by Kristie Cook
“How’d I get so old?” I demanded of my reflection, moving closer in, staring at a face that appeared to be middle-aged.
Dark puffy circles surrounded my bloodshot eyes that were once a deep mahogany, just like Mom’s, but were now a flat brown. Deep lines permanently etched my forehead, between my eyebrows, and around the corners of my mouth, which drew down into a perma-frown. My skin was pale and sickly looking, blotchy and aged. My hair, a dull reddish-brown, hung lifelessly down my back in strings. Holy shit! Grays! I looked closer at my head and stopped counting at ten. I’m not even thirty!
I stepped back to see if my body looked just as bad. It was worse.
“How’d I get so fat?”
A round pooch protruded in front. Where did these huge hips come from? And my ass? No wonder I preferred sweatpants and elastic-waist shorts. My breasts were the only part that looked smaller . . . and saggier.
I crumpled to the floor, wailing a mix of sobs and screams. “What’s happened to me? What did I do to myself? I’m fat and ugly and old. And alone. All alone.”
I literally looked twice my age, and I never noticed I was getting older. For me, life stopped at nineteen. I knew time had passed. Dorian’s birthdays were the biggest marker another year went by. Plenty had happened, but I hadn’t lived it. I’d just been going through the motions, existing and pretending, but not actually living. Over seven years gone that I’ll never have again. And I looked like twenty-seven years had passed. I’d let all that stress take a toll on me and my body while never realizing that I—the essence of me—was aging.
Images of the last seven years flashed through my mind like a slideshow while I lay on the bathroom floor with my eyes closed, tears still seeping. Pictures of Dorian—his first smile, his first steps, his birthdays, his first days of school—were bright. Others were dim—book launches, signing tours, buying my first house with my own money. Those experiences should have been remarkable, but I’d let them slip by barely noticed, like water through a sieve.
How could I be so stupid? So wasteful? So fucking nothing?
I cried for some time. Then I grew mad. Mad at myself. Then mad at him. The anger boiled up and exploded again.
“How could you do this to me!” My voice came raw and scratchy as I screamed at the top of my lungs to ensure the one who left me behind heard me, wherever he was. I pounded my fists on the floor, breaking the tiles. “How could you leave me? Why haven’t you come back? It hurts so much. I am so alone.”
I broke down in hard sobs again.
Where are you? Come back to me! Save me from this nothingness!
I cried until my chest and stomach hurt. Then I curled into a ball on the bathroom floor, closed my eyes and pulled out every single memory I could possibly grasp, forcing their clarity, no matter how much they felt like daggers piercing my soul.
That first night of class, when we met. The first time he smiled that angelic grin at me. Looking into those hazel, sparkly eyes, full of love. The first time he touched me and the unusual spark. Our first kiss as the sun set that fall evening. Cooking together. Motorcycle rides. Christmas, when he gave me the pendant, explaining it was a piece of his heart. His warm laugh. The night he proposed. His strong hands and powerful arms holding me close against his hard body, feeling so safe and so loved. And our wedding on the beach. Our wedding night . . .
Darkness overcame me.
Mom knocked once, and I told her to go away. After so many years of pretending, I just wanted to wallow in my misery alone. She didn’t come back until much later, yet I hadn’t moved from my fetal position on the bathroom floor. I no longer cried. I physically hurt from the sobs and didn’t think I had any more in me. I barely acknowledged her as she helped me up and to my bed. But I hugged her fiercely as she tucked me in, as if I were six again.
“It’s okay, honey,” she murmured in my hair as I held her tightly. “It will get better. I can feel the truth that change is coming.”
“Mom?” Dorian squeaked from the doorway, his stuffed shark tucked under one arm. “Are you okay?”
I propped up on an elbow and held my other arm out to him. He crawled onto my bed, squirmed under the covers, and snuggled against me.
“I’m okay now,” I said as I wrapped my arms around him. Mom left, turning off the light and shutting the door behind her.
