Natural Selection

by Amanda Lance

  Another place he did not belong.

  Her admission should have been enough, but it wasn’t. Now that he was that close, had seen her with his own two eyes again and not just in his mind, he knew he couldn’t stop until she banished him for good.

  He walked directly into the building, slightly disturbed that the device that prohibited unwanted visitors from entering was out of order. The lobby of the apartment was relatively clean, even if the plants were artificial and carpets torn. Kasper already knew which apartment number was hers from the letters he never opened. But he had never imagined the hallways to be so dark or the stairway so creaky. Naturally, he had pictured the place where she lived to have more windows and the colors on the walls to be far brighter.

  Kasper stopped at her door, more nervous than he had even been at that wretched canine establishment. What if she called the authorities on him? Laughed in his face or screamed to alert the neighbors? It had occurred to him, after all, that perhaps the display at the shelter had only been the first punishment she had orchestrated, and as the mistress of his heart, she could hurt him far more than anyone else.

  He spent several minutes yelling at his hands for not working. Damn you, brain, work with the rest of me! What if someone sees you before you get the chance to see her?

  It took a few seconds longer, but Kasper did manage to raise his hand and knock on the door. The moment he did however, a terrible howl emerged from within. Blast! He had the wrong apartment! But how was that possible? He had to get out of there before—

  A half-step away from the door, he heard it open, heard Emilia’s soft, scolding voice, and saw the view of her foot kicking at something he could not see. Yet, whatever it was that had her distracted seemed to disappear altogether when she glanced up and saw the source of the knocking. She paled before running out, shutting the door behind her, and throwing herself into his arms.

  Her hair was only just damp, and his memory was reassured by the way she smelled of strawberries and vanilla. To entice his senses further, she was wearing little more than a thin t-shirt and what he guessed to be flannel women’s boxer shorts. Yet while he was brazen enough to look at them, he did not dare touch them to confirm the material’s authenticity.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered to him. “I’m so sorry.”

  He kept his arms out at his sides. What if he allowed himself to embrace her and was unable to let her go?

  “Emilia—”

  “I don’t know if I meant to hurt you…” She shook her head against him and clutched him tighter. “But I know I did, and I’m sorry. I wish I could take it back. It was so immature.”

  “I deserved worse.” He did his best to choke back his emotion and failed. “I still do.”

  Luckily, the sound of howling and clawing at the door distracted them both so that she was forced to pull away from him. And as unpleasant as the noise was, he was glad for it, as it prevented the clicking sound of his teeth gnashing together. “What in the world is that?”

  “Oh.” She laughed. “That’s Tut.”

  Who? Was it possible she had a new lover? Had she gotten over him as he hoped?

  Yet when she opened the door, he did not see another man but only a dog: a lousily mangy mutt who drooled with delight at the sight of Emilia, pawing at her and kissing her face.

  Perhaps another man would have been better.

  And when The Mutt saw him, it trotted over and sniffed at his shoes, skeptical. Kasper took a step back.

  “He’s had all his shots.” She laughed again.

  “Of course,” he said quietly.

  “Do you want to come in?” She opened the door all the way, and they watched Tut run back inside, tired from his short excursion, to return to his bed.

  “Of course.”

  Kasper followed her inside, torn between smiling and crying at her framed poster of Carmen and the well-organized shelves that were so obviously hers. She clearly had made this place her home, and that was good, it was what he wanted. At the same time, it pained him. As relieved as he was to see her obvious happiness, it was only another reminder of how easily she had adjusted, of how well she had forgotten him.

  “I know it isn’t much—”

  “No,” he said, looking away from the walls back to her. “It’s you… it’s lovely.”

  Turning a light shade of pink, she looked away from him and directed her attention back to the mongrel.

  “Y-you have a dog?” Kasper still did not look away from her.

  She smiled. “I adopted him from the shelter.”

  “Your work does not end at work then?”

  Kasper watched her bare toes run back and forth against the floor, suddenly feeling the most powerful urge to examine the bottoms and tickle them until she begged for mercy. “It isn’t work if you enjoy what you do.”

  He attempted to smile. “And you accuse me of being too charitable?”

  They looked at Tut at the same time. He had curled up until his head was hanging outside of his bed, revealing the inside of his pink and brown ears.

  Emilia’s smile lapsed into a frown. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Did you need a new project?” He felt the anger rise up before could stop himself. “Another thing to pity and lavish your affection on?”

  “What?”

  Why should he have been surprised to see her bestowing her friendship on another hideous creature? She had, after all, made him her pet project—why shouldn’t she have had another animal to replace him?

  “You wanted something ugly around to feel better about yourself? Something to fix?”

  “Don’t call my dog ugly—”

  Kasper swore to himself, spitting in the air until Emilia stopped him.

  “Stop it!” she snapped. “I have neighbors. Besides, who are you to judge why I love my dog? I’ll have you know that while he might not be pretty or the brightest bulb in the box, he is a good companion and makes me laugh.” She glanced over at the dog, a smile slowly blossoming on her face. “In that sense, he does remind me of you.”

