Oh fuck!
I looked down at the ring then back at Parker.
“No! Wait, Parker, it’s not what you think. I—” But she didn’t stay to hear what I was going to say—she had already turned and was running full tilt toward the street. I shoved the ring back into my pocket, charging after her.
As we neared the street, I was gaining on her, but only because she was in high heeled boots and I was wearing All Stars. In a pair of sneakers, I was pretty sure Parker would have given any Olympic sprinter a run for their money.
I was nearly to her when a group wandered between us and I had to veer to the left to avoid colliding with them. However, the sudden sidestep threw me off balance and I slammed into a recycling bin instead. The very solid kind of recycling bin that was cemented to the ground so the homeless couldn’t walk off with them.
I looked up as I winced in pain, but the street was empty. Parker was gone.
What I Always Needed to Say
Thursday, November 15th
TRAVIS
I was so unbelievably stupid. Like seriously damaged.
After I stood there out on the street for gods-only-knew how long, I trudged back into the science museum to get my coat. As I stood there waiting for the coat check guy to retrieve my coat I stared absently at the groups of people at the nearby exhibit stations.
“Here’s your coat, sir,” the guy said as he handed over my black pea coat. “And here’s your girlfriend’s things,” he continued as he set Parker’s coat and purse on the counter.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I mumbled sourly.
“Really? Your wife then?” the guy asked with a slightly surprised expression. Either because he thought I was way too young to be married or because he thought Parker was way out of my league. Or both.
I wiggled my ringless fingers at him. “Trust me buddy, any chance of that just went out the window.”
“Really, that bad?” the coat check guy said with a grimace.
“You have no idea,” I sighed, rolling my eyes as I picked up Parker’s things. She was probably freezing out there without her coat, and who the hell even knew how she was going to get back into her apartment without a key.
“Well, hopefully it was a clean break. The messy ones really stay with you until you put them to rest.”
I opened my mouth to say something snarky when his words caught in my brain. Laid to rest.
I looked up at him quickly. “Thanks.”
“Any time,” he said with an uncertain smirk before he turned to the next guest.
I practically ran through the throngs of people gathered throughout the museum. Earlier near the bar, me and Parker had passed a station where people were drunkenly trying to fold origami. And I may not have known how to make cranes like Patrick and Chan-rin, but there was one thing I remembered making from when we had lived in Seattle. Paper boats.
I looked down at the black paper boat in my hands. I hadn’t made one in over a decade, but even in all that time my fingers hadn’t forgotten the pattern of movements. I held the origami boat tight in one hand so it wouldn’t be yanked away in the strong breeze coming off the bay, and pulled the ring from my pocket. I gently set the ring on one side of the paper boat and a quarter on the other side to counter the weight of the ring. Then I took the boat in both my hands and leaned against the edge of the railing, holding the boat out over the dark water below.
It was finally time to let go. To lay the past to rest.
A burial at sea.
It might have seemed tragically symbolic, but it really was the death of us. The death of what could have been. The death of what could never be.
I held my breath, and let the little paper boat go. It hit the water and miraculously didn’t tip over or sink like a rock. It just bobbed up and down. Its shape nearly invisible against the dark water as it slowly rose and fell with the waves that rolled past beneath it. Eventually the paper would absorb too much water, and the ring’s weight would overcome it, and it would sink. But for now, it danced on the water as beautiful and fragile as a dream.
“Goodbye, Nulala,” I whispered to the night.
There was so much more I could have said. But what I really needed to say—what I had always needed to say—was goodbye.
If I Fall
Thursday, November 15th
TRAVIS
I walked into my apartment, trailing a puddle of rainwater in my wake. I probably should have hailed a cab when it started raining on my walk home, but I needed the time to think. To sort through everything.
I needed to tell her, needed to make her understand before it was too late. Just how hard letting go was for me. Just how scared to death I was of screwing this all up.
I hung Parker’s coat on one of the hooks by the door and set her purse down on the entry table. I should have just brought them over to her place—I mean, it was only two floors down from mine—but I just couldn’t face her. Not in person. Not just yet.
I walked into the kitchen and pulled a bottle from the liquor cabinet. I told myself I was only taking a shot of tequila to steady the nervousness swirling around inside my stomach like a hive of angry bees. But it was a lie. Really, I was doing it to get the courage to say anything in the first place.
I took a sip of tequila straight from the bottle, and looked down at my phone. At her name in my contact list. Parker Kirihara. Then I swallowed hard, and tipped the bottle back for another swig.
You can do this, Travis.
As the shot burned its way down my throat I tapped her number. Then hung up just as fast, my heart slamming against my ribcage.
I can’t do this.
I leaned against the wall, and whacked my head against it a few times. Gods, I was a disastrous mess.
Why was this so frakking hard?
I took another swig and tapped her number again, my hand shaking so badly I nearly dropped my phone. The call connected, and I stood there frozen as it rang.
