“Take it back! Now!” I tried to rub it away from my mind. He’d see that. He’d see it and it would be exactly what he’d want for me.
“Baby, I can’t take it back.” He touched his chest. “It’s how I feel.”
“No, no, uh-uh.” I waved my hands around, blinded by tears. “Nope. Nup. You don’t. That’s not right.”
“Ara?” He walked toward me, primed to steady the crazy beast.
“Don’t come near me.” I shoved him really hard and took a few steps back when he didn’t even shift an inch.
“Okay. I can see you’re a little upset, so I’m gonna just”—he motioned to the table—“I’m just gonna sit. Okay?”
I stood there hugging myself tightly, my cheeks wet with tears.
As soon as Mike sunk into the seat, he breathed out profanity and dropped his head against his hand.
“Please tell me you don’t mean it?” I could feel my world falling apart—all the indecision about David coming to rest before the mirror of Fate—telling me now in clear bold print what I was ‘meant’ to do. “Please tell me you just feel bad for me because my mom died.”
“That’s what you think this is?” He stood up again. “A pity party?”
I nodded.
He went to reach for me but stopped and swiped a hand across his nose. “Is that what you want it to be?”
“I…” I folded over a little, feeling myself die. “Please just take it back, Mike. You can tell me again later but I need more time.”
“Why?” His voice broke.
“It’s… you just don’t know what you’re doing right now.”
He took a quick stride toward me and wrapped me in his arms. “Baby.”
I sobbed a snotty mess of heartache into his shirt, making it wet as he just held me with an almost delicate touch.
“I’m so sorry. I know it’s a bit—”
“No.” I shook my head. “Just stop talking. Don’t make this any worse.”
“It’s okay, baby. It’s really okay.” He laughed.
“No, it’s not. Nothing is, and it’s never going to be okay again.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked in a gentle tone.
“Mom’s dead, Mike, okay? And you can’t make it better by telling me you love me. It doesn’t work like that.”
He laughed. “Even if it could change the past, that isn’t something I’d lie about. Come on, you know me better than that.”
“No.” I wiped the tears from my face with the back of my hand. “You’re confused.”
“Ara?” Mike started again.
“No!” I took short, quick breaths, holding my hands over my ears.
“Will you just listen?” he said.
“No.” I could feel Fate taking a step closer to me every time he opened his mouth, swathing me in the cloth of mortality. David was once the glue that held me together, but when he saw this—saw this memory—he would bind me to Mike with unyielding force. I’d be given no choice. I would have no way to find him again, no way to reverse his decision. I’d never see him again.
“Amara, calm down.” He pulled my hands away from my ears. “Please listen. You never—that night—you never let me explain it to you. We were trying to make the transition from childhood friends to something so much more; something I was afraid you weren’t ready for. God!” His arms tightened around my body, almost completely consuming my shape in a snug cloud of safety. “I have never been able to forgive myself for that.”
“Forgive yourself? Mike! It was me—”
“No, it was my fault. I wanted you. I wanted you so damn bad, but...” He rolled my face upward, his eyes so wide I could almost crawl inside them. “You ran away; you thought I was mad at you for kissing me, but I wasn’t. I was mad at you for waiting until you were drunk to do it. Ara, you know I don’t mess around with intoxicated girls; it’s wrong. And when I told you no, you got so upset, I just didn’t know what to do and I let the ball drop.”
“Why are you telling me this now?” It came out as a whisper, perhaps less. “Why not then?”
“I chased after you. I searched the streets for an hour. I called your house, no one answered. Then… I got the call from a mate at the station.”
And we both knew the ending to that story.
He wiped the tears from my face and kissed my brow.
I could feel my hands shaking again as blood came back into my limbs and, slowly, I let myself accept what he was telling me, because I had always wanted him to love me and I needed him so badly right now. If David was going to be gone anyway, I just needed Mike to keep me sane through that.
