by A. B. Bloom
Connor was leaning against the bonnet of his car. He looked fine in a navy suit that made his bright eyes shine. In his hands, he held two separate roses on satin bands. One was a dazzling yellow he gave to Celeste. “Yellow for friendship.” he told her, and I caught her nodding in response at him. Was everyone acting weird, or was it me?
Into my hand he pressed a rose with petals a colour I'd never seen before. I wouldn't have known they existed. They were a delicate blue, tinged with cream edges. He smiled, his eyes searching mine. His hand lingered on mine. “And blue for you.”
“Which means?” I prompted.
He flashed a wicked grin. “Me.”
I flushed a vibrant red that clashed with the violet of my dress.
“Very pretty.” He chuckled when he saw my embarrassed burn spread along every inch of my skin.
“Shut up.” I retorted and ducked into the back seat of the car. Celeste was more than welcome to ride shotgun. I had a bad feeling about this whole evening. I slunk down on the seat, wishing I’d made my sickness convincing enough so I could’ve stayed at home.
The dance was just as awful as I expected it to be. Not that I had any measure to gauge it against because I’d never made it to a school dance before. Not even back when mum was still here. Was I so awful that I’d never been invited? It played on my mind as I sat and watched other students throw their moves on the dance floor in front of me. For the life of me I couldn’t remember why I hadn’t been to a dance. That was odd, wasn’t it? It felt like the reverse of my dejavu’s. Normally my brain had too much information and couldn’t work out what was real or not. This was the exact opposite—it was just blank.
I closed my eyes and rested my head against the wall; it ached and thudded with the music, vibrating along with the base of the sound system.
This is what it would be like. His hand smoothed into the curve of my spine as he swayed me in time to the band. I glanced at the sky and found a blanket of stars watching down on us.
My eyes flew open. What was that? Was I dreaming in public now? Connor stood in front of me, a flicker of a frown chasing across his face. “It’s time to dance.” He held out his hand and turned on a brilliant smile that erased all traces of the frown. I didn’t want to take it, I wanted to close my eyes and dream again but he looked at me with such sincerity and hope, I felt my resolve weakening.
“Okay. But I assure you I’m a terrible dancer.”
“I'm sure that's not true." He moved his face closer to mine to be heard over the music and his lips grazed my earlobe. "Anyway, it’s a slow song.” His hand tucked me into his side.
“No, it’s not.” I wasn’t sure what it was, terrible that was for sure, but it wasn’t slow. I was about to dispute the fact but the song changed almost on command and the lights dipped low. Connor spun me onto the dance floor and moved alongside me, his arms circling my waist. One hand slid along the small of my back, his palm pressing firmly. He moved with grace and I found him easy to follow—dancing with him wasn't hard at all. Not the awkward movements I was expecting. But it felt all wrong. Any words I wanted to say died on my lips, so I twirled and dipped in silence. With one tight twirl, he pulled me in close, his lips grazing my cheek. I held my breath. I didn’t want him to kiss me. Not because he was horrible or unattractive. In truth, he was neither of those things. I just wasn't feeling it. There were at least a dozen girls, their eyes boring into my back, who would have loved to be dancing with him. Yet I couldn't feel anything, no kindle of excitement, no rush of anticipation.
The hand on the curve of my spine anchored me in tighter, holding me firm. His other hand ran down my naked arm. "Thanks for coming to the dance with me." His warm breath fanned over my skin. Dipping his head, he tilted my chin, forcing me to make eye contact. His voice echoed low and deep, yet it filtered over the music as clear as ringing crystal. "I thought you were trying to make excuses, with the headaches and sick day."
"Mm."
He chuckled and pulled me closer, his chest pressing against me. I could see his intent before he moved, his eyes burned with determination.