No backing out now.
And rang.
And rang.
And went to voice mail.
I stared at the phone for one panicked moment before I jumped in. “Parker, I…I know you’re probably really pissed at me right now and I get that, really I do,” I started as I turned around and leaned back against the wall, looking out the wall of windows at The Embassy in the distance.
“I… Let’s see, how do I explain this?” I said as I leaned down and placed the tequila bottle on the floor next to my feet. Unlacing my shoes just so I’d have something for my hands to do other than be tempted to toss back another swig of alcohol.
“When you arrived here, you kinda walked into the middle of something I wasn’t quite ready to let go of yet. I mean, maybe letting go for most people is easy—who am I to frakking know, right? But for me it’s not. I mean, I had basically been in love with her since I was six and we kinda did sleep together that one time four years ago. And that quack of a doctor did say that when we sleep with someone we make ‘inseverable bonds’ with each other. And who really even fucking knows, right?” I babbled as I slipped off my shoes and picked up the bottle again.
“…And talking about other girls I’ve slept with was not what I was planning to talk about at all. And… Oh gods I really do suck at this,” I admitted as I rested my forehead on the tequila bottle. Then I looked at the phone in horror. “And I just said that out loud didn’t I? Frak!”
I took another swig of tequila. “Well I’ve already screwed this message up and I’m just gonna erase this when I’m done anyways, so I’ll just say it,” I said as I gestured wildly with the bottle, already starting to feel that drunken floaty feeling working its way through my body.
“Every moment of every day, you work your way into my thoughts—into my dreams—and I like you there. I like you—
I need you—in my life, Parker. You make me…a little less screwed up. But if you left—if you were no longer in my life—it would probably destroy me. I know that now that you’ve worked your way into my heart—into my soul—that I’ll never be the same without you. That I’ll never recover if I lose you. And that scares me to death,” I admitted, my whole body shaking.
“Letting people in, especially those I—especially someone like you—it’s really hard for me. And I’m more scared now than I have ever been in my entire life, because I know this time. I know what it feels like to fall. And you deserve so much better than I could ever give you. And I’m unbelievably sorry, because I’m fairly certain I am—” I stopped dead, Parker was standing just outside my front door that I had apparently left open. “—falling for you.”
She didn’t say a word, and I blinked at her stupidly for a moment. Trying to decide if she was real, or if she was a figment of my imagination and I was way more drunk than I thought.
I lowered the phone slowly. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to hear all the important parts.”
I looked away from her and shifted my weight uneasily, a deep blush spreading across my cheeks. “Look, Parker, I’m really sorry—” I turned back to look at her just in time to see her as she leapt at me.
The first thing to hit the floor was the bottle of tequila, crashing to the floor with a loud smash. The second was my phone as I dropped everything in an effort to catch her.
I stumbled backward into the large bookcase that separated the entry area of my loft apartment from the living room as I caught her. An assortment of DVDs, books, and other random items crashed to the floor, but I just looked into her eyes. Which was a big mistake, because they were sparkling mischievously.
“You. Me. Bedroom. Now,” she announced in a low, breathy voice as she wrapped her legs around me.
“Parker, don’t you think we should talk about—?” was all I got out before her emotions hit me and I was a goner. I couldn’t have resisted her even if I had tried. Which I didn’t, because one, she was gorgeous. Two, I wanted her so very badly already. And three, well, she already had my shirt halfway off.
I backed toward my bedroom as she kissed me feverishly. And I could taste it—the sweet sugary yet sour taste of liquor on her tongue as she slid it into my mouth. Parker only stopped kissing me momentarily to pull my shirt the rest of the way off over my head. And lost in that tangle of fabric, I crashed into a picture on the wall, and then another.
They crashed to the floor in a shatter of glass. The loud sound jarring me to my senses. I stopped backing toward my bedroom, and took a slow shaking breath to clear my head. What we were about to do—there was no going back once we did it and—
“Parker, you’re drunk—hell, I’m really, really drunk, maybe we should stop—” I tried to reason with her between kisses, because I had stopped, but she hadn’t. Then her lips hit the lobe of my ear and all rational thought left my body in a shiver down my spine. “Oh gods, whatever you do, don’t stop doing that,” I moaned as I slumped against the door frame of my room.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” she replied with a smile to her voice, her lips brushing my skin.
Biting back another moan, I slid my fingers across the exposed skin of her legs until I met the edge of lacy panties, my heart beating a million miles a minute. Hooking my thumbs under the stretchy fabric, I started to edge them down her hips.
I dropped Parker—a little more roughly than I intended—onto my bed. As I looked down at her, breathing heavy, she looked back up at me. Her chest rising and falling just as rapidly as mine as I slowly popped the button of my jeans, and slid the zipper down. And then the next few frantic heartbeats seemed to be a race as to who could rip the other’s remaining clothes off the fastest. And then there she was, pale milky white, and naked, and lying back on my bed. Her pendant necklace the only thing still covering her bare skin. And here I was on my knees in front of her, feeling more exposed than I had ever felt in my whole life.
