by Shelly Crane
I hadn’t thought of it that way. Wow. A heavy helping of guilt swept over me. And I had spent the entire time just trying to get him to accept that they weren’t his family at all, instead of realizing that in essence…he had gained me, but lost his family all in one day. Wow, what a tradeoff…
“I can see your wheels turning.” She shook her head. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. Go to bed. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
“He’ll be here,” Dad said from behind me. I turned to tell him that he texted to say he’d be here in the morning, but who knew if he would show, but from the look on Dad’s face I understood. He wasn’t asking a question. He was telling me that Seth would be here, that he had no doubts.
“How do you know?”
He smiled. “Guarantee you, he’ll be here first thing, sitting in the driveway waiting for you. It’s what I would have done.”
We’ll see. “Night.”
They said their goodnights, too, and I turned the corner, but waited. When I peeked back around I knew what I’d find but their predictability was still endearing. Dad pushing Mom by her stomach to the wall, her tugging him down by his collar. Dad was right—the way he looked at Mom was so different than any other way a man looked at a woman. And Seth looked at me that way. With so much want and requirement in his eyes.
I turned away, scrunching my nose, when Dad when in for the kill shot. He never lasted long before he was completely consumed.
As I lay down, I hoped Daddy was right. I hoped Seth wanted me in all ways, and I hoped it was enough.
_ _ _
“Ava,” someone whispered in my ear.
I turned to find the voice. It had to be Seth. Had to be. “Seth?” I called and found his face right next to mine. I smiled and sat up quickly. “Seth.”
He sat on the edge of my bed and looked as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Before I could ask why, he looked up and took my hand in his. “I told you I’d see you tonight, didn’t I? See, I kept my promise.”
I tried to remember. “Um…”
“It’s okay,” he soothed in his deep voice and scooted closer to me. My knee was up against my chest so it pressed against his as well, our only barrier as he palmed my cheek. “I know you get a reset here. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Reset?” But then I remembered… “The rooftop.”
He looked relieved. “So you remember each visit, each time, just not what goes on in your real life,” he muttered to himself. “Okay, I can work with that.”
“What do you—”
“Listen,” he commanded softly, “there are forces at work against us. This is the only time we have to just be…together. Can we do that, Ava?”
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. “I really like the way you say my name.” I gripped the wrist of the hand gently holding my face and tried to push whatever calm I could muster into my words since I knew my calming touch wouldn’t work here. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I can see that you’re upset. What can I do to help?”
He seemed so confused and…flabbergasted. “So this is what you’d be like if we’d met without all my family drama. This is what you’re like when you’re happy.” His thumb moved against my cheek and my eye lashes fluttered.
“I am happy.”
“You’re not always,” he said in a foreboding tone. “I make you unhappy…in another life.”
“That’s not possible,” I muttered and hated the way his eyes shone with truth.
“I don’t do it on purpose, but some things are out of our control.”
“You wouldn’t hurt me,” I said with conviction.
His lips opened for a few seconds before the words spilled out. “You actually believe that.”
I let that go. “You said before that this was like a dream?” He seemed hesitant. I tilted my head. “What?”
“I need this, little bird.” His thumb moved on my cheekbone again and I actually groaned a little, embarrassingly. “You may not want me or think I care, but I need this more than anything right now. Everything is so screwed up with my family and I… If I explain it, it might all go away. And then I’ll only be with the you that hates but wants me and doesn’t want to.” He brought me an inch closer. “And I want this girl. The one that looks at me like I might be worth the effort.”
My heart was breaking for him. Why would the other me be so cruel? Why would I be the girl that was breaking his heart his way? I had to have a good reason, I would never do that otherwise, but I couldn’t imagine it.
“I like old movies,” I blurted. “And the new slapstick comedies.”
“Okay,” he said with a little smile.
“And the girl who doesn’t give you any slack likes them, too.” He got my meaning. “And she likes hazelnut coffee and blueberry bagels with blueberry cream cheese. And don’t even get her started on fifties and sixties music, particularly Etta James and The Flamingos. You play “I Only Have Eyes For You” and she’ll swoon big time. She likes poetry. She loves Alfredo, but she loves chili-dogs just as much. She loves rocky road ice cream. And she loves her Converse Chucks.”
“Thank you, Ava,” he said sincerely.
“Well, I don’t want you to strike out with her.” I grinned and bit into my bottom lip. “If it helps, let me know and I help you.”
He laughed once. “You’re unreal.”
“Take me somewhere,” I said suddenly.
Before I could think, we were back at the palace terrace. “You said you would give me the tour,” he reminded me.
“I’d love to.”
I took his arm, his warm, strong arm grazing side as we walked into the door leading down into the palace. Since this was a dream, no one should be there, right? I led him down into the gold ball room. He looked around, in awe of the sites.
“Wow,” he finally muttered.
“Yeah, it’s something.”
“It’s incredible.”
“It’s gaudy.”
He grinned. “Someone who has seen it every year of their life would say that.”
“You’ll see it soon enough.”
His gaze jerked to mine. “What do you mean?”