His lips brushed mine, gently at first. I held still, my body emitting none of the responses I would have expected. There was no spark of desire as his tongue brushed against my lower lip, seeking entry. My eyes, which had fluttered shut, snapped open. I focused on him and found him watching me. “Did my magic fail? You aren't looking weak at the knees?” he asked. His forehead creased into a frown and his mouth turned down at the corners. I felt truly awful. There were many girls that would have been all too willing.
"One more try, just to make sure." He reeled me back in, his lips quirking with humour.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. . . ” Over his shoulder a flash of black caught my attention. I gave a start, desperate to get to it. I had to chase it. It felt in that moment that I would follow the shape in black to the ends of the earth. Connor’s fingers held onto mine, keeping me in place. “Tara, if you follow that thought, it will take you places you don’t want to go.”
I studied him hard. “What thought? What do you mean?”
He gave me a sad smile. “I’m just trying to protect you.”
The boy in black was walking away, shoulders slumped. No. I had to get to him. It was instinctive. Impulsive. I wouldn’t fight it. I couldn’t fight it. “I’m sorry.” I yanked my hand from Connor’s and chased after the receding black figure.
“Wait,” I called, but he didn’t stop. With a steely set to his pace, and determination lining the curve of his powerful shoulders, he pushed through the glass doors. My feet refused to falter and I chased after him, ditching my heels as I ran out through the damp grass. I knew I was heading back towards the cliff edge, but I couldn’t see which other way he would have gone. My fingers grasped the wooden fence leading down to the coastal footpath. I edged along in the dark, sure that I would find him at the bottom. And I did. My feet sunk into the freezing sand with goodness knows what scratching the soles of my feet. Nothing mattered though, no cuts or scrapes could hold me back
The sea was at his knees, his shoulders tense and high, the churning darkness not seeming to bother him.
“Why do you keep running away?” I edged closer, wading my way through the freezing water.
“Why do you keep following me?” He turned, and the low moon illuminated his skin to a pearly iridescent. He looked so beautiful, it felt as if I was staring at an angel, or some divine creature that shouldn't be on earth.
I shook my head. “I don't know. I can’t help it.”
He sighed loud enough I could hear it over the roll of the dark surf. I continued moving through the water until I was close enough to see the dark leather of his jacket catch the moonlight. The drenched silk of the violet dress wrapped tight around my legs as if it was trying to prevent me reaching him. I ploughed on ahead, holding myself balanced against the waves. “I don’t know what will happen!” he said, his back still turned against me. He seemed to be searching for an answer in the night sky. I glanced up. It was dark and foreboding apart from the waxing wane of the moon.
I stopped behind him. I wanted to place my hand on his shoulder but I held my fingers entwined in front of me, wringing and twisting them with anxiety. The closer I got to him, the more the confusion in my head unravelled.
I watched as he turned for me, his face torn. It made him look like a weeping statue, carved from the finest marble. “I don’t think what they’ve done is right, but . . .” he trailed off.
“But?” My heart raced and thudded in my chest. He was going to tell me what my dad’s secret conversations were about.
His eyes snapped onto my face. The dark murky depths of the night hid the violets in deep shadows, but strangely, I could still feel them burning through me. “Why did you kiss him?”
“Sorry, what?”
“Connor, why did you kiss him?”
“How did you . . ?” I wanted to ask how he knew Connor but I also wanted to clear my name. “
I didn’t kiss him. He kissed me but I told him I wasn't interested.”
“Why?” He pitched forward a little and I found my breath catching in my throat.
"Why, what?"
"Why aren't you interested in him?" I could swear the water stilled around us, waiting for my answer.
“Because.” I breathed out low. “Because I can’t stop thinking about you," I stuttered over the words. "Dreaming about you.”
Under the silver moon his lips flickered at the corners. “Dreams?”
“Yes.” I couldn’t hold it back. The revelations tumbled from my mouth. “Yes, I keep dreaming of you and I meeting, over and over again. Some times they are old, we were on horses, you stopped me from pitching over a cliff. Another time you stopped me from getting hit by a bus.”