But I knew what accepting this meant: David was supposed to sneak into my room every night for two more weeks, but this would be our last. “Why didn’t you tell me before I left Perth then?”
“I tried. You wouldn’t see me, remember?”
“Then why not on the phone—after I left?”
“Why? So you could feel worse, or so I could feel worse? I couldn’t come to you, Ara. It’s been killing me, I”—he dropped his head into his palm and closed his eyes—“I don’t sleep anymore. I play it over in my mind all the time—the things we should’ve done that night.”
“Things you said no to.”
“You know why I said I no.” He gently clutched the base of my jaw in his hand. “I just didn’t want you to have regrets in the morning. I knew I wouldn’t. I knew how I felt about you, but I had no idea you felt the same.”
I wanted to look away from his penetrating stare, the way his eyes seemed to read mine, but he held my chin and forced me to keep looking at him.
“I’d been watching you for months,” he continued, “just waiting for you to realize this wasn’t just a friendship for me and then, that night, you took me by surprise. I didn’t know how to tell you what I really felt, and I was so afraid if I did, and you were just confused because you’d been drinking, that it’d ruin our friendship forever. It was just one stupid misunderstanding, and I lost you. Lost everything.” Mike smoothed my tear-soaked hair from my temples and along my chin. “Ara, I don’t know why you’re so upset, baby. It’s not the end of the world if I love you.”
“But it is!” I pushed his arms off me. “It is for me. You don’t get it. You don’t know what this means.”
“I do, baby. I get it. Your mom and Harry died becau—”
“No! It’s not that. You’re not even close. God, you don’t know anything about my life.” I turned away, seeing him take a step toward me as I fled the room, but he stayed where I left him.
I burst through my door and slammed it shut with my foot before collapsing into a pair of strong, cool arms. Salty pools distorted the face of my vampire, spilling past my lashes as I blinked away my disbelief.
“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at work.” I needed more time to bury this argument from his view before I saw him—somewhere deep in the darkest corner of my mind.
“I felt…” He touched his chest. “I felt something shift.”
“Shift?” I wiped my face.
“I think it was you.” He wrapped me up safely in his arms. “What is it, my love? What happened?”
“I’m not ready to lose you,” I blubbered. “I can’t go with you. I just can’t, and I wish I could, but I’m never going to be happy if I become a vampire.”
“Ara, what are you talking about?”
“I needed this time. I needed our last two weeks.”
“Don’t cry.” His voice was liquid with worry. “It’s okay. Everything will be okay.”
I shook my head, sniffling. “No… it’s over… it… I—”
“What are you talking about, Ara?”
I tried to speak, but even my thoughts wouldn’t form the truth for him to see; the truth that Fate itself—a higher power, maybe even the lingering spirit of my mother—wanted me to be human. I was ‘meant’ to be human. I knew what I had to do and, worse, it’s what I wanted to do. I just wanted human David—for eve
r and always—but if I couldn’t have that then I wanted to be with Mike, and I just didn’t know how to tell him that. I didn’t know how to make him see that it didn’t change the way I loved him.
He looked at me for a long moment, obviously trying to find a thought among the mess of confusion in my mind. “Just cry, sweetheart.” He kissed the crown of my head then swept me up in his arms and carried me to the bed. “I’ll be here. I’ll hold you until you fall asleep.”
I settled against his chest and even though he had no heartbeat to show his emotions, I could feel the pain my every thought inflicted on him; feel his body stiffen every time I saw Mike’s face in my mind; feel the thorn through his soul with every beat of my heart that wasn’t for him.
But he stayed with me, loved me a while longer as my heart tore itself apart and shattered in two: one piece for David, and one for Mike—who really owned that part of me all along.
And as the sky turned dark, I drifted toward a deep, exhausted sleep. Images I had no control over flashed in downward scrolls like an old film before my eyes—the movie jagged, cut and crudely stuck together in an incomprehensible storyline. The color was gone, leaving only grayed hues through an unfocused lens. I couldn’t change them or shape them; it was like a dream, but I wasn’t sure I was sleeping.
