by Johi Jenkins
“Are you sure you didn’t know anything about her before today?” He wants to know if Thierry told me his family secrets. The last thing I want to do is keep talking about the dead wife. But I won’t lie to him.
“Thierry mentioned something,” I say vaguely, irritably.
“What do you know about her?” He repeats.
“Only that you hate me because I remind you of her.”
“I don’t hate you—”
“—And yeah, that you loved her, or whatever. But he didn’t say her name. He didn’t call her a sister-in-law. I didn’t know she was your wife, and I don’t know anything else—whether this was before or after you became a vampire.” I mean whether she was a vampire, but I don’t dare ask that question. It’s like I’m afraid to ask directly about her because he’ll hate me more.
“I first met her when I was normal. So was she.”
“When you were human, you mean.”
“I’m still human,” he counters. “I’m a human who happens to be a vampire.”
“Whatever you say,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“And I didn’t hate you, by the way.”
I realize I’m a little pissed off. “Call it whatever you want to call it. You can’t deny that you that you were just so….” So mean, I want to say.
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” he says. “I have to apologize for my behavior. I was just—I was—”
He stops short and doesn’t finish. But I know what he didn’t say. Jealous.
Holy crap.
I’m sure of it. I can tell but not exactly how. Something about the way he’s behaving. He’s jealous.
And it bothers me.
I stand up and look down at him. Jealous? When he met me he was such a dick. Why would he be jealous? Jealous that his brother had brought home a girl that reminded him of his dead wife? What, Thierry can’t date unless the girl doesn’t look anything remotely like Charlotte? Thierry even said I wasn’t an exact copy of her. So why the attitude?
That’s not it, something tells me.
He stands up as well, and I’m surprised to find him closer to me than I expected him to. I’m tall, but he’s taller, and in one split second his imposing presence eradicates all the annoyance that I felt, and replaces it with that horrifying attraction that I feel for him.
Oh God. An image flashes in front of my eyes of me reaching up in my toes and kissing him. How soft his lips would be over mine.
I have to blink to clear the image away, and I side step past him and out of the sunroom in the direction of the entry hall. “Maybe I should go,” I say. “Maybe I should eat.”
“I’ll take you out to eat,” he says right away, following me. “I’m sorry I don’t have a lot of options here for you.”
I turn around and look at him. “No, why are you sorry? It’s not like you knew to make groceries for me. You didn’t know that I’d be staying here with you.”
“True. But then again, I do pretend to be normal. I keep canned goods in the pantry.”
I welcome the change of topic and pretend we weren’t just talking about really messed up stuff. “Really? Why?”
“A professional cleaning crew comes in to clean once a week. If the pantry was empty, they’d get suspicious.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” I say with a forced smile.
“Anyway, back to the issue,” he starts, and my heart skips a beat in fear thinking he’ll bring up Charlotte again. But he only says, “Let me know what you feel like eating and I’ll find a place where to take you.”
“I… I do have to eat, I know, but I don’t have to right now. I ate the whole basket of bread. It was fresh, right? I could tell.”
“Yes, it was baked about an hour before you woke up.”
Um. Did he hear me wake up? I had assumed he had picked it up at the crack of dawn, then gone to sleep…. Of course he didn’t. I’m an idiot.
“What time did you wake up?” I know the answer, but I ask anyway.
“I haven’t slept,” is all he says.
“You were up all night?”
“Yes. But it’s fine,” he says quickly.
“Don’t you get tired? I mean… you said you do sleep, right? Like, at all?”
“Yes, I sleep; and if I don’t sleep, yes, eventually I get tired. But I’m fine,” he insists. “I’ll stay up until I take you to the airport.”
“What? But… your reflexes will be down, and you’ll get me in an accident, which you’ll survive, and I won’t.”
I think I see him smirk. “Not going to happen.”
“Regardless, I’d feel better if my being here didn’t disturb… your regular sleeping patterns.”
