Everlasting

by C. S. Johnson

  “It’s no trouble.”

  “You want to get some food?” Raiya asked.

  It was a question she’d asked me before, when we were together.

  My answer was the same, too. “My pleasure,” I replied.

  She stilled. “What did you say?” she asked. She frowned and pulled back a bit from me.

  “I said my pleasure,” I repeated carefully, my heart tingling with hope.

  “Oh.” Raiya frowned.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, trying not to be too effusive as I thought about it. She has to be remembering me!

  “I have a headache,” she said.

  My hope died again. This time, I wondered if it was going to stay dead.

  I eased away from her. “Let me go see what kind of food we have here,” I said. Or what kind I could order, I added silently to myself.

  Turned out, my mother’s French diet was actually bearable. I quickly found a storage container full of croissants and plenty of relatively normal stuff in the fridge.

  By the time Raiya came downstairs, I was at home, making an omelet and pulling out the butter.

  I stared at her as she came down.

  There were bandages on her arms and her leg, but she was wearing an old pair of my gym shorts and one of my mom’s more casual shirts, showing off her legs nicely.

  After some internal debate, I decided she looked mostly normal; I almost smiled, thinking of how I thought she looked scrawny when I’d first seen her as a teenager. There was no way that she was scrawny back then, especially when I saw her now.

  I tried not to think about that.

  Her hair was long and free, and if I had been my teenage self, I would’ve been tempted to run my hands through it. She rarely, if ever, let it hang loose. I had a hard time remembering just how long it was before ...

  I stopped myself and turned back to the stove. “Omelet?” I offered. “The protein will be good for you.”

  “Sure.” She came and stood next to me. “Can I help with something? I feel like I haven’t been in a kitchen in years.”

  “Do you know how long you’ve been gone?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No, but I can probably still work in the kitchen without killing anyone, if you’re worried about that.”

  That is probably true.

  “Uh, if you want to help, you can.” I glanced around, trying to think of something that might help jump her memory. “Why don’t you make some coffee? My mother’s got the beans in that cabinet over there,” I said, nodding toward the machine.

  Raiya didn’t have any trouble at all. She measured out the beans, ground them up, and had the coffee machine purring like a robotic kitten programed to pee out coffee.

  “So ... Hamilton. Will you tell me about yourself?” Raiya asked.

  “Ouch!” Just as she was asking her question, I managed to burn myself on the stove.

  “Let me get that,” Raiya said, reaching over. When she took my hand, I felt the familiar stream of her healing power as it poured out of her and into me.

  As she dropped my hand, I gaped at her.

  “I have healing powers,” she explained, almost shyly. She turned back to the coffee machine as it beeped.

  “I know,” I muttered, more to myself than to her. “I didn’t think you did. Not anymore.”

  “I wasn’t strong enough before,” she said. “But I’ve been feeling much better today.”

  Elysian had told me before that I managed to keep my powers, despite being a fallen Star. I guessed Raiya was still able to heal, even though she had no memory.

  Was this what it was like for her while we were dating? I wondered. Falling in love with someone who was supposed to love you back, still recognizing they might not remember what the relationship had once been?

  No wonder she’d pushed me away so adamantly when she first met me.

  Raiya was blissfully unaware of my existential crisis as she pulled out the creamer and the sugar from the pantry. “You take both, right?” she asked, pouring the coffee into different cups.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She handed me the cup. As she did, my fingers brushed against hers. At the small touch, I felt a rush of caring pour out from her and overwhelm me.

  She still cares for me. Even though she barely knows me anymore. Why?!

  “Why?”

  “Why what?” Raiya asked.

  I hadn’t realized I asked the question aloud. “Why,” I said, “why don’t you sit down?”

  She looked confused for a moment, and then she said, “I haven’t been able to move like this in a long time. I’m sure I’ll need some time to build up my strength again, but for now I’d like to push myself some.”

  “You always seemed to push yourself,” I recalled. “Well, you always did more than I pushed myself.”

  “Have we known each other for a long time?” Raiya asked.

  “Uh ... yes and no,” I finally decided.

  “But you came to save me.”

  I nodded. “Dante needed some help. I don’t know yet if he actually meant for me to rescue you like this.” I decided not to mention he’d sent me looking for her body. Her dead body, I’d assumed.

  “That’s the guy from the woods, right?” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I hope we don’t see him again for a long time. I don’t think he’s a good person.”

  “He’s not,” I assured her. “He’s not good, and I could make the argument that he’s barely a person.”

  Raiya laughed, catching me off guard. “What?” she replied, seeing my surprise. “That was funny.”

  “I guess so.” I smiled back. “It’s nice to hear you laugh.”

  A somber mood came upon her. “I’m going to need time to heal,” she said. “But laughter and joy are healers just as much as time.”

  “If there’s anything I can do to help,” I said, pulling the omelets off the stove and skirting them onto our plates, “please let me know.”

  She took her plate, and then she put it down. “There is something you can do for me.”

  “What is it?” I asked, grabbing some bread.

