"Hamantaschen," Ava said.
"Yeah…no. I'm not even gonna try. I'd just offend everyone."
Ava waved the argument aside. "Nobody will blame you as long as you tried."
"Ava, honey, I think the first batch is done!" Jessica announced.
Zyan watched Ava disappear out of his field of vision to join Jessica in front of the oven. "Then put them over there to cool while I go get the baskets!"
He knew of Ava's love for Purim and everything it stood for, but what had caught him by surprise was that, usually, Ava wanted to do everything on her own, which included baking the pastries, filling the baskets, and taking most of them to the three local homeless shelters. Of course, all of them had offered their help each year, but she'd declined each time without fail. He didn't know what had changed her mind this time around, but it had woken his curiosity. What was different?
"Suddenly I appreciate the annual food basket so much more," Zyan muttered, still fighting with the dough that refused to stick together at the corners.
Carter gently pushed him aside and stepped up to his work station. "Here, let me do it. Just stick with the poppy seed."
Zyan huffed a breath but complied.
"I think you used way too much flour when you rolled it out," Carter informed him after a few seconds of silence.
"It kept sticking to the rolling pin! What was I supposed to do?"
"Not completely dry out your dough?"
"Oh, shut it!"
"Got the baskets!"
Zyan looked over his shoulder to watch Ava stumble through the door, barely visible behind everything she was balancing in her arms.
Jessica immediately walked up to her. "Come on, let me help you with that."
"Thanks, cupcake."
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Jessica
"Ava?"
"Hm?"
"Can I ask you a question?"
Jessica loosened her hold on Ava when she felt her wiggle in her arms in an attempt to turn around and face her. After several seconds of rustling, Ava seemed satisfied and settled back down, now snuggled against Jessica's front as she looked over at her. "Of course."
"What made you change your mind?"
"About what?"
"Purim," Jessica answered. "We've been married for over a decade, and have known each other for even longer, but not once have you let me help you with the preparations. And, I mean, I understand and respect that. You wanted to keep it between yourself and your family, spend some time with them alone—bake together and put on your costumes and so on. But it makes me wonder…what changed?"
Ava lowered her eyes for a few seconds before she answered. "I've been thinking…"
Jessica let the silence linger for a few moments before she spoke up again, voice gentle. "About?"
"Death."
"That's…a cheerful topic."
Ava huffed a laugh. "Yeah." She shifted again, pushing her hair back from her face and underneath her head, so she could lie more comfortably. "But more specifically, about how we are mortal and…our best friends are not."
Jessica nodded a little. "I get it." She lifted her hand and started to play with Ava's curls. "The age difference is starting to show."
Ava sighed. "We'll be getting gray and wrinkly, but they're just gonna continue to look like the day we met them. I want to spend as much time with them as possible before…" She took a breath. "They'll have to bury us, Jessie. And, I mean, I've known that. I've been aware of that all along, but I don't know. It just never truly sunk in until a few days ago, when we were hanging out with Lucy and she commented on it."
Jessica opened her mouth to reply when another thought hit her. "Do you think they'll tell them?"
"What?"
"Carter and Zyan. Do you think they'll ever tell the others about the immortality thing?"
Ava shrugged. "I don't know. Do they have a choice? They will notice eventually, and no jokes about anti-aging products is gonna allow them to play it off. If they plan on sticking around, they'll have to start planning their…coming out."
Jessica snorted, flattening her hand against Ava's hair as she slid it down to her cheek and let her thumb trace over the cheekbone. She watched Ava melt under her touch, her expression growing softer as her muscles relaxed. "You're so beautiful."
Ava smiled warmly at the compliment and leaned in for a kiss. "I love you," she whispered as she pulled back.
"I love you more."
"Lying is unattractive, Jessie."
"Good that it's the truth then."
"It's not."
"Mmh, I beg to disagree."
Part 6
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
30 Years Later
Zyan
Carter and Zyan helped Ava and Jessica up the single step that led to their new home.
As the stairs in their old apartment building had become more and more problematic for them, Carter and Zyan had started to go house-hunting. They'd taken dozens of pictures of every place they'd been to and brought them back to give Avan and Jessica the freedom of making the final call.
In the end, Ava and Jessica had settled on an average-sized house in a nearby town. The previous owners had been a family with a subtenant, which brought along a fully equipped kitchen on both floors, so Zyan and Carter could move in upstairs and leave Jessica and Ava with the ground floor.
Carter and Zyan had made sure everything was furnished and unpacked before they brought in their best friends. All that was left were four small boxes standing by the sofa—two of them marked with an upside-down 'This Side Up' and arrows that pointed at the ground. They were filled with personal belongings they knew Jessica and Ava would want to put into place themselves.
Once Zyan had unlocked the door for them, he stepped aside to let everyone enter before he headed back to the car to get the two transport boxes containing their cats. They'd both been protesting the entire ride and were eager to get out.
"Oh, wow, this is amazing!" Zyan just caught Ava's comment as he returned. "We should've allowed you guys to pay for a new house sooner."