I let out a shaky breath as I reached out slowly to her and ran my fingers across her knee and then down her inner thigh. Her skin was so soft, so impossibly soft. And there were so many things I wanted to say to her, but I just couldn’t seem to get the words past my lips.
Parker reached out her hand, sliding it across my neck to the base of my skull, pulling me toward her until my lips met hers. I hesitated for only a second before I lowered myself onto her, swallowing her moan in my kiss. Finally telling her with my lips, my hands, my body, what I could never say with words. And she gave me every bit of her soul, and I her, until we stopped being us and melted together into something beautiful and new.
We moved together like clockwork pieces, perfectly designed for each other. Our fingers and lips roaming across each other like explorers hungry for discovery. Parker dug her nails into my back as she pulled me closer, and in that moment I let everything go. The fear, the anxiety, everything that I always kept so tight a hold of, and let her in.
She flowed into me quickly and without warning, like a thundering wave. And I could no longer tell where I ended and she began. It was raw, and exciting, and terrifying, and beautiful all in one heartbeat.
“Nuh, Travis…” She moaned my name liked a caress, and my heart quickened its pace, one beat running into the next.
We moved faster and faster in rhythm to a song only we could hear. A song made of heart beats and breathless moans, of fingers sliding across skin, and kisses against hot flesh.
“Parker, I…I lov—oh gods!” I called out as she ran her lips across that place just below my ear. That one place that drove me crazy and made me shudder uncontrollably. And in that moment I was lost in the sea of emotions that surrounded us like a blanket. And for once in my life, I was not afraid.
I pressed myself closer to her and let the moment take me. Not caring where it led as long as it was with her.
You Can Escape, but You Can Never Leave
Thursday, November 15th
PATRICK
I flopped down onto my back like I was trying to make a snow angel with the mat, and let my eyes slide closed.
I had killed a few hours camped out at a coffee shop sketching until they closed for the night. And then I’d made my way toward the Temple of Kalona in no particular hurry. It’s not like there’d be anyone waiting for me…except maybe the raven.
What are we doing here? a voice commented from within my head.
Connor didn’t answer his phone. So it was either here or a hotel, and this option seemed far less depressing, I answered within my head.
Hanging out in a dark empty training room is the less depressing option? The voice snorted skeptically.
Hey! If I’d wanted your opinion I would have—
I sat bolt upright, finally realizing that I had been talking to the voice in my head. And that he had been talking back.
Aku? I asked uncertainly within my own head.
Yes? Who the moss did you think it was? he answered back sarcastically.
You’re talking to me.
And?
Inside my head.
Well, duh. How the moss else would I be talking to you?
Uh… I hadn’t actually considered that.
There was the tiniest creak from above and I jerked my head up toward the sound. As I stared up into the darkness a shape materialized against the ceiling high overhead. It was perched on one of the heavy wooden beams that spanned the training room. And it was much larger than a raven.
Okay, I take that back about this place being empty, Aku stated quickly.
My body tensed and I prepared to defend myself from the attack I feared was coming. But then Aku let out a relieved sigh. Oh, it’s just Kira.
What makes you so sure? I asked cautiously.
&
nbsp; Aku paused for a second before he snorted out a harsh laugh. What, you don’t trust me?
I didn’t answer as I returned my attention to the dark figure. “I know you’re there, Kira, might as well come down,” I called out, hoping to hell it actually was her.
Moments later the softest of sounds, like the nearly silent landing of a cat, reverberated through the mat-covered floor. And with a sigh she flopped down next to me. “How did you know it was me?” she asked sourly.
“Lucky guess,” I lied with a shrug.
Lucky guess my ass, Aku grumbled within my head. You’re such a liar.
Shut up.
Kira’s eyes narrowed at me suspiciously. She continued to watch me like a hawk for a long moment before she looked away and folded her arms.
“What are you doing here anyways, Ak—?” Kira stopped abruptly, catching herself.
I looked at her, and swallowed hard. “Kira?”
“What?” she answered without looking at me.
“You can…you can call me it if you like,” I offered.
“What?” she asked, finally turning her head toward me.
“Aku. Chan-rin still calls me that. You can too, if you like.”
She stared at me for a while, her eyes darting around my face—my eyes. Then with a sigh, she turned her head back, and looked up into the rafters. “I can see him in your eyes now. I couldn’t before, but I can now,” Kira said in a small voice that was barely above a whisper as she looked back into my eyes.
I swallowed hard. “I decided it was useless running from myself.”
Do you really mean that? Aku asked uncertainly.
I was still for a long moment before I answered him. Yes. And it was the truth, because I was done running.
The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3) Page 17