I see that brief smirk again that tells me, Yeah right. Like it’s even possible for me to be here and not disturb him. Like I asked to come here and disturb his sleep. Like he despises me. I hate him.
“You’re my guest in this house, Tori,” he says. “If I sleep while you’re awake what kind of host would that make me? It’s not gallant of me to leave you alone in a city you do not know.”
“I’m not going to go outside and get lost,” I say, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “Please. I’d feel better if you slept.”
His green gaze burns me like a laser beam. I feel his annoyance match mine. He seems to be making a tough decision. “I’ll sleep for a few hours. I’ll take you out to lunch at noon.”
I don’t want to argue. “I’ll do that. Fine. Thanks.”
I turn back and all but run to the main grand staircase. What was that? Thanks for what? For being super weird and awkward? How the hell did we get to that point anyway? He was supposed to tell me about his dream, but ended up grilling me about how I make him miss his dead wife. Fuck that shit. Go to sleep, Corben. I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.
21. Sneaking Out
Alone in my room, something in my chest bothers me. I’m not sure if it’s pain or anger or nostalgia.
But I do recognize that I miss Thierry. I was supposed to talk to him last night. I grab my phone and see I have two missed calls from him.
I call him back and he answers on the first ring.
“Tori? How are you doing?”
“Thierry,” I say, and it comes out as a dry sob.
“What’s wrong, Tori?” Thierry’s voice is immediately laced with anxiety.
But I can’t explain. Hearing Thierry’s voice is an assault to my senses, mostly because they’ve been so full of Corben lately. It bothers me that his voice sounds so foreign to me, when it used to be the thing that I looked forward to every morning when I woke up and every night before going to sleep.
“Nothing,” I lie. “I just miss you.”
“Aw, Tor. I miss you so much. You’ll be back soon; don’t worry. How’s… Corben behaving?” There is something in his voice that I can’t quite place. Does he know about my dreams and late night visit? Or is he just afraid that Corben’s being a jerk? Or am I simply imagining things?
“It’s been….” I exhale audibly into the phone. “A little awkward.”
Thierry laughs shortly. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t surprise me in the least.”
His laugh warms my heart. We talk for a while, and it feels almost normal. I try to describe Corben’s mood swings and general erratic behavior like it’s funny, painfully aware that Corben himself might be able to hear me with his vampire ears. I want to ask Thierry if that’s possible, but I’m afraid that if it is, and Corben can hear me, that he’ll think I’m snooping around for his vampire secrets.
So I don’t tell Thierry anything specific about my troubles here. But I tell him I want to leave. He listens like he always does, and makes me feel loved. It feels so good to talk to him. When we talk like this, it’s easy to remember how much I love him. But in Corben’s presence, I can’t feel it.
He reminds me again that I’ll be in New Orleans soon. Tonight, he says.
***
Of course, I can’t tell if Corben’s sleeping o
r not. But half an hour after my call with Thierry I don’t care anymore, and I want to jet. It’s not even ten o’clock, so I have some time before Corben supposedly wakes up from his nap.
I can’t deal with this. As time presses between the last words I heard Thierry say and my current situation, the memory of his voice is drowned by the louder cacophony of Corben’s presence in my head. Corben makes my body react dangerously, filling me with a savage desire to be loved by him, a raw ache when he’s nearby and not talking to me, a sadness that I can’t explain. I hate this confusion. I have to put some distance between me and the source of the chaos.
I repack my bag and leave everything ready. Then I add another layer of clothes, grab my coat, and as quietly as I can I exit the mansion and brave the weather. See ya, Corben. May you be dreaming wonderful Tori-free dreams of your wife.
Okay, I admit I’m a little bitter.
The gray sky drowns any prospect of happiness I might have had in coming outside, but it seems fitting. There’s snow everywhere, and it’s cold and windy, but I’m not too bothered by the temperature. I mapped the area in my trusty phone prior to leaving and found out that Corben’s house faces east and that the park in front of it is actually quite large. Beyond the park is a highway, the unoriginally named Lake Shore Drive, and further east is Lake Michigan.