Zyan snorted and opened the carrier doors to set the two cats free.
Carter stared at them. "We have been offering. For about two decades."
"We don't like charity," Jessica replied.
"We're aware," Zyan said as he headed further into the large space consisting of kitchen, living room, and dining area. "We already unpacked most of your things," he informed them. "All that's left are those boxes over there."
"It's mostly photo-frames, postcards, that sorta stuff," Carter elaborated. "We weren't sure where you'd want to put them."
"What about you two?" Ava asked. "Are you all settled in upstairs?"
Zyan stopped looking at their surroundings and focused in on Ava. "Mostly," he answered. It was a lie; they hadn't even put together half the furniture yet. They'd been busy investing all their time into the area downstairs to get everything ready for moving day.
Ava nodded in approval. "Good."
Either she'd gotten worse at telling when he was lying, he'd gotten better at it, or she just wasn't properly paying attention because her new home was too distracting.
Jessica started heading for the kitchen. "As a thank-you, you two will be eating with us this evening. Give me three hours."
Ava watched her go and looked back at them with large, grateful eyes. "Thank you."
Zyan shook his head a little. "There's no need to thank us."
"Especially not me. I let Zyan do all the heavy lifting," Carter added.
Ava snickered. "I don't know what we'd do without you."
Zyan forced a smile. The truth was, he wasn't sure what he'd do without them, either. The difference was that he knew he'd have to find a way to do it, while they could be sure that Carter and he would always be there for them until the inevitable day rolled around when…
He couldn't even think it. Not yet.
There was still time.
Later that
day, after dinner, Zyan was sitting in his room, petting one of the cats that had insisted on following him upstairs and falling asleep on his bed.
Since the house had come with three bedrooms—one downstairs and two upstairs—Zyan and Carter had decided on having separate rooms with double-beds each, just in case they didn't want to share a bed for whatever reason. It wasn't the first time they'd had such an arrangement—sometimes it was just better and healthier to take some time apart and sleep separately, whether that was because of a fight or because one of them had to work into the night frequently and didn't want to keep the other up.
So, while Carter was fixing up his own room, Zyan sat on the made bed in his. He was going through his stuff, deciding on where to put what, and which items could maybe be thrown out or kept in a box in his closet or under his bed.
While he was sifting through some papers, he stumbled over the letter again. Carter's letter. The one that had convinced Zyan to give them another shot. He remembered reading this for the first time after the end of their first marriage—not because he'd stopped loving Carter, but because he'd found it while going through his stuff and curiosity had gotten the best of him.
Now he stared at the open envelope for almost a full minute before he pulled out the folded paper and scanned the pages. They'd faded over time, to the point that Zyan needed to retrace the words several times, all to keep himself from forgetting the beginnings of their relationship.
He glanced over at the door before he pushed the box off his lap and unfolded the pages. He read the words on the envelope once more, translating them to English in his mind ('for the day you stop loving me') before he set it aside as well.
Dear Pauo'le,
Zyan had to smile a little at reading his old name again. The meaning behind it had always seemed ironic to him and it had hurt to leave it behind when he'd fled from his home to start his life anew somewhere else, under a different identity.
As his eyes traveled down the page, he realized how rusty he'd gotten in Hawai'ian. But even now, he was still a lot better than Carter had been when he'd written the words. Zyan couldn't help the smile at the few grammatical errors his brain fixed for him along the way. Carter had been so proud when Zyan had come to him after reading it for the first time. The fight back then had left him devastated, but the reconciliation had almost been worth it. Carter had been so proud that Zyan had understood what he was trying to tell him in this language that still had him tripping over words every couple of sentences.
While I'm writing this, I can already imagine the face you'll make when I give this letter to you—confusion as to what it means and what I'm trying to tell you with this, that dumb smile of yours that means you want to make fun of me but are holding back because you don't want to hurt my feelings, and fondness because we both know you love me.
Sadly, I also know I won't be there to watch you as you read it. I wish I could say I know you never will, since you could never stop loving me, but logic tells me that is impossible, considering our infinite lifespan. Of course, it could be that we'll die tomorrow, or the day after or next week, but let us simply assume this won't be the case.
As I'm writing this, we are spending our second night together as co-owners of our first house. You fell asleep on me two hours ago and now that I'm sitting here, watching you sleep with your face smushed into the pillow and your hair sticking up in every direction while the silver moonlight reflects off it, I can't imagine ever loving anyone else the same way I love you. And I can only hope you felt the same once upon a time.
"I did. I do," he whispered to himself.
Zyan put the first page behind the others and started on the second.
You are probably wondering by now why I have even written this letter. Since you already stopped loving me, what would be the point?
It's a precaution. Something I'm hoping will take you back to better days, when we were happier and felt like nothing could ever bring us apart—not war, not time or fate. I want to remind you how I loved you and how I will always love you. If things have gone this bad that you are now reading this, I'm assuming future me has forgotten about those times and those feelings, and has failed to remind you, and for that I'm sorry. But I can assure you, you will always hold a place in my heart. No matter what has happened, I could never stop caring about you. I'm more sure about that than I have ever been of anything else.
