by A. M. Hudson
“Well.” I reversed down the drive. “You won’t be fulfilling those needs with me.”
“We’ll see,” was all he said as the house became smaller in my rear-view mirror.
Eric played human really well. We had a pleasant meal together, talked vampire and Set laws for only the first half-hour, then drifted into conversations about music and books and world history—from a firsthand perspective. By the time Eric walked me to my door, I was completely convinced that he wasn’t the arrogant stalker I’d first thought he was—and completely hoping my newfound affections wouldn’t transform into love.
“I had a good time tonight, Amara.”
I fiddled with my keys in hand, leaning on the wall beside the front door. “I did too.”
“I can see why he fell for you.” He brushed his knuckles sweetly across my cheek, and though I knew he was talking about David, the mention of him didn’t stir the heartache in me it usually did. I simply smiled.
“Do...do you wanna come in?”
Eric looked at the door—at the silhouette on the other side of the glass; a grey shadow in the dark—and shook his head. “I’d like to, but...”
“Mike’s just making sure I made it home.” I jerked my head to the silhouette.
“Something tells me he’s making sure of a few other things, too.”
I grabbed Eric’s sleeve as he stood back and went to walk away. “Don’t go.”
He stepped back into me, my nose and lips nearly resting on his chin with the closeness. “I want to stay, but I think what I want, and what you want from me, might be different things.”
“What if they weren’t?”
He studied me with a curious gaze, then slowly and so cautiously cupped his thumb against my chin and lifted my lips to his. I tensed, pausing, a breath before they touched, then quickly turned my head.
“You see?” He dropped his hand to his side. “You don’t want to do that stuff with me, Amara—you just want a way to get past David.”
“No, Eric, wait.” I reached for him, but he jumped the front gate and disappeared before I had the chance to make it all better.
The front door opened and Mike’s smile dropped when he saw my face. “Baby, what happened?”
“Nothing.” I pushed past him, slammed my bedroom door and threw myself on the bed.
A white tissue flashed in front of my face. “Here.” Emily landed beside me on the couch.
“Thanks.” I wiped my nose and eyes.
“Is it David again?” She sighed, looking at me through rounded, caramel eyes.
“Mm-hm.” I continued the task of weeping.
“Ara, you’ve got to move on from this. I thought you were going out with Eric now.”
“I was. I did. I mean...he went to kiss me, and I...and I...” I blubbered, hiding my shameful face in the tissue. “I’ll never forget the look in his eye, Em. I didn’t think he was capable of it, but, I think I hurt him. I think I really hurt him.”
“Oh, Ara. Not Eric. Why Eric? His girlfriend passed away a few months ago. It’s taken a lot for him to start dating again.”
“Really?” I stopped blubbering.
“Yes.”
“Oh, now I feel really bad.” The blubbering burst out again.
“So—are you crying because you hurt Eric or—”
“Because of why I hurt Eric. I just can’t do it, Em. I can’t let myself be with anyone. I feel like I’m cheating David.”
“Ara. He’s gone—just like when Jason left me. He’s never coming back. I know it’s harsh, but I had to get over Jason, and you have to get over David.” She smoothed my hair over my shoulder. “Come on, if he was worth all the tears, he’d be the one sitting here with you right now.”
She’s right. I know that. “But it still hurts, Em,” I said under ragged breaths. “I mean, he loved me, he said things to me that made me feel so worthwhile. How can he just leave if all that was true?”
“Maybe he never really meant it, Ara. Maybe he just told you what you wanted to hear,” she suggested.
“But—but it felt so real—it still does. I don’t know what to believe.”
“Hey, girls, what’s up?” Mike glided around the corner with his hands in his pockets, dropping them to his sides when he looked at me. “Ara, baby, what happened?”
As he knelt beside me, I turned my head into Emily’s shoulder. I didn’t want Mike to see me crying—especially not over David.
“It’s the David thing again,” Emily moaned.