I cross the street in front of Corben’s house and enter the park, pass the pond, and head towards the lake. I’ve never seen a Great Lake, even though I grew up not too far away from them, so since I’m here might as well scratch that off my bucket list. Well, I wanted to go swimming in a Great Lake, but that’s totally not going to happen today; even though it’s technically spring, everything is covered in snow. Dipping my hand in the water will have to do.
I’m surprised to see a few joggers on a trail that crosses the park. Why anyone would run in this weather is beyond me. After about ten minutes of walking I start feeling the cold wind bother my fingers and ears. But I keep going, and make it to the outer edge of the park, past Lake Shore Drive, to a small copse of trees, before the lake finally appears before me.
I see the water and my jaw drops. The so-called lake is more like a sea. I wasn’t expecting something small, but, I don’t know, I thought that while it would be huge, I might still be able to see the other side… whatever lies there. Michigan, maybe? I didn’t check the map that far, and I’m not sure exactly what’s out there. Blame my lack of geography skills on the City of Eldridge Department of Education.
I approach the lake and find it gray but not iced over, except for a small area around wooden piles out in the water. The ring of ice sort of sticks about an inch higher than the water level, and has accumulated some snow on top of it. The trail I’ve been following joins a trail that runs north-south between the water and the copse of trees. It’s atop a concrete bulkhead, a few feet above the waterline. There’s no railing or anything to keep anyone from falling into the lake. I approach the edge warily.
It’s beautiful here, even with the gloom that covers everything. When I look south I see the trail dips down closer to the water, to the point where it’s next to sand—yes, sand, like a real beach, not a lake. But where I am there’s no beach, just the small woods behind me. I lean as far as I dare to the lake below, wondering if the water is close enough that I can dip my hand in it. But no, it’s a little ways down, and there’s a row of medium-sized boulders, roughly the size of June’s exercise ball, below the bulkhead. The lake water splashes wildly over them in the wind.
As I stare at the water lapping the rocky shore, I can almost see the black swirl of dark thoughts revolving around my brain, reclaiming my attention.
I feel like a ghost, in sync with the weather. I feel insubstantial, like I’m missing important matter. Corben doesn’t like me. I am nothing but pain to him. But he showed you a different side of him, my hearts reminds me. My thoughts unwillingly return to last night. It felt so good to be taken care of by him. To feel like he cared about me. Why won’t he be like that all the time? It could be he wants to like me but it bothers him that I remind him of his dead Charlotte… I don’t understand him. I don’t understand myself, why I so desperately need his approval. How it hurt me when he said he could only love her. Why should I care? Yet the feeling is there, and feels heavy on my heart. It drags me down. It takes me away….
The sound of the waves crashing against the rocks as background noise to my reveries is almost mesmerizing. It puts me a sort of trance. I shake my head, feeling my limbs heavy, my thoughts thick and viscous. There’s no point… he doesn’t want me. The words float in my head. Or did I say them out loud? I’m numb from the cold….
My legs give under me at the same time as an inopportune gust of wind shoves me forward over the bulkhead. I think I scream. The world blurs as I fall, and then rapidly shakes as I hit the rocks below with a deafening thud.
Ow—the pain assaults me from at least three different angles, but I’m still rolling, and I end up in the water. The icy water hurts more than the fall, and the shock sends a thousand nerves into overdrive like an explosion goes off within me. I can touch the bottom but I still gasp for air; the water splashes my face. I try to stand up just as another wave throws me back towards the rocks.
Jesus! I feel the side of my head smash against the rocks but it doesn’t bring any additional pain. I can’t stand; I can’t move my legs. My head is barely above the water. I’m numb from cold or fear or adrenaline and I realize I’m in deep shit.
My breathing is non-existent; I try to swallow air but my chest is rejecting it.
I’m going to die.