  “I would like to bury my children,” she said. “Would you let me?”

  I almost choked on my food. I had to take a large swig of coffee before replying. “In the yard?”

  “If you can,” she said. “You have a nice place here.”

  “This is my mother’s house,” I said. “We’d have to ask her.”

  “She has beautiful gardens. I think that they would like that.”

  “It should be fine.” I would take the hit from my mom. Surely she would see this as a necessity? I mean, she almost lost Adam when he was a baby. She of all people should be compassionate in cases like this one.

  From the size of Raiya’s bags, I don’t think it was likely any of them had made it that far.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “We can bury them after the rain stops,” I said, aware this was the most bizarre conversation I’d ever had in my parents’ kitchen.

  “Thank you.” She reached over and took my hand and squeezed it. “You’re a good friend.”

  Ouch. I’ve been friendzoned.

  We ate some in silence. Or at least she ate, while I mostly watched her.

  I still had trouble believing she was alive.

  “So, what else can you tell me about yourself?”

  Raiya’s new question confounded me for a long moment. I looked at her as I took a sip of my coffee. She looked at me expectantly, and I figured I should try to answer her questions.

  “Well,” I said, “I’m a lawyer.” That seemed pretty basic.

  “Really? You don’t seem like one. You rescued me from SWORD, after all. Don’t you have to go to work?”

  “I’m on sabbatical,” I told her. “I had some work troubles with one of my ... one of my coworkers, and she complained to her dad. He just happened to be the boss.”

  I felt my heartbeat jump high enough to strangle me. I can’t te
ll her about Charlotte.

  Dread trickled through me. I couldn’t tell her about practically anything that had happened since high school; I’d done a lot of things she would likely cringe at. I mean, I was even cringing at the memories.

  “You didn’t get fired?”

  “No.” Despite my panic, I laughed. “They wouldn’t fire me. I’m good at what I do.”

  “How long have you been a lawyer?”

  “I finished law school a little over two years ago,” I said. “I work in Pittsburgh, and even though it’s only been a short time, I have a reputation.”

  “Why did you come here?” she asked.

  “Well, I had a couple of unexpected things happen,” I said. “A boy and girl came to see me. They wanted me to help them find their parents.”

  “Oh. I hope you can find them.”

  “Me, too.”

  We lapsed into silence again. I made her seconds and insisted that she eat it.

  I didn’t know the specifics of her time under SWORD, and from what I did know, I didn’t want to know anything else. I was already likely going to have nightmares for the rest of my life as it was, and there was little chance I would get sleep knowing Dante was likely going to insert himself back into my life in the coming days.

  ☼10☼

  Truth and Light

  The rain picked up steadily, but inside the house it seemed as though a different world existed for us. Time passed, both slowly and quickly, and I was uncertain of how to proceed with Raiya.

  I’d never really thought about how much she struggled with me when we first met during high school. I knew from our past discussions that she’d retained a lot of her memories from the other side of Time’s power, before we became fallen Stars, and before we were reborn into this realm.

  Now, I was amazed at her all over again. She used to tell the stories if I asked, but she never pushed. She let me come to terms with it on my own, something I didn’t know if I had the strength or the patience to reciprocate.

  There was also the matter of how, when we were younger, we didn’t have quite so much emotional baggage and scarring. Even if she did remember me, how could she still want to be with me? I had done some terrible things, not the least of which include giving up on her.

  That was what I struggled with most with myself. How could I have given up on her? Why didn’t I fight Dante harder? Go looking for SWORD? Care enough to make sure she was actually dead?

  These questions continued to pummel me as the afternoon transitioned easily into the evening.

  Raiya was sleeping on the couch in the den when my dad came home, with Adam, Lucas, and Lyra all in tow. I signaled them to be quiet as they came in.

  I was shocked when they all agreed to keep it down—I was not so shocked when Mark told me that he’d filled them in on some parts of the situation.

  I was glad to see that Adam had befriended my mini-clients quickly. They ran off to play in his room, mentioning something about video games.

  “Times haven’t changed so much since I was in high school,” I said with a grin.

  “Not quite.” Mark shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “Adam’s games are much more expensive than I remember yours being.”

  “I’ll concede to that,” I said, recalling interest rates and inflation troubles.

  “Hamilton.”

  “What?”

  Mark looked at me with a solemn expression on his face. “I need to talk to you,” he said.

  “I need to talk to you, too.”

  He nodded. “Let’s go to my office, shall we?”

  “Alright.”

  We headed to his office, the smaller one just off to the right of the kitchen. Cheryl had opted for the bigger one, and Mark willingly appeased her. And I knew several of the specific reasons why.

  One, it was because it was my mother, and while I couldn’t fathom it all the time, Mark absolutely loved her. He was willing to sacrifice to make her happy. And two, it was because Cheryl was the one who would be more likely to bring clients home. Mark barely used his office as it was, and if he did, it was usually just to write up his research proposals and final reports.

  When I sat down in the chair opposite his desk and a thin layer of dust wafted up from it, I wasn’t surprised.