“David? What David thing?” Mike reached out and slid his fingers down my arm, then grabbed my hand.
Emily and Mike went silent for a second, but Emily’s body moved slightly with her secret sign language. The couch dipped where Mike landed as he tugged me away from Emily. “Ara, he’s a guy,” he said. “Guy’s do stuff like this all the time. I know you thought it was real, I know you thought he loved you—but it’s what he wanted you to think. It’s a game to them.”
I shook my head. “You don’t really believe that, do you? You talked to him, you knew—you saw that he loved me.”
Mike’s shoulders dropped. “Yeah. I did. I don’t know, baby. I can’t figure it out either. But you can’t keep wasting your life over this guy.”
“How am I possibly wasting it?” I sat up. “Just because I’m still hurting, and I happen to get caught crying over him every now and then.”
“Yes!” Emily leaned forward. “Because you’re just not getting it, Ara. He’s gone; he doesn’t care.”
“Emily?” Mike slightly raised his voice, then turned to me. “Ara?” I kept my eyes down, swallowing the lump Emily’s truth formed in my throat. “You’ve got to forget about him. I know it hurts, but you’ve just gotta grieve his absence as if he was dead. Hey—” Mike held both of my arms, his voice trailing up, “—would it help if we held a funeral for him?”
“A funeral?” I said sarcastically.
“Yeah.” He jumped up and cleared his throat.
“Mike?” I protested.
“Em, pass me that rose?”
Emily placed a flower from the vase behind her into his waiting hand. Not the red one. Why the red one?
“Okay.” Mike squared his shoulders and positioned himself in the centre of the room. “Friends.” He turned his head and winked at me. “We have gathered here today to mourn the passing of a loved one.”
“Mike, this is silly.” I wiped cold tears from my cheeks.
“David Knight, beloved boyfriend—arch enemy.” He raised his brows a few times, smiling. “We farewell the pieces of him which keep our dear Ara in pain.”
I folded my arms and slinked down on the lounge.
Mike snapped a petal from the rose and let it fall to the floor before his feet. “We farewell his tender kisses.”
“Erk, this is so lame,” I said.
He laughed, ignoring me, and dropped another petal to the floor. “We farewell his tight embrace.”
“Mike?” I allowed a small smile.
He stood taller and placed his fist over his heart, completely saturating the room with melodrama. “We will never again look upon his dreamy, emerald-gaze.” He looked at me, and I laughed. “Or his smooth, flowing locks.”
Emily buried her face, shaking with an overly hysterical cry.
“This—” Mike threw another petal, “—is for the way he said I’ll love you, forever.”
“Mike, stop it,” I said, feeling really awkward.
He raised one brow. “And this is for the way he held you in his arms—how he made you feel safe.”
“Mike?” My protest became weak as the memory of David seeped into everything around me.
“This is for the way his eyes lit up when he kissed you.” He spoke in a deeper, whispery voice as he looked beyond my eyes—to a place only David knew. “And this is for all the days you spent together by the lake.”
I stared through my teary-cloud, totally bewitched. “How did you know all that?”
M
ike threw the rose in its entirety to the floor, then sat beside me again. “Guys talk too, Ara.”
“He told you all that?”
“Ara. Let him go, baby. You’ve got Em, and you’ve got me.”
Emily nodded and took my other hand; I shook my head.
“Baby, love is only true when it’s reciprocated. But he’s not here—” Mike looked around, “—I haven’t seen him anywhere. Not when you’re sad, not when you were recovering—not even on our wedding day.” Mike smiled then. “Ha, I half expected him to burst into the church and demand you run away with him. But, Ara?” He waited until I looked at him. “He didn’t, baby. He’s gone, and you need to let him go. I’m here. I love you. Don’t you know that?”
I nodded, fresh tears spilling from my eyes. “But I don’t want to let him go. I love him—even if he doesn’t love me anymore.”
