by April Smyth
TWENTY
‘How can you be friends with him after what he did to you? You were...’
What was I? Broken? Destroyed? Crushed? All of the above? He doesn’t need to remind me that I was a wreck. When Oliver came into my life, I never thought I was capable of feeling love again but I proved myself wrong. Oliver proved me wrong. He has brought me into a good place and I don’t want to relive that pain at least not today.
‘You were...’ he shakes his head with disappointment. In his eyes I see a reflection of my former self. I see the girl that needed him to hold her when she slept because if she was alone the tears and nightmares were never far away. I see somebody pathetic and I don’t like her. I never want to feel that low again. Oliver clearly doesn’t want that for me either. He spent so long building me up and now he’s afraid I’m going to shatter again. ‘Can’t you understand why this is difficult for me, Cassie? He broke you.’
‘But you fixed me again, Oliver.’ I clench my fingers around his shirt as if I can grabbing a hold of him and pulling him close will stop his mind floating away.
‘Believe me it wasn’t easy,’ he says sadly. I recall with gritted teeth how Oliver had tried to break through my walls from day one but I had been reluctant to let him in. I’m not sure if he will ever forget the day that we almost slept together but I stopped him during foreplay to tell him that my heart was too broken by Gabe to let myself get hurt again.
I grab his hand, ‘Oliver, I know you can never forgive him for hurting me and I don’t blame you but he is a huge part of my life and I can’t just throw him away.’
‘I’m not being like this to be a dick, Cassie, but it took all my will power not to punch that guy in the face through there and you know I’m not an aggressive guy.’
Aggressive is definitely not a trait I could associate with Oliver and his calmness through any storm is one of the things I adore about him. The image of his fist driving towards Gabe’s face makes me twitch. It’s a hopeless desire but I wish they could figure out a way to get along but Gabe doesn’t make friends with anybody and Oliver can make friends with everyone except Gabe.
‘Can we not make this day about Gabe and I?’ I sniff. ‘We should be celebrating.’
‘Can you please not avoid this, Cassie? You know I expect nothing from you but honesty. You can be whoever you want to be, you could do whatever you want to me as long as you tell me the truth. It’s all I ask,’ he looks at me and he repeats himself emphatically, ‘It’s all I ask.’
‘I’m being honest with you,’ I say.
Oliver’s teeth are gritted firmly while he speaks, ‘I made a promise, do you remember? I promised you, and myself, that I would not do anything with you while you were still vulnerable and if I think that you’re lying to me about having feelings for him, if you’re still confused about what you want, I can’t do this.’
His words wound me. ‘What do you mean you can’t do this?’ I ask with a wobbling bottom lip. He makes it sound like throwing away everything I felt for Gabe was so easy. The hurt will never go away! It might subside but he can’t expect me to forget all the love and the pain.
‘I mean I will be your friend and I will protect you and I will wait for you but the kissing and the holding hands would have to stop,’ he says stonily. ‘So tell me what’s going on?’
I grab his face and feel his hair between my fingers. I speak to his soul when I say, ‘Oliver, I love you.’
We look into each others eyes. I plead with him to understand that I have to forgive Gabe. He looks at me from underneath his dark lashes and he begs me to reassure him that it will always be him. I am overcome with his love for me more than I have ever been before. He’s never loved anyone before and he has no idea what to do with all that love he’s feeling. I want to hold him in my arms like he has done for me so many nights before and show him that he has no need to be afraid of what he’s feeling.
I kiss him deeply and I find that seeing the anxiety on his face has made me want him more than ever. I’ve never felt his love so purely and I just want to feel that inside of me. I pull away breathily and run to the bedroom door where I turn the key in the lock.
‘Cassie, you don’t need to do this. You don’t have to prove anything to me,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to make love to you for the first time so you can prove that you love me and not him.’