  Kasper took a step back and felt his shoulders slacken. As quick as he often was to anger, his little peach could be just as spontaneous with a similar rage. How had he forgotten that so easily? Especially when it was one of the first things that had attracted her to him? He tried to secure his springing heart and restarted.

  “You named him Tut?”

  She nodded proudly. “I thought that was clever.”

  “Another child of insect?” He nodded. “I suppose it was…” He smiled slightly. “It was.”

  The tension was broken between them by his expression, yet now that it was, the many questions that begged to be answered filled the air, practically dripping from the walls with saturation.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked finally. “What do you want?”

  “I-I missed you.”

  “I missed you, too.” Emilia sighed, and he tried not to read too much into her use of the past tense. When he did not respond however, she tried a different tactic.

  “How are Mrs. Levkin and Mr. Shiraz?”

  He rolled his eyes. “As intrusive as ever: meddlesome, interfering, irksome…They send their greetings.”

  Kasper watched her face light up at the familiar insults, and it stoked his bravery enough to make the next move in their conversation.

  “Do you like school?”

  She nodded.

  “Your work?”

  She nodded.

  “Is the money enough? I could give more—”

  “I don’t want your money,” Emilia insisted. “I never did.”

  “Yes.” He sighed and gazed at the floor, feeling a sudden shame that he had even brought up the subject. “I know that.”

  “I know you don’t care about the shelter. Why are you really here?”

  “I-I wanted to make sure you were happy—”

  “You could have answered
any one of my phone calls to do that, my letters or e-mails.” She bit her lip and broke his stare. Not for the first time, it seemed she could not look at him.

  “I didn’t want to ruin your chance at happiness.”

  “Then you wouldn’t have shoved me away in the first place.”

  Kasper shook his head, unwilling, it seemed, to listen. “I should not have come. But I am glad that you have made a good life here, that you are content—”

  Her laugh was outrageous then, not unlike the wild cackling of a mad woman. And Kasper had to admit it scared him in more ways than one. But before he could ask about it, respond in any way, she took control of the situation, spinning to face him with a look of disbelief and horror on her face that he had not expected.

  “Content? How can I be content when the only person I ever loved practically banished me from my home state? You think I’m happy here?” Emilia threw her hands up in exasperation and rolled her eyes. “Yes, okay! Sometimes I am happy here, but it is a happiness forged out of necessity, survival, a do-or-die response—”

  He rushed her then, no longer able to control the lust boiling inside of him—a feeling he had not even entirely been aware of. What was truly marvelous was how she did not argue, letting him take her face in his hands and kiss her with all the passion that had been pent up inside of him for a year. Emilia kissed him back with just as much vigor, inflicting as much of her rage upon him as she could before he pulled away.

  “Forgive me—” He was breathing heavily.

  Emilia tried to make herself breathe, to make the dizziness he had bestowed on her fade. When that didn’t work, she let her anger go instead.

  “No, y-you can’t do that! You can’t come here and mess up what I do have by trying to confuse me! You can’t kiss me and then apologize!”

  “I want you back, Emilia. I feel no remorse for making you go—I had to give you that much of a chance—but my shame for letting it happen under the circumstances it did and not asking for your forgiveness sooner is suffocating me.”

  She scoffed and picked up a teddy bear wearing a Cornell sweater. Kasper could sense her coldness toward him immediately, and it vaguely reminded him of the cold that descended on the dead. Was that the chill he felt now? Would she kill him by crushing his last hope?

  “I can’t tell you—”

  His eyes wandered from her mouth to her fingers while they played with the bear’s ears. What he would have given to be that plaything in her hands…

  “I’ve daydreamed about you coming here and saying that to me for months. B-but like I said before, you don’t get to come here and screw up my routine. Just because we loved each other doesn’t mean you have the right to disrupt my life whenever it suits you.”

  “Emilia—”

  “No!” It was almost ironic the way she threw the teddy bear—such a soft thing with a touch of violence—that the act itself reminded him of Emilia.

  “You don’t get to drop me off and pick me back up whenever you like. I might be a charity to you, but I’m not a hobby.”

  “Of course not.” He gritted his teeth. If Kasper wasn’t careful, he would have to get new facial plates made soon. “You are none of those things to me, and you damn well know it.”

  “I don’t know it,” she mocked. “You might have thought you loved me once, but how am I supposed to trust you? And even if I did, what am I supposed to do, just drop everything and come back to Massachusetts with you?”

  He rolled his eyes and mocked her with the movement of his hands. “Oh, you with your trust, trust, trust! Why must everything rely on your perceived reliably of me? Of what might or might not happen? Why can’t you just know that I love you?”

  Emilia laughed, only unlike her usual laugh, the dryness and bitter tone in this particular laugh made him sad. “Once upon a time, I thought I did know that, but I’ve grown up since we saw each other last—just like you wanted. And as much as I miss you, I’m pretty sure that love isn’t supposed to be what we had.”

  “What we had,” he scoffed, “was the greatest thing of my life.”