“Please don’t be mad at Dad,” Dorian whispered in the darkness. “Don’t yell at him for leaving. You said it’s not his fault. And he can’t even hear you anyway.”
I sighed sadly. I hated that he’d heard my outburst.
“I love your father very much, Dorian. Don’t ever think I don’t. I just get mad sometimes and say things out of anger, but only because I miss him so much. Understand?”
“Yeah. I miss him, too.”
I squeezed him tighter. “But we have each other right now. I love you, little man. Very much.”
“Love you, too, Mom.” Within minutes, his breathing settled into a quiet snore.
I fell to sleep shortly after, welcoming unconsciousness, waiting for the memory-dream to start. But it never came.
Seven years, seven months, seven nights.
Two-thousand seven hundred seventy six—that’s how many times I’d had the same memory-dream. Now they were finally different.
I found myself in a world where everything was a shade of what my dream-self called steel-blue-gray. I sat on the top of a mountain, at the apex of an arced range, with several peaks pointing to the steel-blue sky in each direction. Far below, at the base of the mountains, appeared to be a meadow and a lake, but they seemed small and vague from this perspective. Much closer, a multitude of images hung in the air, as if projected on unseen screens. The images changed, like the slideshow of my waking memories while lying on the bathroom floor. Dorian, the beach, vampires, writing, college classes. Mom’s old bookstore, werewolves, my mom, motorcycle rides, me on the bathroom floor. And the figure in the yard . . . a lot of him. In fact, I later realized, I didn’t even remember seeing my husband’s face, not clearly anyway. Anytime his image would start to come into focus, the vision would shift to the stranger standing in the yard watching me.
I’d always feared losing the memory-dream. Because I knew I’d lose forever the clear image of his face and perhaps even our connection . . . and my sanity along with it.
Chapter 2
I awoke slowly, not my usual gasping, upright bolt. My eyes cracked open, but I didn’t find the expected darkness. I lay on my stomach again, my head nearly hanging off the edge of the bed. From the dim light on the floor, it looked like the sun had just started to rise. I glanced up at the clock. 6:05. Not 3:45. Not 8:00. And I felt wide awake.
I rolled over to find Dorian still sleeping peacefully, spread-eagle on the other side of the king-sized bed. He was a strange phenomenon, like his mother. Before me, no Amadis daughter had ever given birth to a male without a twin sister. Mom and Rina had been sure I was pregnant with twins. I’d never had an ultrasound, never even went to the doctor for prenatal care. Mom acted as my midwife, and her and Rina’s feelings were supposed to be enough.
I had developed my own theory: Mom and Rina had sensed a boy and were so sure I’d follow everyone else’s precedence, they simply assumed a girl accompanied him in the womb. Stupid assumption. I was always abnormal, even for us. Of course, I would be the one to screw everything up.
They hadn’t given me a good reason why Dorian couldn’t lead the Amadis when the time came. Instead, they clung to the hope that, because I was different in so many other ways, I might still be able to have a daughter. Mom and Rina felt this could happen, although no Amadis daughter had ever given birth more than once.
There was one obvious problem with this new “plan”—it required a father. And my only love was . . . gone.
As I watched Dorian sleep, his face looking so much younger than his nearly seven years, the thought of him hearing my temper-tantrum last night tortured me. No kid should have to witness such los
s of control by his own mother. He had his own pain to deal with; he didn’t need to hear mine, too. I was supposed to be strong for him.
What had happened yesterday? What caused me to snap so horribly? Even our last anniversary hadn’t been this bad. In fact, it had been years since Psycho had taken over so vehemently. The bitch even changed my dreams! Why now?
Perhaps something deep within was telling me it was time for a change. Time to truly live, instead of existing in a fog. Time to discover the Real Alexis. I couldn’t entirely let go—that was out of the question—but I could surely move forward with some things. Right? I needed to, for me and for Dorian. I owed him. He deserved more than Almost Alexis. But how?