‘That’s not what this is about,’ I smile at him. I know it might seem like I’m using sex as a tool to take away his worries about Gabe but truthfully argument with Oliver has shown me another side to his love for me that I never knew existed. Seeing him be afraid of losing me shows me just how passionately he wants to be with me. I have thought he was sexy since the day I met him, I’ve always found him attractive but the way he loves me only intensifies my attraction. Knowing how much he cares, to feel the depths of his love and to know how terrified he is to lose me makes me want him more.
I part his knees and slide my body between his legs. He looks up at me as I pull myself on to my knees on the bed. ‘Cassie,’ he gulps. ‘You’re on a high from the Maurice stuff and you’re upset about seeing Gabe again and probably annoyed at me for being an asshole. Is this really the right time?’
I slide my arms out of my top and pull it over my head. ‘Would you stop worrying so much and just let it be, Oliver?’ I say. It’s ironic because there is rarely a time when I just let life go on around me and stop fixating about things that cannot change.
I float above my body like an angelic spirit watching Oliver make me happier than I could ever imagine being. All that waiting made it even better. I’m so glad I waited until I was sure. It feels exactly how I wish it had felt the first time with Maurice. Intense and raw and real.
No amount of time tangled between Oliver and the bedsheets would be enough but eventually we both lie together feeling very satisfied. Maurice is dead, Gabe is happy with Claire and I am ecstatic with Oliver.
Oliver leans over me, brushes my now messy hair out of my face and kisses my forehead in the way that makes my whole body smile. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
We must have lost track of time because by the time we dress and return to the Maurice-is-dead hullabaloo the only people left are Arrow, Rose, Garrett and little Cecelia. They’re all assembling the Christmas tree and adorning it with tinsel. Rose wiggles her eyebrows suggestively when we reenter the room and my cheeks go red but Oliver’s chest just puffs out with pride. I love that he’s not only unashamed of me but he loves to show me off.
It has been the perfect day. Maurice is out of my life for good and Oliver and I finally made love. Then we finish the perfect day with Arrow’s lovely family decorating the apartment with green and red ornaments. I never thought I would feel the Christmas spirit this year but I’m all rosy cheeked and warm and fuzzy inside.
I am under the impression that nothing could ruin this day until one of the witches from the ninth floor runs into the room, breathlessly and shouting, ‘They’re here! Downstairs!’
Arrow jumps up and Garrett ushers their daughter away from the drama and into the safety of her bedroom. I look at Oliver with wide eyes and he looks back at me with equal confusion. The witch calms down for long enough to explain that two vampires have been stalking the building waiting for me to leave so they could pounce but Gabe and Claire went for a walk and now they’re downstairs fighting.
My heart pounds fast. Gabe is in trouble and so is the girl he loves. He is going to get hurt and I can’t sit around and let it happen. I pray that he has that wooden stake he showed me but even then I’m unsure he will be able to fight them off for long. I jump up but Oliver grabs my hand and stares at me, ‘What are you doing?’
Rose and Arrow have already left to help but I can’t just wait around for somebody to tell me that the vampires have killed Gabe or taken Claire for her Healer blood especially when I know that I’m the reason they’re down there in the first place.
I know he’s going to fi
ght it but I snap. ‘I have to go, Oliver,’
I pull my hand away from him. He can’t understand my attachment to Gabe but I don’t have time to have this argument all over again. All I know is that Gabe is in trouble and I need to do something about it or at least feel like I’m helping.
‘Don’t you dare go down there, Cassie, that’s exactly what they want. Everything we’ve done up until now will have been pointless if you go down there and get yourself kidnapped and killed,’ Oliver says angrily, standing in the doorway to stop me from leaving. This new side to Oliver, this angry person, is disconcerting to me even if it does come from a place where he is trying to protect me.
‘No,’ I bark at him. ‘Everything will be pointless if I don’t go down there.’
The pain in his eyes cannot be expressed with words. He knows he can’t stop me from trying to save Gabe but it’s killing him. If he lets me leave then he will be willingly putting me in harm’s way. I know he’ll do the right thing though. He opens the door and with a stern expression he says, ‘I’m coming with you then and you are staying right beside me.’