His eyes went to a far-off place and then a slow smile lit his face. “Our first meetings are quite dramatic.”
“First meetings?” I took another step through the water until our bodies were flush. It could have been my imagination but the water felt warmer the closer we got.
One of his hands reached for me, and his fingertips traced down my face. “I need you to remember.”
“Remember what?” I wanted to so bad. I didn’t even know what he was asking, but I felt there was an answer there that I desperately needed.
“Try.” He urged. His lips turned down. “How tight they have bound you.” His fingers lingered on my skin, as if he wanted to untie the binds with his touch.
"Who?" I pitched into his arms, I couldn’t resist. They came around me tight and felt so different to the arms Connor had circled around me on the dance floor. This was electric, like he could heal me with the lightest touch, that he could make me whole. It pulled at me, teased me.
Together we were something.
Weren’t we?
Underneath a swaddling of dark layers laid the truth. I fought through the tangled mess until I could see it. See it for what it was. “You belong to me.” I wasn’t hesitant. I knew it like I knew my own name.
“You belong to me.” He agreed.
He was holding something back. “What?” I asked.
“They don’t want us to be together.”
“Who?”
“Everyone.”
My eyes searched his face. “What do we want?”
His hands cupped my face, his nose nudging against mine. He looked at me steady. “I’ll take any punishment for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll die for you, if that’s what it takes.” His words pierced my chest. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“For what?” A tumultuous roll of the waves and the crashing beat of the pulse in my ears drowned my whisper.
“Changing our destiny.”
His lips brushed mine and I inhaled him in. I pulled him close, giving myself into his being as my soul burst free and became one, with his.
My breath tightens in my throat. A pounding bass fills my chest, reverberating and making my bones shake. The music's too loud and I cringe away from it. Then I understand there is no music playing. It's the pounding of my heart as it thuds in my chest I can hear. My legs shake, knees knocking together. Behind me is a force I know I can draw comfort from—strength from. Placed in the small of my back is a hand, and I know I need to trust that hand to save me, because otherwise I will die. I will die and that will be the end of everything. The war, the world, the humans.
Everything.
In front of me is the man I've trusted my whole life. He's betrayed me, fooled me and now he has me and her in his grasp. We will pay with our lives.
"Let me help you," the voice whispers behind me and I wish I had more time to learn that voice. To hear it call my name over and over again, but I don't. Instead, I lean back and I allow him to help me. To save me.
With a jolting gasp, I gagged. My legs gave way as an abyss darker than any I’d ever known pulled me under. White scorching flames had been licking my skin, not just in my mind but also in reality. A low curse cuts through the darkness. “Not again.” Boredom lifted the words and I clung onto them as I tried to fight the encroaching dark. Tried and failed . . .
My eyes opened, blinking up into a jet-black sky. Sat on the sand next to me was the boy in black—except he was no longer the boy in black, he was Nick. My star. I knew him before I knew myself.
My stomach rolled again as my head reeled to make sense of the whirling thoughts. I couldn’t, so instead, I lay there. Nothing made sense. Tara? Bron? Tara? Bron? I thought I was Tara, but the name Bron echoed like a low taunt in the back of my mind. Bron.
"Are you going to be sick again?” he asked, his attention still on the empty sky.
I swallowed a rise of saliva. "Possibly.”
He nodded slowly. “Bron?” At first I didn’t answer. It meant nothing. But then I caught the trail of a thread of memory—it fluttered in my mind like it was a wisp of cloud caught in the wind. I chased it and grabbed it, tugging hard as I unraveled my thoughts and memories.
Slowly, the thread unwound into my memories. My real memories.
I wasn’t Tara. Not at all. I was Bronte. I’d lived in Yorkshire all my life with my mother, my best friend, Lauren, and my stepfather, Aaron. I swallowed another mouthful of bile as I remembered him. Remembered the scorn and hatred in his eyes as he’d faced me and told me he’d been lying my whole life. That he was the hunter intent on killing me.