I thought I could start with my writing. I needed to get back on track with it. I hadn’t written for two days straight, finding it difficult to write the final chapters of the last book of the series I’d started six years ago. The series was a wildly successful—although dark—love story bringing together the worlds of humans, vampires, and other creatures. I stayed out of the talks of movie deals, so they hadn’t come very far. I didn’t care. That wasn’t why I wrote.
Shortly after Dorian’s first birthday, my agent started harassing me for another book, since the first one did fairly well. She reminded me of my contract, but I didn’t care. Writing was a part of my old life, I’d told her. That’s not who I was anymore.
“Who are you, then, Alexis?” she’d asked. “You’re barely alive. Your characters are more alive than you. At least they do something!”
I finally promised her I would try to get her off my back. And Mom and Rina, too, who insisted I start on the new idea I had before my world fell apart. I thought I could use writer’s block as an easily acceptable excuse when asked why I never produced anything. But no one ever had to ask. I discovered, once I sat down at the computer, I did still enjoy writing, and the stories came effortlessly, as if they’d been given to me by some other force and I simply served as a tool. As time went on, I found the escape to be even better than my dreams.
Apparently, I’d created a welcomed escape for my readers, too. As the normal world came into its own dark times with wars, failing economies, and endless natural disasters, people looked for a fictional world in which to lose themselves. The world I’d invented became one of the most popular choices. Knowing I’d given this to readers—a little escape from their miserable lives—was one of the reasons I enjoyed writing. Because I knew exactly how they felt.
Now that I’d almost completed the entire story, however, I struggled to bring it to an end. Just three days ago, my fingers flew across the keyboard, barely able to keep up with my thoughts. But as soon as I ended the chapter and started a new page for the next one, the flow of words ceased, as if turned off at the source. I knew how the story ended. I just couldn’t put the words together. Yesterday, I’d blamed it on the vampire dream. But I knew the real reason. I had no ideas for the next story, which meant no other world to throw myself into. Then all I would be left with was my own life of nothingness.
I needed to push past this obstacle, though. I needed to do it for Dorian. Perhaps ending this series would allow me to end this chapter of my life. Perhaps Dorian and I could move forward with a fresh start at a new story. Perhaps Psycho saw this coming and refused to go out without a fight, sparking yesterday’s meltdown. Or, perhaps Swirly Alexis had stepped in overnight, mixing my thoughts into a mass of confusion.
I hated Swirly Alexis almost as much as Psycho. Nothing made sense with her. I often had a hard time distinguishing between fact and fiction when she ruled my brain. Today will be another doozy, I thought with a sigh. As I crept out of bed, leaving Dorian to sleep for another hour, I tried to remember the last time I’d had two bad days in a row. I couldn’t remember such a time, at least, not since Dorian was born.
I stopped in the doorway of the breakfast nook, which led to the kitchen. Always an early riser, Mom sat by herself at the wooden table with a cup of coffee held between her hands in front of her. Surely she sensed my presence—even normal humans could feel when someone has entered a room—but she didn’t acknowledge it. Her back faced me as she seemed to be staring out the window, watching the backyard brighten with the morning’s first light. The bluish-gray of dawn still colored the sky, and the birds and squirrels were already active, hopping around the lawn and fluttering among the tree branches. The windows should have muted their chatter and calls, but I could hear every note and squeak—they sounded unusually loud today.
Mom provided a stark contrast, sitting so still and looking so peaceful. Remorse flooded over me. I had treated her cruelly, and she didn’t deserve it. I lashed out at her because, well, she was here. And also because she stood next in line to lead the Amadis, but she couldn’t give me even the smallest bit of information. I held a certain amount of resentment for that, but I knew she had no control over it. Until she became matriarch, she had to follow orders. And in the meantime, she never complained, even after my bad days.
I wrapped my arms around her shoulders.
“I’m sorry I was such an ass,” I whispered against her cheek. I cringed, knowing I’d just offended her again. “Sorry.”