I'm not ashamed to admit that I can't imagine there will ever be a time where I don't need you, where I don't crave your presence close to mine. So this is me, trying to save our past and our memories.
The things we've been through are beyond compare, which makes me fear what I must have done to drive you away. It must have been something huge, something unforgivable. I can't imagine what it might be, since there is no part of me that could intentionally hurt you, but still, here you are, reading these words sometime in the future. A very distant future, I hope.
I won't ask you for forgiveness—I can't imagine I deserve it, but I will ask you to remember who we used to be. I don't want our shared past to be tainted by the person I turned into. I don't want you to regret meeting me, or to wish I had never saved you. I want you to cherish our memories and smile when you remember our first meeting, our first dance, our first kiss.
Zyan reached the bottom of the page.
It hurt to think that Carter had never even considered it might be Zyan who would break them up. That it could be him who did something unforgivable, something bad enough that Carter would end it. Had the possibility never occurred to him? Or had he just been too scared to even expand on the thought? In all the years following the day he'd written that letter, had he ever thought back to it?
And if he had, what was it he'd felt? Was it embarrassment? Was it nostalgia for easier times, when they hadn't been repeatedly divorced, when he hadn't had to witness dozens of friends aging and dying, when he hadn't fallen in love with a mortal who would die of an incurable disease?
Zyan lightly shook his head to get rid of the thoughts and moved on to the next page.
I still remember that moment I first laid eyes on you and how your smile lit up the room. I remember how I thought I'd never felt so drawn to another person before and how confused I was because I couldn't understand what this meant. Part of me was afraid of you and wanted to get away from this weird pull and forget about it, but the greater and stronger part of me forced my feet to move and carry me closer.
I can still picture the exact face you made when you first looked at me. The question in your eyes and the distrust, but also the excitement at feeling something special, something new. You told me later on that you felt the same urge to get to know me and that same night, we stayed up and fantasized about the stars and the future. I can recall our first kiss and how terrified you were after you realized what we'd done and how eager you were to do it again.
But it is not just the good times I remember. I haven't forgotten about the day you died and how scared and angry and sad you were when you realized what I had done to you. The look on your face when we left your mother and sister and essentially your life behind will forever be burned into my mind as the hardest thing I've ever done. It was the biggest turning point in our relationship and I've never felt more grateful and undeserving of forgiveness in my life. But this is not the time to think of that.
What I'm asking of you is to remember the good and how we overcame the bad, to allow yourself to feel happiness and nostalgia at our shared memories and leave it pure and clean in your mind, unstained by whatever happenings have brought you to open and read this letter.
Our fate is in your hands and I'm trusting you to make the decision that is right for you and only you. And if that means leaving me behind and moving on without me, so be it.
I love you.
Forever yours,
Nimuel
Zyan continued to stare at the letter for another thirty minutes.
Cookie was still asleep beside him. She looked peaceful a
s she lay there, breathing evenly in a position that looked beyond uncomfortable to him. But then again, he wasn't a cat, so who was he to judge?
"Hey, Zyan, could you come help me with—" Carter cut himself off. "Are you okay?"
Zyan hurriedly folded the letter and cleared his throat. "Yeah. Just give me a second to put this away. I'll be right there."
Carter ignored his words and stepped closer. "What's that?"
Zyan stuffed the pages back into their envelope. "Nothing important. Come on, let's go. We wouldn't want Ava and Jess to find out about all of this."
Carter reached for the letter, but Zyan pulled it away.
"Come on, Zyan! Secrets are bad for our relationship!"
"Not this one! This one is very, very healthy for our relationship."
Carter looked at him in a way that told Zyan more than words ever could, but he refused to let it throw him off.
"Actually," Zyan went on. "This secret here is the reason we're even here in the first place. If it weren't for this, I'd probably be back in Hawai'i right now—far, far away from you and your obnoxious nosiness."
Carter looked down at the letter. He frowned and glanced back up at Zyan, realization slowly dawning on him. "Wait…is that the letter I wrote to you ages ago?"
"Maybe," Zyan offered, while he stuffed the envelope into the large pocket of his hoodie to keep it safe.
Carter looked offended at the vague answer. "If it is, I have a right to see it! I wrote it!"
"And then you gave it to me so it's mine now!"
"Oh, and you dare to call me childish." Zyan just shrugged. "You're unbelievable."
"But you love me, Carter, remember? Or should I say Nimuel?"
Carter's lips parted, whether it was in shock or because of something else, Zyan couldn't say. "It is the letter, isn't it?" Zyan smirked a little. "Oh, you little—Give it to me!"
Zyan shook his head and moved further back on his bed. "I think I'd rather not. You'd just ruin it for me."
"I'm the one who wrote it, Zyan!"
The Thing About Forever Page 31