I rolled in the sand and gagged acid onto the wet surface. “Ugh.”
A hand rubbed along my spine. The thread holding my memories sunk down to the pit of my stomach, where it tugged and pulled in the direction of the boy in black. In the direction of Nick.
I threw up again.
“It’s okay, Bron.” His hand rubbed circles as I shivered. Shuddering spasms wracking my body. “They bound you so tight, it will take time to unravel and find your true memories.”
I tried to feel through the blanks in my mind. There was more, lots more but it spun like a kaleidoscope.
“Who?” I spat extra saliva onto the sand.
This wasn’t my finest moment, but then I couldn't remember what was, so it didn’t matter.
“Can you look at me?” Cool fingers tilted my chin and at first I tried to avert my gaze but the fingers were insistent.
“Nick?” His name crackled in my throat and a sob built. I tried to swallow it down but failed. It tore out of my chest, making a guttural echo across the beach.
“You remember me at last?”
I smiled, but it washed away in salt tears. “What’s going on?” My shoulders shook.
He rocked back on his knees, clasping his hands together. “How far exactly do I have to go back?” He flashed me a grin that lifted my heart. “Do we need to go back to the very beginning? I say hi, you say hi, I might play a few little games and then finally you learn the truth.”
I stared at him in the darkness as my memories slotted into place.
I remembered the first time I’d seen him, when I’d fallen over in the grass. I recalled him making my school believe he was the most popular boy around, when I was the only one who knew he didn’t exist. I remembered the way he made me feel, the connection that flowed between us. I remembered all too well the moment he’d told me what I was.
I swallowed again, but this time I held it together. “I’m a star born. Half a star.”
He smiled, but this time it was endearing and beautiful and everything I could remember. “Praise the moon, she knows who she is.”
“Do you know what we are together?” he asked, his face hidden in shadows.
I focused on my last memories before this charade had begun. The moment when I'd seen Nick's true self, and in turn, found myself. Nick's soul was the most beautiful vibrant violet. In our final moments on the moor, he'd shown me how I looked to him. Surrounding me was a violet pulse of light, which matched his, perfectly. It was one of the same.
“We are fated.” I said. Determined.
He
leaned forward, his nose skimming mine. I wanted him to kiss me, but then I had just been sick. His lips titled before they dashed against mine. “That we are.” His eyes caught mine, shining with the dim moon. “Are you ready to accept your destiny, Bron?”
I didn’t know what my destiny was but I knew I would try and be anything he thought I should be. More questions than I could focus on spun in my head. ‘Yes.”
“That’s good. Because I would very much like my Bron back now.”
“Wait.” He raised his hand to my face but I caught it before it touched my skin. “Why have they done this?”
His expression dropped. “Because they are trying to save you.” A frown creased his forehead.
“Weren’t you always trying to save me?”
He nodded, his expression thoughtful before his eyes snapped on mine. “Yes, but I need you in a selfish way you will never be able to understand.”
My stomach flipped with his words—I didn’t know what he meant, but I could sense the brevity of his tone.
This was a point I would never turn back from.
Together, Nick and I were on a collision course. Celeste, Connor, the Stars, they’d been trying to save me from it. I didn't know if I could be saved. Every way I looked, all I saw was pain. Without Nick, my soul hurt. It pulled me apart, separated me into fragments of myself. If I was myself then the hunter, Aaron, who had pretended to be my stepfather would find me and kill me. But if I wasn't myself, then I wouldn't be with Nick and I didn't know if I could contemplate that as an option.
No, I couldn't.
My eyes searched his face, like a desperate woman looking at the sun one last time. Except I was looking at the last star, not the sun.
Nick had told me before he kissed me in the sea he would die for me. I needed to know why. I needed to see just what I would do for him and the only way I could do that was if I was myself again.
“What are you going to do?” My voice shook like the tremble in my fingers.
“I’m going to give you back your energy.” His hand smoothed against my skin.