Although I know it hurts him, he steps out of the way and lets me run out of the apartment, down ten flights of stairs and straight into a wasps nest and even though he doesn’t approve of Gabe, he comes with me to rescue him. The thing about Oliver is that he is honourable even when it pains him to be. I can always trust him to do the right thing.
By the time we get outside there are about a dozen witches in a crowd. I push past them to see what they are surrounding. I place my hand to my mouth, aghast, when I see a heap of ash and two bloody bodies. The vampires are dead. There are witches are dying from the energy exertion and Gabe and Claire are badly hurt.
Rose is kneeled beside them and I crawl down to Gabe to see what damage has been done. Claire is healing quickly but the same can’t be said for Gabe who is bleeding from several gaping wounds. Claire will survive this unscathed just as I would but if Gabe loses much more blood he will die. My words resonate in my ears: Everything will be pointless. If Gabe dies, all this pain and trauma will have gone to waste. I am certain that if Gabe dies in front of me like this, a piece of me will die too and I will never be able to make a recovery.
Without thinking I grab the wooden stake, that is lying beside his lifeless hand, and I pierce my skin with the point to draw blood which I then push straight into his mouth. He sups on the wound but in seconds it has closed up again and there is no blood. He needs more than that with such severe wounds.
I am about to cut myself again when I realise that Claire is glowering at me. In fact everybody is staring at me with open mouths. Mostly they look bemused but Claire looks at me with pure rage, ‘I can do that!’
She grabs the stake out of my hand and proceeds to open up a vein and push it into her boyfriend’s mouth. I feel stunned by her hatred and the realisation of what I have done. It wasn’t my place, was it?
The witches go inside to attend to each other and discuss what must be done next to stop this happening every day. The only people left are Oliver, Rose, Claire and I - how surreal.
I feel their gazes burning into me as if I have committed a heinous crime. I try to decipher why each of them is looking at me with such disdain. Claire is fuming. I stole her rightful duty to heal her boyfriend and embarrassed her by making the decision quicker than she did. Oliver is angry that I risked my safety for Gabe, again, I know this doesn’t lean in my favour in convincing Oliver that whatever is going on between Gabe and I is irrelevant now. I think Rose is just baffled by the stupidity and the rashness of my bold move to give Gabe my blood when the fellow Healer in our company was his girlfriend.
After ingesting Claire’s blood, Gabe starts to heal and I feel remorse as I watch him kiss Claire. It was not my place to heal him, I can see that but I just didn’t think. I saw somebody I love in pain, dying, and I acted. I shouldn’t have to apologise for trying to save someone’s life just because his girlfriend was otherwise occupied. Truthfully, I’m not used to having another Healer around and I didn’t have time to consider how she would feel when I saw my friend dying on a New York City pavement. I also didn’t give a second thought about how it would make Oliver feel but now he looks like he might cry.
‘Let’s go inside,’ Rose says to break up the sound of Gabe and Claire kissing and Oliver and I’s hearts breaking.
The tension is ripe and everyone is feeling it except Gabe who is thankful to be alive right now. He only has eyes for his adoring girlfriend. I don’t think he even noticed that I had offered my healing blood first and it bothers me. I’m in trouble.
TWENTY-ONE
Gabe and Claire head to their apartment while I am left with the uncomfortable silence of Rose and Oliver as my company. I know that the second Rose leaves I am going to get lectured for hours. After such a perfect afternoon with him, I’m not ready to give that up and start arguing again.
Arrow is waiting in the lounge when we reach the apartment. ‘Is everything alright?’ she asks with small pauses between each word as she gages our facial expressions. No. Everything is not alright. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place or that’s how I’m being made to feel but I shouldn’t. I love Gabe, I always will, but it’s Oliver I want to be with. I love him more but he can’t get to grips with that and he is making me feel terribly guilty for still harboring feelings for my ex.
‘How is Gabe?’ Arrow asks when she gets no response.