“Then how do you think Mike feels,” Emily said, “to feel exactly the same way about you?”
I looked at Mike; he frowned at Emily. God, I think in future I’ll just cry in my room. “I know, Emily. Okay. And I feel bad about that, but—”
“No! Ara.” She shot to her feet. “You don’t know! You’re just saying that, but you’re not fooling anyone. You threw away a perfectly good chance to be happy, God—” she slammed her arms into her sides, “—Mike would throw himself in front of a bus for you. You rejected him, left him at the altar, and he’s still here—waiting. For you!” She started out of the room, her voice breaking as she said, “You’re so damn selfish sometimes.”
“Emily?” I stood up, too, and followed her to the kitchen. “Don’t say things like that and then walk off. You need to take that back.”
“No!” Emily stopped by the bench and folded her arms.
“Take it back!” I stomped my foot.
“No—it’s true, Ara, all of it.”
“Why? How does it make me selfish just because I chose not to marry Mike?”
“Because you love him, Ara, and he loves you. Don’t you get it?” She shook her head. “You have everything. Everything, and you throw it away. You want David because David isn’t here; you wanted Mike when he wasn’t here. Now he is—you don’t care.”
“That’s not true. I always wanted David. It was never my choice to let—”
“You see?” Emily dropped her hands, holding out her palms. “I just told you how much you’ve hurt Mike, and all you care about is David. I am so sick of hearing his name, Ara. I swear, if I have to hear that name one more time—”
“David,” I spat, my eyes narrowing.
“Ara. Grow up.”
“David,” I said again.
“Ara?” Mike said, leaning his shoulder against the archway, his arms folded across his chest.
“David,” I said again, raising my brow.
“Ara. I’m not playing games.” Emily edged forward slightly. “Don’t push me.”
“No, Emily. You need to get over it. What’s the big deal if I talk about him all the time, or cry myself to sleep because he’s not here? I—”
“You threw away your fiancé. You don’t eat. You don’t live, you don’t enjoy life—you don’t run, you can’t watch movies, you won’t read—Ara, what’s it going to take to get you to be human again?”
“David.”
“Er!” She stomped her foot. “He’s. Not. Coming. Back.” I tensed when she walked closer and grabbed my shoulders. “Listen carefully, Ara. David. Is. Gone. Get over him.”
“Why? Because you got over Jason?”
Emily drew back internally, her lips falling apart as my words struck her. “You know nothing about that, Ara.” She very slowly let go of my arms and turned away.
“Don’t I, Emily?” I spat her name out and saw Mike, in my peripheral, rise slightly from the wall, on the edge of a hesitant step toward us. “I know you never shut up about him. I know you mention his name, mention your heartache every chance you get. And it far outweighs my pain, doesn’t it?” I touched my chest. “I’d know nothing of what you suffered, would I? Because you’re the only one who—Ah!” A sharp sting broke across my lip, jolting my head to one side as my last words ended in a squeal of shock.
“Oh my God.” Emily covered her mouth as her hand came back down from its impact across my very deserving face.
“Emily!” Mike swept me into his arms as tears rushed into my eyes.
“Ara,” she said through her hands. “I’m—I’m—”
“Em. I think you need to go and cool off.” Mike stroked his thumb over the tingling skin on the corner of my lip. “You okay, baby?”
I looked past him to Emily, who stared at me, frozen in place, her eyes liquid. My heart sank. “Emily. I’m sorry.” I pushed out from Mike and hugged her tight; “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“But you were right.” She stood back and buried her face in her hands. “I never got over him either, Ara. And I—”
“Oh, Em.” I hugged her again.
“I just. I’m afraid you might end up like me. That you’ll never move on and you’ll be unhappy and have one heartbreak after the other—trying to find that thing you had with him.”
“Why didn’t you just say that?”
“Because, I—I don’t know.” She wiped her face and looked at Mike, just for a second, then looked down. “You make me mad. I just don’t get you, Ara.”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t fight for David. Now he’s gone, you want him back.”
