Ever Lasting

by Odessa Gillespie Black

  “He just left.” Andrew leaned on the arm of a chair. “He said he was going home.”

  “Did he say why? Or for how long?”

  “I asked him, but he had this weird look on his face. Sort of blank and absorbed.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re going to follow him, aren’t you?” Andrew said.

  “Yes.”

  “Whatever you did to him this go round did quite a number on his emotional state. I know you didn’t do it purposely, but I thought you should know.” Andrew crossed his arms and stared at the Persian rug.

  “This time around. Are you hinting at something?”

  “I know your secret. He got drunk one night and told all. Don’t worry. I won’t tell.” Andrew met my gaze.

  “I didn’t know he drank. Like that anyway.” I looked at anything but him.

  “He didn’t used to. Until you.”

  A sudden inclination slammed my thoughts to a halt. What if he’d been running from me again? What if he did something stupid when he got home?

  Normal people did stupid stuff like drinking themselves into another world or sleeping with 367 women to drown their sorrows. Cole had this thing with committing suicide to ease his pain in his current life. Especially when I was dead.

  I hoped he didn’t finally feel that I was dead to him.

  My first step had to be to not panic.

  My second would be to wait.

  No action was better than a bad reaction, and I had always heard, when you were lost, to stay put. The solution was going to find me.

  On the side of the pond where I’d stared across at Cole a few days before, I rested. Waited. Thought.

  This morning could have been so different. If I hadn’t gotten drunk out of my mind, maybe I could have woken up in Cole’s arms and told him that I had been wrong all these years. That I really did love him. My feelings for him had never been the result of a dead witch’s words.

  It had never been the curse.

  There had been a moment 180 years ago that he had looked into my eyes and everything he thought he knew about life and love changed. He’d changed. I had been the catalyst to him finally living and with each death, I had to start over from scratch. He was left with all the love, the devotion, the need for me. And he was alone in it. He was the tortured soul. I had been tortured, too, from what the stories said, but he had been beaten, thrashed, and left not to live, but to exist in death.

  He could never get away from it.

  And I had added to the torture and took it to a whole new level of excruciating. I had hated what he stood for, thinking that it was about taking my freedom away and making me have to live a preordained life with him, when what he stood for had actually been my freedom from a life dictated by Grace.

  He had suffered many times willingly to give me that freedom. And now—this was the kicker—now that we could have that life of freedom, I hated him.

  All those times he looked into my eyes searching for something, I thought he had been searching for Annabeth, or Allison, but I got it now.

  He just wanted me to love him.

  He was the fairytale, and I was evil stepsister.

  At this point I wasn’t sure if he had chosen the right sister. Which one of us had proven more evil? The only difference in us was that I was alive and she was dead.

  How he was sane was a mystery to me.

  This was the most ridiculous ending to a fairy tale that I had ever heard. I really hoped that someone would hear about it one day and write it down. I would have bet all my lives on the story making them a millionaire.

  It wasn’t long before a strange tug pulled at me.

  I had to go to the house.

  I could wait no longer to tell him how I felt.

  Chapter 7

  Cole

  With the windows open, the late fall breeze was still warm enough to enjoy it on the ride home. Traffic was light and the trip was long, but it was a great chance to reflect.

  When I got home, Shelby and I would have to meet privately. I’d had her make a few changes to my future plans. There would be none. I would live, die, and that would be that. No more coming back.

  I’d left three years ago without visiting since. I’d called and given my love to all of them except Allie, but as far as putting a foot back on the Rollins Estate, I’d been unable to do that.

  When I left, I honestly thought I’d never see it again.

  Even with Allie drunk on her ass, last night, I’d seen something in her eyes that had only been there when she’d loved me in the preceding lifetime. I had jumped the gun a little when I’d stopped my reincarnation cycle.

  It wasn’t a selfish show of bowing out of her life. It was as much for her as for me. I wanted her to live. Truly live. Even if that meant without me.

  I’d have sacrificed my whole life for her even if there was only ever once occurrence of my existence. There was a different word for how I felt about her. It hadn’t been put to language yet. It might not ever.

  I was so distracted that I didn’t see the transfer truck switch lanes beside me. The back end of my Camaro became lodged under the trailer.

  The truck and trailer jack knifed.

  Brakes screeched and metal grinded.

  When the trailer released my car, it rolled, side over side down the interstate. It stopped rolling, landed on its side and slid. A sickening snap of my neck sent a dark cloud over my vision.

  My body didn’t hurt anymore.

  I stood on the bank nearby the accident site.

  An exact, twisted clone of me lay broken, half in, half out of the driver side of the car.

  Shards of glass all over the asphalt sparkled in the sun.

  This was the last life. Shelby had helped me end the cycle. At the time, I had planned to live out my life and stop. Just quit going on. It had been long enough.

