Ever Lasting

by Odessa Gillespie Black

  As of late, the wilder side of him seemed prevalent. Almost as if his good-boy side didn’t have control of the bad-boy side anymore.

  “What would you say if I told you that he doesn’t?” Cole’s voice was odd. Calculating.

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “What if I got tired of that side holding me back? I got tired of being depressed? So I changed. I left that side behind,” Cole said.

  “Don’t tell me you are getting ready to admit to a personality disorder or something.” I was trying to keep it light because I didn’t want to face what he was saying.

  “Not quite like that. More of a preference of one set of personality traits to the other. I grouped the ones I didn’t like on one side and the ones I preferred on the other side and—” Cole stopped. “I’m blowing your mind, aren’t I?”

  “No. Worrying me. Is this part of your soul finally settling itself?” I had turned to the side in my seat. I stared at him.

  “Something like that. Don’t worry. It was just a way to cope with the pain that more sensitive side always felt.”

  “It? Cole what did you do? And if you are aware of it, then, from what I have studied, you are just repressing that sensitive side. It’s still there, isn’t it?” My tone raised an octave. Cold fire licked at the inside of my stomach.

  “Um…sort of.” Cole tapped his fingers on his steering wheel to the beat of the music. He looked agitated. An invisible wall slid up between the seats and shut me off from him. His chest heaved, but his face stayed expressionless.

  “Are you okay, Cole?” Please don’t let him shut down on me now. How had I missed this? I should have known that something was not right a few months before. The mood swings. The weird reactions to me at different times.

  The chill in the car dissipated.

  “I’m fine,” he said in a convincing voice. “Seriously, Allie.”

  “You’ve been acting strange lately. Forgetting stuff. Not caring about your appearance at times, then looking like this.” I waved my hand at his immaculate attire, his heavenly smell, and his perfectly groomed hair. “This can’t be easy on you. I don’t see how you have lasted this long without having some sort of breakdown. And it’s okay if you did. You are going on two hundred years old. I have no idea what that must be like for you. And you keep on losing the person you love to time. Really, it’s okay if you have dealt with it in an unusual way.”

  Cole’s eyes brightened at my acceptance.

  “I just don’t want you to hate me or leave me because of it. I can be selfish. I’ll admit that, but only when it comes to you.” Cole pulled into a parking space away from his house on the campus grounds.

  I was so at odds with the strange things he just admitted but as long as he seemed to be okay, then I wouldn’t worry too much. I gave him a sidelong glance.

  “Don’t look at me like I just admitted to being insane. I’m not there just yet. I’m just sort of coming undone. I was terrified to tell you all that. I could never lose you to someone else. I’d kill before that would happen. Other than that, look at me. Really look at me. I’m fine.” Cole did seem fine. In fact, he was more than fine. In this lighting with shadows of raindrops reflecting off his face from the light passing through the rain-covered windshield, he was intoxicating.

  “In our past life, we spent a lot of time in the car though we had plenty of room in the house. There was always something about the car—” His low voice reverberated in my soul as thunder rumbled outside. I was entranced once again.

  Lightning flashed in the inky night sky.

  I reached for the door handle. “I need to go inside now. Before this gets bad.”

  “The storm or us?” Cole leaned closer. “If I told you that we could kiss right now and we wouldn’t get in trouble, would you let me?”

  “Why do you do this to yourself? You know we can’t.”

  “How would a blood promise vow know? It’s not living and breathing. Not the way we are. Not the way you are right now.” Cole’s hand reached toward my face. His fingers grazed my lips as he leaned near me. I froze.

  “It will.” My voice was almost inaudible.

  “Not this time.” Cole assured me. “Trust me. Please.”

  “I’m not doing anything to mess this up.” I pulled strength from somewhere unknown. I firmed up my voice. “I’m going in.”

  “I’ve never wanted to kiss you so badly. I’m not really living anymore. No heartbeat, no breath. Loving you is breathing.” Cole’s fingers were white on the steering wheel. He pressed his head against the headrest. “And I need to breathe again.”

  Lead thickened my blood. I covered my ears with my hands. I had to fight. What was it that Cole had asked me to do? Fight tooth and nail. So that’s what I had to do.

  I pulled the door handle against every drive I felt toward him and pushed the door opened. The windswept rain rushed against my face. I had to get out of the car and so far my legs were obeying me.

  I slammed the door of the car a little harder than I would have liked it to, but it made a statement of finality. In the lightning and against the wind, I ran to the door of my dorm and didn’t look back.

  Chapter 15

  Cole

  From the apartment in the city that night, I floor-boarded the car and had never driven so recklessly. The car was probably in a crumpled heap in a junk yard somewhere. It had become a victim to my suicidal moment. The speedometer read 137 mph when I slammed into the brick wall of an abandoned building.

  The metal wreckage and airbag residue had flown twenty feet in the air, but I had remained unharmed, much to my dismay. I didn’t feel the physical pain that I had hoped would engulf my emotional pain.