  “Let’s go ahead and get this over with,” Mark said. At my raised brows, he smiled bitterly. “I don’t believe in messing around when it comes to important things.”

  “Okay.” I could agree with that. I knew what it was to have a client go off on some silly tangents before attempting to recall the purpose of the original conversation.

  “I want to apologize,” he said. “I ... I don’t really know what happened, all those years ago, during your last year of high school.”

  I shook my head. “I knew my ... activities ... were problematic for you,” I said. “And I knew how hard it was for you to keep my secrets from Mom. You don’t need to apologize.”

  “Yes, I do.” He sighed. “I didn’t know how to deal with you after ... after everything wrapped up.”

  “I know.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I’ve done a lot of thinking on it myself.”

  “And I didn’t know ... I didn’t know what they’d done to her.”

  That was weird. Suspicion rushed through me. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I had to stop myself from saying anything a million times,” he continued. “I couldn’t prove anything, and I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t know what?”

  He gazed up at me with sad eyes. “I’m so sorry, Hamilton.”

  My instincts on matters like these had sharpened over the last several years of training and education. And I hated that I knew I was right about my conclusions.

  “You knew she was alive.” I barely got my mouth to form the words.

  He shrugged. “Well ... ”

  Another day, another shock.

  I jumped out of my seat. “You knew?!”

  “I was going to tell you when you came back for Christmas your first year of college,” he said. “When you stayed, saying you wanted to work on your classwork, I took it as a sign not to push it. And there’s also the matter of SWORD. I know from Dante that SWORD has a very tight policy of non-disclosure. I’m sure they’ll find a way to punish me for telling you this now, even though you’ve already found out.”

  “Why are you telling me this then?” I asked angrily.

  “Because you deserve to know the truth.” Mark shook his head. “And I need your forgiveness. There’s no greater punishment than one that’s self-inflicted. The guilt goes down deep; it becomes a cancer to the soul.”

  I almost squirmed. Did he know that was exactly how I felt? All the years I thought I’d been robbed of something precious, and it turned out I was right. But I didn’t even try to find the correct thief. I suffered because of my own mistakes as much as another’s.

  And my own father played a role in it.

  “So you knew she was alive, and you didn’t tell me because I wasn’t here.” I stood up and began pacing. “What else? What else do you know?”

  “They continued to ship her blood over to the hospital as part of our old arrangement for a year after everything happened.”

  “And you took it?!”

  Stress tightened on his face. “There’s nothing I could have done,” he said. “Why shouldn’t I have taken it? My research could save lives, Hamilton.”

  “By destroying others?” I yelled back.

  “I didn’t know what they’d done, exactly.”

  I fought against the tide of anger inside of me. “How did they even revive her? Dante said that her heart had exploded.”

  “That’s true,” Mark said. “He didn’t lie to you. I was the one who operated on her myself.”

  That might explain some of the reasons he didn’t want to tell me. He knew I could easily blame him for her death.

  Despite realizing this, I was still not willing t
o soften against him. He’d deliberately allowed me to suffer, and needlessly. I did understand his silence better. And that was enough to ensure I wouldn’t go down the path of sweet revenge.

  Sometimes, you have just enough sympathy to keep yourself from doing something incredibly stupid. It’s a small thing, and something to be thankful for.

  “I saw what had happened, and I had them sew her back up immediately. But while we still had her on the operating table, her heart began to beat again. On its own.”

  “How?”

  “How indeed,” Mark said. “I had them reverse the stitches as soon as we saw what was happening on the monitor. And when we did, nothing was wrong. All her heart irregularities, the leaks she’d had, the murmur, all of it was gone. A perfect heart had magically replaced her old one.”

  “More like miraculous.”

  He nodded. “Certainly. But before we could make the announcement, a lady came in. She said that she was going to take over the case, and we were not to disclose any details to any party.”

  “A lady?” I shook my head. “How did she manage to get you to agree to that?”

  “Legally.”

  “Legally, how?”

  “She had documents showing she was Raiya’s legal grandmother—and the marriage license showing that she’d been married to her grandpa.”

  I paused for a long moment. “Her grandmother?” Raiya had mentioned her grandma. Rosemary, she called her.

  Mark nodded.

  “Do you think she was telling the truth?”

  “We had no choice but to discharge her over to her. I knew she was part of SWORD, however, when I saw her talk with Dante in the hallway. He doesn’t know I saw them together.”

  A new thought struck me. “Raiya’s grandmother? As in, Grandpa Odd’s wife?”

  “Yes.”

  Even while he’s trapped in the void, Draco is still making my life miserable.

  I suddenly really wanted to see those files.

  But instead of demanding them, I just sighed. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I said. “I can’t talk about this anymore right now. I don’t think I can forgive you for this. I can’t even forgive myself for this.”

  “Hamilton. You know as well as I do that there are no college courses or technical manuals that come with fatherhood. At the end of the day, even after reading all the books and doing all the research, it’s a full-time learning experience where you rely on your instincts a lot. Mine were just not as good as I would’ve liked.”