Faceless strangers stared as I passed each row of seats. I held my bouquet closer to my heart, protecting what was within, because they could all see the red rose sitting in contrast to the white flowers surrounding it—the only color in this gray little world. I could feel their curiosity, hear their whispers, but no one would understand. So I held my head high and walked on, each step taking a lifetime, as if I was being slowed by a force unseen.
At the end of the aisle, where the light touched the lip of the steps, a tall man stood waiting; hands behind his back, eyes watching, face shadowed by the darkness of this never-ending walk. The light around him faded more each step I took, the dull, lifeless toll of church bells ringing somewhere out there in the world beyond my future. As I finally reached his side, my red blossom wilted, tar seeping up its veins and soaking away the color around the shrinking petals until, finally, they fell like black snow toward my ruby slippers.
David and I held our breath in the real world, watching the petals leave their life behind, decaying into ash.
“See, you don’t need it anymore,” the man said.
“Don’t need what?”
He nodded toward the ash. “Life.”
I looked up into his proud eyes and held my breath. It was time. It had to be now or never. “You’re wrong,” I said, placing the remains of the pale bouquet in his hand. “That’s not what it means.”
“What does it mean, then?”
“It means”—I slowly drew a breath, hesitating on the preface of his destruction—“that I don’t need you anymore.”
His eyes brimmed with liquid, the green appearing as a vibrant color among the grays of this world.
“I have to go,” I said in a whisper.
“Where are you going?”
I reached behind me and took the firm, strong hand that grabbed mine. “To live.”
He seemed to own no comprehension at first, but as my mind woke a little with the feel of cool arms coming away from my body, I saw his eyes move through realization to deep sadness. He nodded, taking slow steps backward; his elbows, his arms, his waist tapering into the darkness until, finally, the shadows consumed him.
“I’m sorry, David,” I said, knowing what would come next.
A lifetime seemed to pass before the ground quivered beneath my feet, the ashes around my ruby slippers rising into the air, floating like dust particles in a smoky cloud. And inch-by-inch the ground crumbled toward me, narrowing in my little world. I felt for Mike’s hand, turning to look back at the emptiness of my own faults. But he was gone. The only thing out there was Fate; I could hear Her laughing, could feel Her eyes on me, watching on as the ground came away completely and empty air wrapped my form, dragging me down in an eternal fall toward the darkness of mortality.
Gasping, I jolted awake, grabbing the edges of my blanket. I looked behind me, under me, beside me. But David was gone. He’d seen the dream—the entire thing.
“What have I done?”
The clock in the hall ticked loudly, each second timing the beat of my heart and bringing the rise of realization a little closer to the surface:
Mortality.
Death.
Life.
Mike.
I was meant to be human with Mike, and David finally got his answer in the worst, most heartbreaking way possible.
Exhaustion made me flop back down on my pillow, and as my hand fell beside my face, something cool and smooth touched my fingertips, filling my senses with the floral perfume of roses.
“Morning, sleeping beauty.” Mike leaned against the doorframe with a tray in his hands.
Sound suddenly came rushing back to my ears. “Morning? How long was I out for?”
“All night.” He shrugged and walked into my room. “You cried for a long time at first, then you went quiet. I came to check on you, but you were asleep.” He set the tray down on the bed beside my legs, bringing the smell of toast in behind him. “Still your favorite flower?” He nodded toward the rose.
“You left this?” I picked it up, being careful of the thorns on the stem.
“Who else?”
“I don’t know.” I sniffed its sweet, soft scent, fading as the autumn destroyed everything that was once beautiful in the summer. He had no idea how symbolic this was right now—of many things.
Mike sat beside me, moving the tray onto my lap. “Are you okay, Ara?”