The thought crosses my mind for the first time in my life, but I accept it with a strange peace. I’m really scared, but because my heart feels so heavy I hang on to my silver lining, that at least the pain will soon cease. I stop flailing my arms and legs.
As I roll once more into the water with the receding tide, my thoughts starting to fade, I think of him. Corben.
And unexpectedly I feel arms around me. Or rather, I’m aware of them but I can’t feel them. That is, until they tighten around me, and it hurts. I cry out in pain, a sound I hear detached from me a second later. I think I hear a voice calling me. Someone found me; a jogger, maybe. I’m pulled out of the water.
Here; I’m here, I want to say, but nothing comes out. The pain is blinding, but a small part of me tells me I want to feel it. To remind myself that I’m alive. That while he lives, I don’t really want to die.
But nothing comes out. I slip in and out of unconsciousness briefly, in and out of pain so brutal that I slip right out of it in the next minute. I feel shaking and can’t tell if it’s the arms that encircle me or if it’s my own.
Then I feel a warmth on my face, fingers across my cheek. Even now, my senses flutter; they recognize it’s not a stranger, it’s him. I think I smile. I want to see him. My body is not responding to my commands, but I struggle to remember, to reteach myself how to open my eyes. And I finally do. And there he is: a miracle in front of me. His eyes are impossibly green, filling my head with visions of foliage that does not exist in this place. They conquer the gray that my world has become.
My name, he calls my name as if trying to wake me, but I’m not sure why; I’m already awake and staring into his eyes. The pain simultaneously cripples me and makes me numb, and I still can’t respond to his pleas.
“Tori, I’m here. It’s going to be okay. I’m sorry, I can’t… I didn’t think… to bring a car.”
I feel movement, and suddenly the air is cutting through me once more, impossibly fast. I feel my chilled clothes burning me, tightening, weighing me down. I think I cry out in pain once more, then thankfully, I feel no more.
22. Nights in White Satin
The garden is paved with walkways and is partially covered by tall trees. Light trickles through the tree canopies and bathes the garden in an ethereal light. It’s just before dawn, and the pale morning light hints at another beautiful summer day. I’m in
a nightgown, out of bed, waiting for the sunrise. And then I see it.
The sun rises behind the trees and witnesses the first day of my life as Corben’s beloved. I close my eyes and commit the image to memory. I smile. Time to go back—I got out of bed just to see the sun, but the bed calls me back now with promises of him. I leave the garden and walk back to the big house of which I’m now the mistress.
The tile floors are cold but I don’t feel uncomfortable. It feels like I’m walking on hardwood instead. Like something I’ve seen recently, but can’t remember where. My legs are a little cold, but feel as though they are covered in fleece. I pay no attention to the cold when I go looking for him.
I maneuver the great house smiling in anticipation. I see the stairs that I know will take me to him and climb to the third floor, where the huge master suite is.
The house is full of light, like the light of high noon. But the master suite is dark; the blinds are drawn in. With what little light there is I can see his sleeping form on the bed. My heart starts pounding in my chest.
He’s partially covered with a satin sheet, drawn up to his chest. Above that I see his shoulders are bare. I’m standing at the door, just staring at him, and my body responds to the sight before me. A fire starts somewhere in my belly and spreads all over my extremities. He is so handsome. The way my eyes pour over him it’s like I’m looking at him for the first time. I can’t look away.
It hurts to look and not touch. The tips of my fingers long to move over his arms; my fingers to curl over his biceps. My chest expands aching for his hands to caress me. My feet move towards him, to ease the pain of the separation that arrests me. It feels as if I’ve been away from him for so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be with him. I walk towards him, my arm extended to grab the thin sheet that covers him. I want to see him naked. I want his body to cover mine. I want him.
I reach the foot of his bed and grab the sheet. Faster than my eyes can follow, his hand is over my wrist like a steel shackle. I look up, surprised, and I see him sitting up. The sheet has fallen further down, revealing his sculpted chest, his abdominal muscles perfectly toned. He is wearing something like gray pants, of which I can only see the top.