‘He’s fine now. Claire used her blood to heal him,’ Rose replies. There is no mention of my contribution to Gabe’s recovery and it seems that it is something I should be ashamed of, something that will be swept under the rug because of its inappropriateness.
Rose clears her throat nervously, ‘It has been a long day, guys. I think I’ll hit the hay and get some sleep.’
‘Who knows what tomorrow will bring,’ Arrow smiles at her second cousin who could not have been more hasty getting away from us.
I try to avoid being alone with Oliver though so I stay with Arrow and her strange tea concoction for as long as possible but the inevitable happens and Arrow goes to bed leaving me alone with my very unhappy suitor. He gives me a stern look before stalking back to our bedroom expecting me to follow him. I figure I better not madden him any more so I oblige and follow him into our bedroom with trembling hands.
He perches on our bed and, for the second time today, buries his bearded face into his hands. This time I don’t wait for him to talk. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve... done something wrong, Oliver,’ I stutter. I am not entirely sure what it is that I have done wrong.
‘Let’s just go to sleep, okay?’
If he wants to have an argument with me, he should go ahead and start one. I’m not stupid enough to think that going to bed mad at someone is a good idea. It will only give him time to mull over how upset he is with me and in turn get even more upset. ‘No, you’re mad at me,’ I say, almost accusingly.
There are moments in life where you wonder if things are going to work and if you will ever be truly happy. Happiness is fleeting and leaves my life almost as quickly as it entered it but I assume that one day I will find the sort of contentment that sustains. Right now I’m struggling to see if that future will ever appear anymore especially if Oliver can’t resolve his issues with Gabe.
‘This is exhausting,’ he sighs and lies back on the bed.
Tell me about it... Living inside my own head is dizzying and it’s making it difficult to focus my eyes solely on Oliver. I don’t even know what I want or how I feel anymore. I’m only eighteen, am I supposed to know? Oliver seems to be at the centre but the blurry periphery still exists where the gentle background noise is a constant reminder of Gabe, Claire, Maurice, Rose. I feel like I haven’t slept in a year and the weariness only dissipates when I’m around Oliver, when he’s not upset with him. I feel a tonne weight falling onto me as I think about how much I am hurting him. I don’t want to be the reason there is pain in his eyes. I want to take it
away like he does for me.
Oliver bites his lip and looks up at me. I give him a long look of apology and of hope then he pulls me into him and rests his head on my chest. ‘I’m scared you’ll run to him,’ Oliver’s voice shakes with fear. I want to step inside of his mind and make him see that no matter how much I care for Gabe I want Oliver more.
I still can’t find my voice so I just stroke his hair tenderly and hope that is enough to ease his anxiety until the right words come to me. He continues, ‘Can I live my life loving you without being sure you love me back?’
‘How can you doubt that I love you?’ I pull away and look at his forlorn face.
He winces, ‘It’s not that! I know you love me but do you love him more?’
I’m not sure I even love Gabe at all. I was seventeen, lonely and bored when I met him. He was handsome and he was a bad boy who excited me. There was pain in his eyes and I felt sorry for him then I projected a lifetime of rejection and feeling left out onto him. I care, cared, for him, yes, but did I love him? Was it love or infatuation? Did I have any right to love him when I knew so little about him?
With Oliver, I am certain it is love. I’d done some growing up and thinking before he came along and he was like a breath of fresh air into my clammy, claustrophobic life of feigned normalcy. He opened up to me. I know his pain, his past but also his pleasure and his present. So far, other than unnecessary jealousy, I haven’t seen anything about Oliver that makes me want to run away in the opposite direction.
I try to explain this to him as best as I can but the pressure of his emotions and the exhaustion of the day’s events are weighing heavily on top of me so my words are stuttered and clumsy. When I look at him I am begging him to believe that I will be faithful to him. My feelings for Gabe are confused and befuddled but I can sort them out, Oliver can help me, and we can move on and be happy together. Once the vampires are out of our way there will be no more stumbling blocks and we can be a normal couple, right?