  She walked over to the door and opened it for him, standing aside so that he could walk through it. “Then you shouldn’t have thrown it away.”

  Chapter 4

  Ideas and Plans

  The Statler Hotel was at the center of the Cornell campus. And Kasper’s suite overlooked the track and field that was being repainted for the new school year. Kasper watched the maintenance from the large upscale windows as he paced from the bedroom to the seating area and back again. Even if there were some sort reprieve from Emilia, he never would have found it there. With the school colors everywhere, Kasper was reminded of her in lush red and white pillows, and equally lush red and white tulips with the college signet.

  He had been fortunate to give in during the summer season when many parts of the campus were empty, making it significantly easier to secure the suite at the last minute. Yet that seemed to be the only bit of good luck he had experienced in this endeavor.

  He had kissed her! Could he have been any more foolish? More selfish? What had he been thinking? Well, the truth of the matter was that he wasn’t thinking. The moment she began yelling at him and making the mere suggestion that her life had been better when she was with him—because of him—he was reminded of that passion of hers that always seemed to be lying just under the surface, and he could not control himself any longer.

  Kasper returned to the sitting room, slamming the French doors behind him. The phone on the table had been ringing without reprieve, and he had finally had enough.

  “What is it?” he snapped. “I deliberately told you people I was not to be disturbed.”

  “Yes, s-sir,” stuttered the young man on the other end of the phone. “But there’s a woman who keeps calling and is very determined to speak with you.”

  Emilia? Could it be?

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, yes,” he croaked, “put her on.”

  Kasper straightened his tie and corrected his posture as though she could see him through the phone line. When he became aware of what he was doing, he laughed at himself. As if his appearance could be helped.

  “Hello, Mr. von Weber! Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me! This is Elaine Rush, founder and chairwoman for Home at Last. I’m terribly sorry I wasn’t there to meet you today, but—”

  He blinked hard, cursing himself for allowing himself to hope it was his little peach. Of course it would not be…

  “I just wanted to say thank you again and apologize for the behavior of our girls today. I understand there was an incident—”

  “It was of no consequence,” he snapped. “I have grown rather accustomed to it.”

  “Oh, well, that is a shame…” Her voice trailed off, and he heard the sound of a throat clearing. “Again, we are very sorry, and we just want to make sure you know you are welcome at Home at Last anytime…”

  The woman prattled on and on. And normally while Kasper would have rebuked her moronic comments, he still struggled to keep his head above the sea of disappointment and that alone required more effort than he had. Frankly, he was still unsure of whether or not he would drown.

  “Usually we have to hold fundraisers just to keep the lights on and our employees for another fiscal year, but your generous donation will help provide the best environment for the dogs.”

  “I am not interested in your dogs.” He spat out the word like it was poisonous. “I am interested in—” He stopped himself before he said “employees,” thinking only of Emilia and the problems his known affection could bring for her. Regardless, the woman’s rambling had been good for something. She had given him an idea, and now that it was there, it was beginning to snowball into a blizzard master plan.

  ***

  She was still crying when the knock came at the door. But somehow Emilia ran to it faster than Tut. Maybe he had changed his mind! Had seen through her anger to
the love she felt for him at her core? Yet it wasn’t the man she had wanted, and she didn’t bother to hide her disappointment.

  “Oh.” Emilia hastily worked to wipe away her tears. “Hi, Andrew.”

  “Uh—hi?” He hesitated to wave, and Emilia could see how uncomfortable he felt just by the way he thumbed his pockets. “I thought I heard some arguing. Is everything okay?”

  “I’m sorry.” She laughed awkwardly and scooted Tut’s rump away with her foot. “Everything is fine. I was just—talking loudly—with an old friend.”

  “Uh-huh.” He glanced over her shoulder as if expecting to see some chaos brewing. “You sure everything is okay? Do you want me to come in?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Really, I’m good.”

  “Okay. I’m just down the hall—”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’m crashing for the night, so no more noise. I promise.” Emilia sniffled and shut the door slowly, waiting until she heard his steps moving before she let herself cry again.

  How could Kasper do that to her again? Worse yet, how could she let him do that to her again? He had always called her a foolish girl, and she had come to look at it as a term of endearment, but she really was nothing but foolish—naïve and foolish. She thought he had been kind to her once, but what if he had just come down there to torment her? To tease and tantalize her and then laugh at her behind her back?

  She had put herself in one too many vulnerable positions before, vowing not to do it again, only to break those vows. She didn’t know who she was madder at—Kasper or herself. Emilia dried her eyes and got a glass of water. No matter why Kasper was there, Emilia wouldn’t let him hurt her again, wouldn’t even give him the opportunity. Hopefully, she mused, her body would cooperate with her head…

  ***

  Once again, Home at Last was busy with activity when Emilia arrived the next morning. The pounding of hammers and the clamoring of the bell over the door made the headache that had started hours ago that much worse. At least with all the craziness, no one noticed her bloodshot eyes or the dark circles under them. Despite her new resolution, Emilia still had a hard time sleeping and had spent the night doing schoolwork—the constitution of her new goal.