“I told you—I asked him to stay, and he wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, because you asked him. You didn’t fight, and you didn’t fight for Mike either. Ara.” Emily pointed at Mike. “He didn’t care that you loved David. He still doesn’t. He’d take you back in a heartbeat. Why won’t you just marry him?”
“Come on now, girls—” Mike leaned his back on the bench between us, “—let’s not talk about me like I’m not here. Emily?” He looked at her. “You haven’t known Ara as long as I have. She’s as stubborn as a mule. If she makes up her mind—it’s final.”
“But—” Emily said.
“Uh!” Mike held his finger up. “You need to drop it. Otherwise, she’ll change her mind out of guilt. And there’s only one thing worse than a girl marrying you when she’s in love with someone else, and that’s when she marries you out of guilt.”
“But it wouldn’t be guilt—don’t you see? She’s in love with you, Mike. What is wrong with you two?” She stared at us with wide eyes, her head moving from side to side.
“Nothing, Emily. We’re normal. You just live in this world of dreams and fairy-tales, where stories have happy endings,” I stated. “It’s not real.”
“Fine. You say that—go ahead, Ara, but I believe it.” She pointed to her chest, leaning forward. “I have to believe it. If I don’t, I’ll end up like you; withered from the core of the soul, with a tired, wrinkled old heart and nothing good to show for it.”
Mike’s hand touched my shoulder while I watched the empty space where Emily slammed her bedroom door.
“Ara?” He tried to turn me around.
“What have you been saying to her, Mike?” My words hiccupped as the sobs came. “Why does she feel so strongly about this?”
When Mike said nothing, I turned around; his head dropped and his shoulders lifted.
“Mike, what have you said to her?”
“Nothing.” He drew a deep breath, masking his frown with a smile. “Really. I’m fine with this, baby. I told you that. We’re good. Okay?” He rubbed his hand down my arm.
“You’re lying,” I said, unable to believe it.
“Baby, I—I really haven’t said anything to her. She just wants us both to be happy.”
I shook my head. “No, she wants you to be happy.”
Chapter 4
I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that came every time I ignored my phone. I knew the number well—even though the caller ID function had been broken for a month and no longer displayed his name
—but a part of me still always wondered if I should answer it, just in case he might be calling to tell me about...David.
Dear Eric, I wrote on the pad of paper lined with watercolour pictures of lilies, then scratched it out.
Hey, Eric. Nope, that’s no good either. God, how can writing a goodbye letter be so hard?
I stared out the window at the children playing across the road, and waited for inspiration to hit me. It didn’t. The fact is, saying goodbye to Eric for his own good seems so wrong. He’ll think I’m blowing him off, and I guess, maybe I am.
I picked up my phone and let my finger hover above the green button until the vibrating stopped and the screen read missed call. I didn’t think he’d ever speak to me again after I messed up our kiss, but when all his texts went unanswered, he started calling twice every day. I just don’t know what to say, though. I like Eric, and regretted not kissing him almost instantly—well, as soon as I closed my door and was alone again.
“Argh!” My breath of frustration seemed to carry the pencil I threw across the room a little further than usual, and when an opening line for my goodbye letter suddenly came to mind, I regretted throwing the damn pencil away, too. What is it with me and wanting things only once they’re gone? I’m not really like that am I?
“Hey, baby.” Mike came in and slumped heavily on the lounge beside me. “What you doing?”
“Thinkin’.”
“’Bout?”
I shrugged. “Stuff.”
“Stuff, huh?”
“Yup.”
“Wanna share?”
I shook my head, then almost instantly blurted out, “Do you think I have absence syndrome?”
“Ab-what-now?” Mike sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees while I stared straight ahead.
“Emily says I only want things when they’re not around? Is that true?”
Mike’s silence made my shoulders lift around me ears; I looked at him—he was looking away. “Maybe.”
“Really? Maybe?”