  * * * *

  Allie

  As I barreled down I-40, the seatbelt crushed my chest. I pulled the car over onto the side of the road and waited. My chest ached. and I was dizzy as if I were rolling on the ground. My skin became fiery hot, then a jolt of cold sent chills down my spine. The sensation was gone in a few seconds.

  Cole’s phone went straight to voicemail. “This is Cole. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  I redialed the number.

  Voicemail again.

  When the boulder in my chest broke into tiny boulders then powdered into a fine dust in the bottom of my chest walls, the pressure around my throat loosened. I pulled back on I-40 and continued toward Rollins Manor. In minutes, I rolled to a stop in standstill traffic.

  Plumes of smoke billowed into the sky about a mile up.

  The boulder reformed in my chest.

  Somehow I knew it wasn’t just a car filled with unfortunate people I didn’t know.

  I fumbled with the door handle and left my car running in the middle of the right lane.

  I held onto the car for strength and waited for a bout of nausea to dissipate.

  When I closed my eyes, on the fuzzy backdrop of my mind, I walked down a white flower–covered aisle to a tall, dark, handsome man in a tuxedo. Warm summer air carried symphony music.

  Cole looked as though he was a little brighter in aura than anyone else. He seemed to glow.

  The black and white suit he wore contrasted against his dark skin. The green in his eyes flickered as he held out his hand to me.

  Sirens sounded in the distance as I completely blacked out.

  * * * *

  A cold numbness invaded my chest and pulsated. The surface underneath me held a familiar softness that cushioned me. I knew I was back home.

  Soft sobs and whispers found their way up the stairs.

  Cole would come through the door any minute. He would chide me for sleeping all day, splash my face with water, or loom over my face inches away to irritate me.

  I wo
uld open my eyes and swat that goonish grin off his face.

  I think, in hindsight, that irritating me had always been his excuse to be near me.

  Today I was ready for the aggravation.

  I waited.

  When the door opened, this time would be different.

  He would think I was unaware of his attempt to be near me, that I was still foolish enough to believe that he just loved to see anger flash in my eyes when he went to the ends of the earth to make me explode into a tantrum.

  Today I would show him he no longer had to operate under false pretenses.

  I would show him that I knew his secret motivation. I’d make him admit that the look of anger he tried to evoke from me was the one that he had seen so many times during an argument in past lives.

  Before we made up.

  Before we made love.

  And that it was the look that reminded him that deep down, I did love him.

  I would spend the rest of my life trying to make up for being so horrible to him. This evening he could spend the rest of the day holding me without me accusing him of trying to take me hostage. I would consent to whatever he wanted.

  My door crept open.

  I rolled over in the bed and faced the wall.

  “Allie, are you awake?” It wasn’t him.

  Not to worry. He never stayed away too long.

  Someone sat on my bed.

  “Allie.” A soft caress on my shoulder followed a sad masculine sigh. It was Daddy.

  I couldn’t block him out.

  He sounded as if he really needed to talk.

  I rolled over.

  He stared at the wall unable to make eye contact with me.

  “Daddy?”

  “You have no idea how hard this is. I don’t know what to say. What do you say? I’m sorry?” He clenched his jaw and balled his hand into a fist.

  Icy worry spread from my chest and clouded my brain. “Daddy? What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head slightly from the left to the right.

  “Allie, honey.” Daddy never cried. Tears welled but never broke free. He took a deep breath and took my hand. “Sit up. We need to talk.”

  I didn’t want to talk.

  I didn’t want to know why people cried downstairs.

  I didn’t want him to tell me why his face was sunken and sallow.

  “No.” I sank back into the pillows.

  “You have to hear this.”

  “No.” I almost plugged my ears.

  “He’s gone,” he said.

  I sat completely still. Held my breath, even.

  “He would want you to be with your family right now. You have to come out of here. You need to get up, shower, come downstairs and face this.” Daddy’s voice was firm.

  I shook my head.

  I didn’t want to be with family.

  “Cole will be here soon. He’ll make this all go away.” I grabbed a fistful of the blanket.

  “Cole’s not coming back.” Daddy’s voice cracked.

  “It’ll all go away.” Cold sweat broke out over my brow, around my neck.

  “Allie. Cole’s gone. For good. And you have to face it. This was the last time.”

  Cole always knew what to do, how to handle every situation. He’d fix this. He’d fix everything.

  I was block of dry ice, cold and still—knowing that until I was dropped in the solution of reality mixed with pain that there would be no mist from my eyes. No tears. I would hold them in and stay away from reality as if it were a deadly disease. A disease that would surely set in and eat away at my bones.

  “It was different this time.” Daddy sounded defeated, tired. “He didn’t want to put you through the pain anymore. He’ll never reincarnate again, and you will live the rest of your life without him. Do you understand? You will still live on, but he’s done with the circular existence. He couldn’t handle it anymore. You have to accept these things and find a way, much like he did, to live, to survive.”