“The reunification is coming in a few months.”
He paused, making me wonder what he was thinking about. “And I’ll be expected at this reunification, right?”
“I would say so. Don’t you want to go?”
“Go to a room full of people who want to kill me?” He smiled. “No thanks, sweetheart.”
“They won’t all want to kill you,” I assured. “Just most of them.”
He laughed. “You’re so funny here. And calm. And…happy. I wish I could keep you here forever.”
“But it’s not really real, is it? We’re real, but not this. This place?”
He grimaced. “No. It’s not real.”
“Don’t you want the real me to be this happy?”
His sigh was harsh. “I’d kill for it.”
“Keep at it. I’ll come around; I know it. There’s no way you can look at me with those eyes and I won’t melt.”
He laughed and stopped dead in front of me, looking down at my face. “It’s kind of not fair. I feel like I’m getting a behind-the-curtains peek of Ava and you’re the tour.”’
“You are getting a tour,” I whispered and leaned closer, getting in his space. “And it’s not fair. But all’s fair in love and war, right?”
“I think whoever said that had never been in love.”
“Obviously,” I quipped.
“Gah, you’re adorable.” He looked at me and smoothed that thumb once more, causing my undoing. “I hope you can forgive me. I just wanted to know you. Just wanted to spend time with you and learn you. Wanted you to see me. Without the glimmer of my family tainting me, without the mirage of the drama. I just wanted us to have our best chance. If that makes me bad, then so be it. It would be worth it to spend this time with you like this.” I felt the breath shudder through me as I list
ened to his words. “With you so happy and unguarded. When you look so free and easy like this, it’s worth almost anything.”
“I’ll forgive you. I have a feeling it may take some coaxing on your part, but I’ll forgive you. Truly. How can I not?” I whispered and stared up, at him with all the awe I felt in my guts. I hoped it shined through. I hoped he understood that I knew he was having a tough time right now, but I knew he was going through to be with me. He was risking everything. He came here, knowing there was a chance that I’d hate him at the end of all this, just so he could get to know me, just so I could get to know him. How could I be upset about that? Look what he was doing for me.
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster into my voice. “Look what you did for me—what you’re doing for me. If she can’t see that? If she can’t see what you’ve gone through to get to know her, to learn all her nooks and crannies? Then she doesn’t deserve you.”
His hand on my cheek smoothed while his face looked down on me in wonder. “Ava, you’re…”
“Come on.” I took his hand from my cheek and held it in mine. “I’ll show you around.” I grinned, feeling cheeky. “You’d totally get lost without me.”
“Good thing you’re here,” he said quietly and let me tug him everywhere, showing him what I deemed important. I showed him the kitchen, the dorm rooms. I took him up to the library and told him the story of how my parents had seen Ashlyn on their visits there, how she led them around in visions and they found out about them keeping her locked up in there. That was why her spirit never rested. That was why she was able to speak to us in the way she was.
He was quiet. I had expected that. It was, again, a strange thing to learn that your family had done something awful when you had expected something different from them.
Then I showed him our names on the wall, just like Dad and Mom had told me they’d be there. I sighed, feeling so many things churning in my guts.
“What are you thinking?” I asked when he was quiet, staring at the wall for so long. “I know I won’t remember tomorrow, but I still want to know.”
He let a breath loose, the kind that held agony that was too much for your body to handle.
“I can’t believe our names are on this wall. Right here, together, years ago, by the Visionary of our race, for all to see that would just open their eyes and look.” He scoffed softly. “I just can’t believe that it’s actually here. The one situation in my life I didn’t need any proof of and I have more than enough.” He turned to look at me in the dark of the barely lit room. “What do you think this means? Our names up here on this wall together like that?”
“Ashlyn told Mom that it meant we were going to be on the council together one day. That we were…special, going to change things.”
His hand reached up to touch his name first and then my name. He made that soft scoffing noise again and it was so endearingly sexy. “Me? A council member of the Virtuoso? Yeah right,” he muttered under his breath.
“She also said that we’d find you again one day.” He looked over. Blue collided with brown.
His hand slid slowly from the wall to his side as he came toward me. I knew this would be different than the other times. I moved backward until I felt the wall at my back, which wound up only being a couple of steps. I somehow knew I’d need it for support. He stalked right up until his nose was touching my cheek. I sucked in an intoxicating breath, pleasure spiking in my veins. Whether the calm of his touch was there or not, it was pleasure nonetheless.
“And are you pleased, Ava?” his gravelly voice asked. My hand reached out, pressing a palm to his chest. Not to keep him away, but just to touch him. My breaths were ragged as I chased them. “Can you say you’re happy with the outcome of finding me?”
He was trying to goad me. He was angry again, with himself, with the situation, with his family, with mine. He wanted me to say that I didn’t know or…I wasn’t really sure what he wanted me to say. But I was sure that he wanted a fight.