“Not really. I just can’t believe it, Mike. All this time I thought I was wrong. I thought I misread everything between us.” I put the rose down. “I need to know: is this how you really feel, or is it guilt?”
Mike grinned and looked down, rubbing the back of his neck. “Will it matter? You love David.”
I frowned at him.
“I heard you talking in your sleep,” he said sheepishly.
“Really?” Was there no privacy in this world?
“Okay. I’m just gonna throw it out there, and you can do with it what you want.” He turned his body to face me, then took both of my hands. “I am in love with you, Ara-Rose. You were never wrong about that. You never misread anything, okay? I love you.” He squeezed my hands on each of his end words. “I’m a complete moron, and I’m so bloody sorry for that. But I loved you before your mom died, so I’m pretty damn sure it’s not guilt, baby.”
“I…” His words soaked through me. “I can’t respond yet, Mike. I need to think.”
“I know.” He nodded. “So, for now, your dad has arranged for you to have a few days off school if you want. He said he should’ve given you more time before sending you back in the first place. You weren’t ready.”
I nodded in agreement. Back home, I never took a day off. Not for anything. And now, I’d had more time off since I moved here than I had in my entire life. “I’d like that. Some time to think would be nice.”
“Good.” He winked at me and smiled, but it faded quickly, leaving the serious Mike behind again. “Your dad loves you, you know. He was worried about you last night.”
“What did you tell him—about why I was crying?”
“Everything.”
“Everything?”
“Yeah, I told him everything.”
“You what!” I jolted forward, nearly sending the breakfast tray flying. “Mike, how could you?”
“Ara.” He pulled my hand away from my mouth. “I know you didn’t want him to know what happened the night your mom died, but he’s your dad and he loves you—no matter what.”
I shook my head. “Not now that he knows she died because of me, I—”
“Ara. Don’t say that.” He grabbed my arms firmly and pulled me over the tray on my lap for a short hug. “I’m the loser that turned you down. I�
�m the one to blame. Not you.”
I gently shook my head, calling on the strength I’d grown since meeting David, trying to believe my next words. It was one thing to blame myself, but I couldn’t let Mike live with that blame.
“It was no one’s fault, Mike. I guess it’s natural to look for someone to blame, but neither of us intended that to happen. We should both stop blaming ourselves.”
He smiled, and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Your dad was heartbroken when I told him you were carrying the blame. He hadn’t even guessed it, you know. He’s been so worried about you, and when I told him you felt responsible for what happened to your mom, he was actually relieved that that’s all it was. He doesn’t hate you, baby, he can’t hate you. He loves you too much. That’s why he let you have a few days off—to be with me.”
“He likes you,” I noted begrudgingly.
“He’s an excellent judge of character.” Mike grinned. I smiled back. I couldn’t resist it. He just had this presence about him that sometimes excluded people from his inner circle of love, but when he smiled like that, it meant you belonged.
“I can’t believe you told him about us,” I said. “I yelled at him, you know—when he accused me of loving you.”
“Is that such a bad accusation?” Mike asked, a little insulted.
“It’s not true.” I smiled.
“Ouch.” He laughed, and then leaned over with his face right up close to mine. “So? What do you want to do today?”
“Honestly?” I unfolded my arms. “I think I’d like to just sit around and watch movies.”
“I thought you’d say that. But I get to hold the popcorn.”
“No way! You always do.”
“I’ll fight you for it.” He tickled my ribs.
“Stop it!” I giggled, wriggling about, trying to pull his hand away without knocking the tray.
“Make me.”
“Mike!” I squealed. “Stop it or I’ll wet myself.”
“Stopping.” He raised his hands above his head and sat back.
“Ha!” I said. “Works every time.”
* * *
My thoughts tuned back in to the conversation at dinner and my food art sighed at me, wishing I could eat it. I hadn’t spoken much, or eaten much since the little conversation with Mike this morning, and strangely, I wasn’t even hungry. At all.
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