  From where the car had thrown me, I stood up and walked back to my dorm.

  I had lost Allie to death, but never to another man.

  It just hadn’t seemed possible, but I had heard her thoughts and what she said to the other man was how she really felt. There was no denying that she was in love with someone else.

  Forfeiting my life at school, I spent the next months in the cabin in which Trevor once lived. No one knew I was there, so I stayed.

  Allie texted me, but I never grew the balls to answer her after I’d seen her with the silhouette of another man.

  I saved her texts. They were all that I had left of her that I could take. All other memories were too painful.

  But I understood. Who would want a freak of nature that couldn’t even take a simple heartbreak without going off the deep end?

  Rage slammed through my veins. But there was nothing I could do about who she fell in love with.

  After all this time, I realized that some things just weren’t meant to be.

  We never got to be together in that first life and maybe that was the way it was supposed to be. Grace had cheated fate by putting us on this road and it wasn’t in our future to work out the way I had hoped.

  The one thing I could take comfort in was that the bad boy in me hadn’t been responsible for the separation of me with the only person I would ever love. It had been another man. Someone Allie could be with; someone who wouldn’t cause her pain.

  Now I was in this body, stuck, forever, with no way out. And I would be alone.

  As soon as I got to the cabin, I had shut the door, turned off the lights and water fled from my eyes as if it was being pushed out by a flooded river over a dam.

  I lay flat on the bed and put my arms flat against my sides. I had blocked all outside stimuli and finally closed my eyes when holding them open felt no different than closing them.

  I didn’t eat.

  I didn’t sleep.

  I no longer functioned as a human.

  If this was as close to death as I could get, then I would take it.

  This was the end of me.

  I was numb. Lifeless. It was dark. I imagined a coffin.

  I stopped pretending to breathe and lay deathl
y still.

  That felt no different.

  Seconds passed. Minutes passed. Hours passed. Days grew shorter.

  When the numbness finally took me over, lying there was pointless.

  I had gotten over the pain. Or I had at least put it where I could deal with it. I had lain there in that same spot for two months.

  The second month saw me in a different state. I wanted to get up from that spot.

  I would exist whether she did or not. So, I had to find a way to get through that existence without wanting her. I had to exist because there was no other option.

  I was living in the longest and worst dream I’d ever had. And it would keep on going no matter what I did or didn’t do. I was afraid to feel but I was afraid not to feel either. I was afraid of what I would become after so long of not wanting to live. I was afraid that the need to die would spawn evil inside me.

  Hate.

  Abhorrence for life and eventually enveloping me in something far darker than my original curse.

  I was determined to live curse free.

  September would be here soon.

  I wanted to be free of the wait, even if Allie hadn’t waited for me.

  I had waited and I had been successful in not killing the man that took Allie from me. I was successful in not lashing out at her the way I wanted to. I wanted her to know how badly she had hurt me, but I did still care for her.

  Who was I kidding? That there was no word for the love we shared, and now I was alone in that wordless devotion.

  And I would feel that way eternally.

  Maybe I could turn the love that I had numbed myself to, into something meaningful. Maybe, the last days she had on this earth would be those I could spend with her with her, unaware. Maybe from the darkness that I had vowed to stay in, in that first life that she found me in 2009, I could still protect her now so many years later.

  Then it dawned on me. I had spent two months here in this place not knowing if that man, that undeserving individual, who might possibly be more undeserving than even me, had hurt her in some way.

  I would always be her protector.

  She would never know I was there. I would hide in the shadows.

  So if the meaningless nothing that my life was without her could find some reason to move forward then maybe it wouldn’t be completely meaningless after all.

  * * * *

  The first thing I would have to do was take a shower.

  My skin hadn’t seen water droplets other than tears in so long that they would probably roll right off my hideous body, either from the buildup of grease or the fear of how gruesomely repulsive I looked. In the bathroom, I found a few towels and some soap that had been left behind in the shower.

  In the mirror, my hair had grown into a puff of six-inch-long shag, and my gaunt face was barely recognizable. Though I didn’t have to have the normal sustenance for living, my body continued shedding dead skin cells. I wasn’t sure which was more revolting: the me in the mirror or the smell of the me in the mirror.

  I peeled my clothes off and stepped into the shower, lathering for what seemed like eternity in the hot water and soap. The last time I had been in such a state a few lifetimes before this it had led to my death.

  Not eating, drinking, and wasting away in sorrow had been something different to do, so I had tried it, but then I had only myself to blame for not having the one person who made the next breath worth taking.

  To pull myself out was exponentially harder.

  I had no motivation other than love for a person who couldn’t return it. Out of that, I had extract something to help me take the next breath.

  I pulled an old pair of clothes out of Trevor’s backup hunting clothes and made my way to a barbershop in town. I pulled in and realized as I looked in my rearview mirror that I looked like one of those mountain trappers that rarely come out of the woods.

  When the barber spun me around, extreme makeover wasn’t even close. I was a totally different than the man who’d walked in.