  A hot sensation in my toes moved upward quickly as if Daddy dipped me deeper into reality with each sentence. Something hot stung behind my eyes and my fists tightened.

  I had been in a car, on the way home from a short-lived college stay, to tell my best friend that I was in love with him.

  I was going to hold him and never let go.

  Now that I could no longer hold him, I clenched a little object in my hand, tightly.

  A small box.

  Rings.

  Our rings.

  Daddy slid up beside me and cradled me in his arms as hot tears flowed freely down my cheeks. He held me until the tears slowed and didn’t release me until I had the strength to sit up by myself.

  “When did Cole make the decision to stop living?” I sniffled.

  “The week after he left for college and you didn’t try to contact him.”

  “And he told you this?” I said, anger rising in my chest.

  “Not exactly. He expressed it in some documents that were sealed, only to be opened in the case of his….” Daddy couldn’t say it.

  “His death?” I spat the words out as if they were soured milk.

  “Don’t be angry with him. It was what you wanted, as far as he knew. He only wanted your happiness.”

  I simmered. We’d always fought about him not asking my opinion before he made decisions about our future. This sure as hell was one that pissed me off.

  “Where is he?” I said jerking the covers off.

  Daddy’s face twisted in confusion.

  I stood. “His body? Where is it?”

  * * * *

  In the threshold of my doorway, conversations filtered up.

  “He should have asked her what she wanted.”

  “She made it clear for all those years what she wanted.”

  “He always did things so backwards.”

  “I can’t believe he’s gone. He’s really gone.”

  The voices blended into the potpourri that made up my family.

  “She’s strong.”

  “She’ll get through this. Somehow.”

  In the living room, no one spoke. They had a lot to say when they thought I wasn’t listening but now, silence. There again, what could they say? Nothing.

  The ridiculously cheery doorbell sliced the silence.

  “That’s Anna Marie. She got in her car as soon as she heard,” Mama said.

  * * * *

  Anna Marie rushed into the house and barely kissed my cheek before she grabbed my mother and aunt. Mama and Shelby gave me nervous glances as they huddled into a corner. “Come on. We need to talk.”

  In the parlor, beside the fireplace, I could have stood in and not touched the top with my outstretched arms, Cole’s casket sat on rollers. It wasn’t too far from where I pictured Grace and Annabeth’s bodies to have rested during their wake when Cole had been found in the room holding her, me, us.

  It was so confusing.

  And something to focus on to take the pain away from the reality that his body was in that silver and gold box with shiny handles.

  My knees went spongy and my stomach soured.

  I needed his guidance and his obsessive-compulsive guardianship more than ever. He could have held me, took some of the pain away, while I visited a deceased loved one.

  Now that loved one was him.

  I couldn’t approach the casket. I wasn’t ready to accept it.

  Upstairs under the protection of my blanket, I cried my eyes out until nightfall.

  A few times, Mama and Shelby checked on me, offering food and hugs.

  After the lights went down in the house, I took my blanket and a pillow down to the parlor. On the floor, beside Cole, I curled up and cocooned myself in my blanket.

  “Cole,” I said into the dark, quiet room.

  My troubled mind replied, “Yes, my love.”

  I had his voice so completely memorized that even the pitch of his
voice was perfect. The floor was hard under the pillow, but I pressed my face down harder to stop the tears. A soft caress whisked across my shoulder.

  My voice was muffled in the pillow. “I miss you.”

  “Don’t cry.” His voice resonated in my head.

  “I hate you,” I said through the tears.

  “I know. With all your heart.” There was a smile in his voice.

  I could no longer bear to hear him without him near me.

  I let the flow of tears free.

  He couldn’t be gone. He just couldn’t. If I could still hear him, then he had to still be here in some form.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, but you are so damned stubborn.” His voice touched deep in my soul. He had been reading me, even in death.

  “Don’t open your eyes,” he said.

  With my eyes closed, I pictured him in the room. I needed to see him so badly, but I didn’t know what shape he might be in. I had to remember him when he was whole, not in the condition he came out of the wreck.

  A soft touch, like a warm summer breeze, caressed my cheek. “Can I hold you? Just one time?”

  “If you do, I don’t think I’ll be able to survive when you let go.” I shuddered, concealing a sob.

  “You’re so strong. You’ll find a way.”

  The blanket pulled away from me. The warm summer breeze cascaded down me as his form, whatever was left of it, spooned me. “You have always amazed me. There was never a second when everything about you didn’t fascinate me. The expression your face, your slightest movement, the sound of your voice, your eyes, your smile, the way the light played off your face in candlelight when you were unaware that I was watching. I needed you more every long excruciating day.”

  Though his phantom touch heated from a warm breeze to hot, soothing bath, I shivered. With my eyes still clenched, colorful tingles and flashes of prickly heat raced over me.

  He cupped my waist.

  I held my breath.

  “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” He whispered in my ear, his voice hot on my earlobe. “What would you give up for me?”