“I only wish we’d found you sooner,” I said honestly. Softly. Gently. I closed my eyes and tried to remember my parents that day. They left me there with Nana and Grammy. They came back and I remembered Mom being so upset, even all these years later. I remember finding the drawing in Dad’s pocket and talking to Ashlyn about it. I didn’t remember it until Dad and Mom said Ashlyn had something to do with it. But now I remembered… It was his. They’d found it at the compound and Mom had been distraught over not getting to him in time.
“Open your eyes, Ave,” he commanded just as softly, and when I did, he was no longer angry. No, we were reaching the other end of the spectrum. And it was just as scary in my opinion.
“Ave?”
His mouth quirked on the side. “I’m trying it out. You like?” I opened my mouth to tell him that I wouldn’t remember tomorrow, but he cut me off. “I’ll surprise you with it tomorrow if you like it.” I found myself smiling up at him. He was so tall that I had to crane my neck, but he bent his head to see me, so we would be close.
I nodded. “My dad calls me that sometimes.”
His smile was small, but he said, “I’ll keep surprising you with these things, these pieces of you that I’ve discovered… until you can’t help but see that I’m here for you most of all.”
“Most of all,” I mused. “As opposed to?”
“The other you thinks I choose my family over you.”
“Do you?” I asked, my voice betraying me.
He swallowed, his hand coming up to rub my elbow. “I don’t try to.” He squinted. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
I tried to think back, pushed my mind and tried to remember. “Um…I don’t…I just remember you.” I squinted, looking around. “Why can’t I remember?”
“Okay,” he calmed. “It’s okay. You get a reset. Remember?” He gulped again, looking so guilty. I took his shirt in my fist and tugged it a little. “I did this to you. I shouldn’t come back—”
“No.”
“You’re only saying that ‘cause I brought you here and you’re happy now. But it’s…” He looked in my eyes and I saw it. He was about to take it all away. “It’s not right.” He sighed harshly and angrily. He leaned away, taking my fingers from his shirt and turned away. “It’s not right, Ava, and I know I’ll probably lose you, but I can’t do this to you—”
“No!” He turned back and looked startled at my outburst. “Don’t you dare give up on me.” My words did something to him.
“Give up on you? No, that’s not what—”
“Then what do you call it?” I pushed away from the wall and came right up to his chest, looking up at him, craning my neck high to see the boy who literally held my heart. “I want you to come here every night and fight.” I found my chin quivering and realized how true those words were. If what he said was true about what was going on when I was awake, then my dream of finding my significant and living happily ever after was crumbling. “I want you to fight for me.”
He groaned and took my face in his hands, smoothing my cheeks with his thumbs as he put his forehead to mine. “Ah, Ava. How could you think for a second that I would just let you go? Of course I’m going to fight for you. I just…” He leaned back a little so I could see his face. “Do you think you’ll forgive me for this? Is it too much? Too far? I never wanted to hurt you. I just wanted to be with you.”
I thought honestly about it. If Seth came and told me what he’d done, would I be able to forgive him. It was all for love. I was here. It wasn’t an invasion of privacy because I was here. I was here the entire time, giving him permission. It wasn’t like he was poking around in my head when I was asleep. He was here with me.
I smiled. “Fight for me, Seth.”
He sighed in such a relieved way and pressed his lips to my forehead. “Thank God. I don’t know what I would have done without having this time with you.”
“Are you sleeping?” I ask
ed, my eyes closed, my breath speeding up.
“Not fully, it’s not deep, but I’ll sleep later.” He kissed my forehead and I blew out a quiet breath. “It’s worth all the missed sleep in the world to see you every night.”
“So you’ll come? Every night?” I asked hopefully, twisting my fists into his shirt further even as I twisted my soul into his.
“If you’ll allow me.”
I opened my eyes, finding him close, and couldn’t stop my grin. “I can show you so many places.”
“And I can show you a few, too. You’re really truly with this?”
He chuckled. “Truly. I’d miss you if you weren’t here.” His breath was loud. “And I’d know,” I assured him. “I know you think it wouldn’t matter, but I’d know that you weren’t here. Trust me; this is right. I have a feeling that I might remember all this one day or…maybe something will come of it. But even if I didn’t, just being here with you like this is enough for now. Please don’t take that away from me.”
“I won’t,” he promised in a rumble and swiped a palm down my arm. “Not with you looking at me like that.”
I felt my face burn hot, but couldn’t turn away from him as he watched me.
“How can you do this? The dreams?”
“I’ve been able to do them since I was a boy.” He took my hand and played with my fingers between us. “I don’t really know how. I shouldn’t be able to. I haven’t ascended yet. My Uncle Sikes was an echoling, but I never met him. He died before I was before I was…brought into the family.”
“I remember my parents talking about him.”
“Only one member of the family can have the same gift at the same time, right?” I nodded. “He died somehow…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I wasn’t born Virtuoso—unless somehow someone in my family was. I was eight when I had my first echo dream.”
“Does your family know you can do it?”
“No,” he answered quickly and looked down at me. “Honestly?” I nodded. “I would never tell the other you this, but I’m scared to tell my family that I can do it. Because I’m afraid that they’ll make me do things that I don’t want to do.”