t apologize for making it you. You can hate me from now until the end of time, Eden, but the only thing I’m guilty of is wanting you to live.”
“I said don’t talk about him!” My shrill voice reverberated against the walls, piercing my eardrums like nails on a chalkboard. Phil reached for me over the center console but I resisted his embrace. “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me!”
He ignored me, arms winding around me to pull me in. As my fury died and my sobs grew in volume, I collapsed against him. My head found a home in the crook of his neck.
I suddenly wished for those feelings of hope and contentment. They felt better than this whiplash. “Why?”
Phil rested his check in my hair. “You were kind.”
“Zach is kind. And you were going to—”
“What good does that do?” he asked, brushing wet locks out of my eyes. “I have never doubted that your friend is a good person. But I saved you. And I would save you again. Does that make me the bad guy?”
I wanted to see it from his perspective. I really did. But I still heard some voice whisper in my ear: yes.
“Why did you leave him?”
His fists clenched in my shirt. “I thought it was the right thing to do.”
“You were wrong!” I broke free of his grip, casting myself into the door.
Phil sighed. Looking out through the window at our new location, he cracked open his door. “This seems like as good a place as any.”
“A cornfield?”
“Unless you’re also opposed to walking?”
“I’m opposed to walking in strange places with guys I hardly know. My father would kill me.”
“He’ll probably be angrier that you’re truant.”
“True.” I pretended not to hear that he sounded practically breathless. It made my knees shake. “Very true.”
He undid my seatbelt.
Maintaining what little dignity I had left, I didn’t wait for him to yank me out when he rounded the car. “I’ve got it. I’ve got it.”
He held his hands up in surrender. “Whatever you want, Eden.”
“Unless I want to go to gym, of course. Right?”
“I’m trying. What else can I do to fix this?”
I didn’t even entertain the idea. There was no way to fix this because I didn’t want to fix it. For Zach’s sake, I couldn’t forgive. Couldn’t forget. “Go back in time, tell yourself Zach is more important that having to move. Or exposure.”
We walked in silence, me at the front, darting into the field between rows of the dead and dying vegetation. Phil kept pace at my back, unwilling to be lost in the distance. Shame. It would’ve saved me some grief. He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, shut it. And I stewed.
Around the eighth, or ninth, time I demanded, “Just spit it out, Phil.”
“Are we not friends anymore?”
I rolled my eyes. Friends don’t kiss. “I don’t know. Are we?”
“I would like to be.”
“This coming from the same guy who said he wished we’d never met.”
He sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh? Another misunderstanding? I suppose that’s my fault as well.”
He slapped both hands to his legs, making me jump. “Would you stop doing that?”
I stared at him, noting the bags under his eyes. The lines of red marring the whites of his eyes. The slouch of his shoulders. I knew that look. I’d worn that look. “Does your head hurt?”
“Don’t change the subject. You’re willfully misunderstanding me. Why do you want to fight me?”
“If this is all too much for you, you could always bring me back to school. I’m sure Zach wouldn’t mind giving me a ride.”
“You’re doing it again. Attacking me.”
“I’m mad at you. How should I be acting?”
“I don’t know,” he grunted. “I was hoping you would accept an apology.”
“You’ve apologized. You’ve apologized before. Am I just supposed to forgive that you were okay with letting Zach die. Besides, you knew how guilty I felt! You knew I blamed myself for hurting him. You knew!” Though he tried to cut in, I rounded on him with finger already pressed to his chest. It probably hurt me more than it hurt him. “Why bother apologizing at all? I must not mean very much to you if you were okay with that, so what does it matter if I forgive you or not?”
He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I’m trying to understand mortals of this time, but your feelings are unpredictable. I’m not asking you to forgive me, I’m just asking for some compassion. Some patience.”
“It’s unpredictable that I would be upset you wouldn’t save Zach, and then be upset you didn’t want me to save him? Maybe you’re just not listening.”
“I’m trying—”
“You’re trying. You’re trying. You keep saying that. While we’re on the subject of things to be mad about: you keep lying to me. You’re not an angel. You’re a demon. And you fed on me.”
Phil’s face puckered with his distaste. “I didn’t want you to leave.”
“Yeah,” I snorted. “I see that worked out fabulously for you.”
“I want to learn.” As we descended into silence again, punctuated by his sadness, I fought the urge to speak.
And…lost. “Learn what? How to talk to women? How to talk to me? I don’t think my feelings are too off base for regular human beings, Phil.”
He shrugged. “I’m not a human being.”
“Yeah, but you were.”
“It’s,” he breathed, licking his lips, “it’s been a long time.” As he blinked, a great wince puckered his face.
My anger ground to a reluctant halt. Curiosity didn’t have to be a betrayal, did it? “How long?”
“Feels like an eternity now.”
“How long?”
“I can’t tell you for sure. We didn’t measure the years as you do now. Centuries, easily. Long before anything you would know as familiar.” He blanched, arms wrapping around himself in comfort. “Times I would rather forget.”
The different factions of my self warred. My kindly human sensibilities knew pain when they saw it and wished to spare him the words that would make him suffer. The other part—the part he’d wounded with his deceit—didn’t care. He deserved this pain for all he’d caused.
“What was it like?” I inquired.
He stared into the dirt, fingers clawed into his arms with such mindless animosity that mortal flesh would’ve torn. From his pain, he managed a smirk. “Dirty.” That menacing half-smile dropped. “You wouldn’t have liked it.”
“I’d like to hear about it.”
“No one should like to hear about it.”
“Why not?”
“Because they shouldn’t!” His voice echoed, once again a shadow of his honeyed tone. Unlike that night I’d seen this animal in the greenhouse, I didn’t fear the flame in those eyes. I’d expected it.
I pitied it. “Friends confide in each other.”
He scoffed. “You’d have me burden you.”
“Burden me? I think it’s only fair I know something about you.” When I was met with only silence, I pressed, “I’m not pulling your teeth, Phil. Just give me something. Anything.”
“And we’re friends?”
The heat of his kiss returned to mind. I stomped it down with a roll of my eyes. “Yeah. Friends.”
Taking a long moment to collect himself, he replied. “My name isn’t Phil.”
“No…” I sighed, arms crossing, legs already moving, and marched toward the car.
“Edy?”
“No. No. You do not get to call me that,” I snapped, stopping short as he put himself in my way. “Only friends can call me that.”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said.” Striding around him, I continued on my way. “That was before I realized that I know zero about you. You lied about everything! Even your own name.”
He took my wrist and forced me to stop. “It seemed fitting that I should take a new name when I was born into this life. I swear I’ve been Phil far longer than you have been Eden.”
“Who are you then?”
“I’m Phil!”
Caught in his grip, I could do nothing but glare. “But who are you really? Angel? Demon? Tom, Dick, or Harry?”
“I gave up who I was when they buried him.”
The eyes that stared down at me sent ripples of desperation down my back. Under their influence, I found myself unable to be cruel. “Alright. Let’s say I forget all about your lies. Let’s say we start over. Are you ever going to tell me the truth, or am I wasting my time?”
“I would very much like to start over with you.”
He released me, only to extend a hand for mine. I scrutinized him for any hint of deceit. “No more lying?”
“None.”
“No more faking?”
“I swear.”
With narrowed eyes, I stood back, crossing my arms. “How about some proof?”
The Amaryllis Page 15