  I tipped the barber a ludicrous amount and nodded numbly when he thanked me profusely. I ran my hand over my smooth chin and looked in the mirror. My eyes were sunken in and my skin had no glow. I was far from the well-kempt man I’d been at school but at least the population wouldn’t run screaming upon first glance.

  It was time to phase myself back into the world.

  Chapter 16

  Allie

  I had grown increasingly concerned over Cole’s behavior. Though I was thoroughly ready for the wait to be over, each day that passed was a source of anxiety for him.

  With every passing second, he grew clingier and dead set on convincing me to give in to him.

  “There’s no way your soul is going to settle if you don’t allow it the chance. Please, leave me alone. I will be with you soon enough. We have to make it through this. We’ve come so far.” I gently nudged him away from me.

  “I just need to be with you, alone, for a few minutes. I have missed you so badly. I need you to be with me.” He sounded so neurotic.

  “I’m getting tired of this. You’ve got to stop or I’m going to have to take drastic measures.” I crossed my arms. “I will leave.”

  In a tantrum like a small child, Cole flipped. “I don’t understand how you can say you love me and not want to be with me even in a crowded place. I just need to talk to you before this is all over. I need you to understand some things. You have to be prepared in the end.”

  I looked at him incredulously. “Have you cheated on me?”

  He rolled his eyes and exhaled. “Surely, you know better than that?”

  “Then what is so pressing that you would put us in a bad situation?” I kept my voice low. This time we were in the hall of the administrative building on the campus. I had a handful of papers to fill out and a deadline for turning them in, and he blocked my path.

  I gave Cole a firm look, and he stepped aside.

  “You are going to have to make a choice in the end that you aren’t prepared for.” His voice shook from behind me.

  I stopped in my tracks.

  His cutesy, flirty attitude was gone. He was serious, eerily calm. “I’ve done something that’s going to cause you to have to make a choice. I can’t lose you. I have to know what your answer will be.”

  “Is this another one of your confusing confessions, because lately, I don’t understand any of them.” I tried to keep my voice down. “If you’re going to have a case of immortal insanity, then either I’m going to have to be medicated or you will. One of the two.”

  Cole leaned on the brick wall with his arms crossed. A sly grin morphed the worry on his face. “I want you to marry me. Now.”

  I pulled him by his arm over to the side of the hall and into an empty classroom. “I will but we have bigger things to worry about than nuptials.”

  “I want you to marry me right now,” he repeated as if I hadn’t even spoken. The look in his eyes was odd.

  “You mean elope?” I put a desk between us. This was very strange behavior coming from Cole.

  “Yes, right now. Leave with me. We’ll go get in my car, we won’t even pack, we’ll just go. We’ll get married, get a nice hotel room in a remote city somewhere, spend a few days together, and then we won’t have to worry about the blood promise.” He rounded the desk but I shimmied between two more and slid down the aisle away from him. “If we’re married, there’s nothing wrong with being together.”

  I held the desk and shoved it between us. “Don’t take one more step. I think it’s time you told me what this is all about? There’s no reason for us to run off and get married like that. We are already married, according to you. A certificate with a date in this era doesn’t change anything.”

  “It would be an anchor of sorts. Something to bring you back to me when it all goes down.” Desperation filled Cole’s voice.

  I scurried down the aisle two rows over from him, but with his lightn
ing speed, he ghosted to the door and stood in front of it as if he would block my passage if I wanted to leave. “Let me go, Cole.”

  “That’s just it. I can’t. I can’t live without you. I won’t do it.” Cole leaned against the door, his eyes wild. “I need you.”

  “Cole Kinsley, you are starting to make me angry.” I looked for something in the room to use if he decided to come near me. I don’t know what I’d have done with said object, but I wasn’t far from knocking him out and running for my life. For his life.

  “He’s coming back for you, and I can’t let him have you. I won’t.” Cole really was crazy. He’d lost it.

  I had to get out of this room and put space between us long enough to get help from my family.

  “You know how I feel about you. Nothing will change that. I will never leave you.” I put my hands on both sides of his face and made him look down into my eyes. “We can fix this together, but not if you force me to make a decision I don’t want to make right now.”

  A knock came on the door behind Cole. He looked a hair away from complete insanity.

  I was quiet as I stared at the door. Had someone come to rescue me? Us?

  Two more heavy knocks.

  “Give us just a minute.” My gaze bore into Cole. “We’re coming out.”

  Cole’s gaze narrowed. Would he let me out? What the hell was wrong with him?

  “I need this classroom. Please open the door and vacate it immediately or I will have to call security,” an instructor’s voice said outside the heavy wooden door.

  “You are scaring me, and you have never done that.” I kept my hands from shaking as I caressed his face. “Please, let me out of this room.”

  Cole’s eyes softened and he moved to the side.

  I opened the door and hurried past the instructor with a quick apology.

  Right outside the door were Nicki and Lacee. They looked glad to see me, but when they saw Cole coming out of the room behind me, they exchanged confused glances.