She patted my hand. “I’m sorry you had such a bad day. Do you know what triggered it?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Unable to tell her about my hopes for yesterday’s “significance,” which seemed so ridiculous now, I pulled away to pour a cup of coffee, then sat down at the table with her. I played absentmindedly with my necklace, sliding the pendant and key back and forth on the chain, rubbing my thumb over the smooth face of the triangular ruby. I hadn’t been fooling anyone with my mask of normalcy, especially not Mom. And not myself. Even when Foggy came in and numbed the pain, I still felt it as a dull ache under the surface, and deep down, a part of me wanted to always feel it . . . needed to feel it.
“I can’t explain what it’s like, Mom. I logically know that it shouldn’t be so hard anymore, but I can’t help it. My soul still feels him. And I’d try not to feel it at all, learn to ignore it completely, but if I did, then it feels like . . .” I swallowed against the lump in my throat. “Like I’m . . . giving up.”
“Nobody would blame you, honey,” she said quietly.
I stared into my coffee cup. “I know. They’d probably be glad I was finally coming back to reality. Seven years is a stupid long time to be like this.”
“Not really. Not for us,” she said, waving her hand as if dismissing the idea. “I still mourn for Stefan.”
My breath caught at Stefan’s name. I still mourned for him, too, but . . . “He was a protector. I mean, not even a boyfriend, let alone a bonded soul mate. It’s not the same.”
“Yes, but we were very close. We even talked about dating, but were afraid we’d ruin our friendship. I miss him very much.” Mom sighed. “And I still mourn for my true love.”
I looked up at her with wonder. She’d never mentioned her true love before.
“Yes, honey, I’ve lost my own true love. Many years ago.” She stared out the window but seemed as though she saw something other than the backyard as she remembered. “It was 1910, a very different time, before either of the World Wars. Oliver was an English man visiting Italy, where I was born and raised. We fell in love at first sight. I followed him back to England, and we married almost immediately. Barely more than a year later, he died. He’d become terribly sick and no one knew why. He probably had cancer, but we didn’t know back then. I couldn’t save him.”
A single tear slid down her cheek. She brushed at it with the tips of her fingers and then wiped at her eyes before any more fell.
“Mom, I had no idea.”
“He was my soul mate, Alexis. And just like you, I had such a short time with him. As you can see, I still grieve for him. But life goes on, and so do we.” She smiled, just a turn of her lips that didn’t reach her eyes. “So, it’s not how long it’s been that bothers me, honey. I understand.”
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br /> “But you mourn for their deaths. Tristan isn’t dead. I can’t believe that. I don’t mourn. I hang on!”
“Look how miserable it makes you. I know hanging on is part of who you are. Ever since Stefan left when you were little, breaking your heart, I realized you were given the capacity to love more intensely than even me. Once you allow yourself to even trust enough, you become so attached.”
“It’s more than that, though. I feel like part of me is really, physically missing, but more than a body part. Part of me. I don’t know how to explain the . . . emptiness.” An emptiness in my soul.
“I know you can’t. Rina bound your souls together in a way no one alive has ever experienced. You’re the only two people in the world who know what it feels like to be together. And apart.” She took my hand in hers and looked into my eyes. “But, honey . . . do you really think he would want you to live like this?”
Tears pooled in my eyes. This wasn’t the first time she’d brought this up, so it wasn’t the first time I’d thought about what he would want for me. He would want me to be happy. I knew that with my brain, but my heart didn’t care. I had to hang on and wait for him, regardless of how much his absence hurt. After all, he hadn’t broken up with me, and he hadn’t died. He was missing in action, captured in a strange and secret battle, and I was left here, waiting for his return. I couldn’t let go. She was right. That’s just how I was. And even if I wasn’t like that, even if I was the type to easily let go, the bond between us would never let me. Not completely.
“If I don’t live like this, I’ll still always feel that pain, that emptiness. But it would be for nothing because I’ll lose the memories. I’m so afraid I’ll forget them. And I can’t forget!” She took me in her arms, and I clung to her as if she were the thread of hope I hung on to so tightly. “He’s already so dim, fading in my mind. What if I lose his face? What if I can’t remember anymore?”