“I knew you’d find me eventually,” I said softly, because I’d never lost faith in him. And I didn’t lose faith in David, either. That faith was ripped from me, killed, illuminated by the truth that I just wasn’t important enough to him.
“If you could only feel what I felt when I saw you there,” Mike added, eyes lost to the memory. “I wasn’t disgusted, like you seem to think, princess. I was overjoyed. And I promise you no one saw your body, except for Emily; she was right beside me the whole time.” When he looked back unexpectedly, I nearly jumped out of my skin. “I covered you with my jacket,” he continued, “and checked every square inch of your body to make sure I wouldn’t break you more if I moved you. And I know you didn’t want me to see you like that, but I never looked at anything in that way. I was just so happy to find you still breathing. All I saw was the girl I’m in love with, and the only memory I’ve taken with me from that night is the way you looked up suddenly, so scared, and then smiled when you saw me.” He squeezed my hand, meshing his lips together as his tears entered his mouth. “You closed your eyes then, and I thought that was the last time I’d ever see the blue.”
An audible sob escaped my throat.
Mike gathered me into his chest, tighter than ever before, and I felt nauseated for feeling gratitude toward Jason for not doing as he’d threatened. But the sick feeling welled up into a circle of anger within me, making my fists clench behind Mike’s back. I closed my eyes tight and made a promise to myself that, one day—I didn’t know when or how—but one day, I would make Jason pay for what he did to me.
Mike leaned out from our embrace and looked at my lips, then my eyes, stroking my hair off my brow. “Is this why you won’t see Emily—because she was there with me?”
I nodded, looking down.
Mike took a really long breath, letting it out slowly. “You know, she needs to see you. She blames herself for not chasing after you when she saw you walk away with that man.”
“Really?”
“Yes. She cries every time I see her, and there’s nothing I can do to console her.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Then will you please just see her? She loves you, just the same as we all do.”
“But she saw, Mike. I can’t help how I feel.”
“Oh, baby. Please don’t be like that. Emily’s your friend, and she’s a girl. I’m sure she’s seen it all before.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I know. But I’m just trying to get you to understand how little any of that means when, in the greater scheme of things, we thought we’d find you dead—or much much worse.”
I wedged the tongue of stubbornness into my cheek and shook my head.
“Ara. Emily’s not to blame. You can’t hide from this, and you won’t make yourself feel better by punishing her.”
“I’m not punishing her, Mike.”
“Then stop punishing yourself. I know you miss her. I know you want to see her.”
My shoulders dropped as I let out all the tension I was holding on to. It was time to move on, I decided. And this was the first real step. “Fine. She can come for a visit then.”
Mike let out a quick huff of relief. “Really?”
“Yes. If you shut up.”
“Shutting up.” He kissed my lips, pinching my cheeks between his hands. “I’m gonna go call her, okay?”
I nodded and fell against my pillows as he backed away and closed the door. It only felt like ten minutes passed before Sam popped his head around the corner and said, “Emily’s here.”
I put my book down and pressed my hands into the mattress until I was sitting up properly, my arms and hands still very stiff from months without use. “Send her in.”
“You sure, sis?” Sam asked, slightly closing himself in the room with me. “Because, I know Mike kinda pushed you into this.”
I smiled at Sam. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
He nodded, then signaled into the corridor.
Emily, with her hands clasped in front of her, walked very slowly into my room and smiled.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi.” As soon as the word left her lips she spun around to close my door, and then she just stood there with her forehead against it.
“Em?”
“I’m okay.” She nodded, exhaling.
“What’s wrong?”
“I… I have rules. Things I’m not allowed to say, but—”
I waited, allowing her to pull herself together.
“I just don’t know what to say. I’m so… so sorry.” She turned to face me then, tears raining over her crossed arms, past her elbows and onto the carpet. “It’s my fault. I should have—”
“Em. Don’t. Okay?” I held a hand up. “Just don’t. Say. Anything about it.”
After a moment, she sighed. “Okay.”
“Thanks.” I opened my eyes.
“We’ll just talk about the weather then.” She smiled a weak smile, then sat beside me on the bed.
“That’s what I need.”
And we did talk about the weather—the past, the present, the future weather. The coming spring, the wild winter, and I know a few times Emily wondered if I was talking in code, referring to David as the rain, the sadness, or talking about the attack when I spoke of the storms. And who knows, maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. But it was nice to just talk for no other reason than to exchange words in the company of someone you’d come to love.
By the time Dad told Emily to ‘let me rest’, I had formed a real smile at least twice and had managed to forget about the attack for a while.
“Em?” I said as she left.
“Yeah?”
“Can you come back tomorrow?”
She pressed her lips into a tight line, nodding, then closed the door before I heard her burst into tears on the other side.
* * *
Rising from my first dreamless slumber since I woke from my nightmare, I drew a deep breath and extended my limbs into a careful stretch, waking the rest of my body. But as my toes curled and my ankles rolled, I had to stop and wait, listening carefully to what my bones were saying. Strangely, it didn’t hurt. At all. I stretched my legs out again and… yep, it didn’t hurt.
When I pushed my covers back, the morning cold felt as if it were only cold—no sharp pins—which allowed me a small moment of appreciation for the beautiful winter that had set in deep while I was in a coma. It had been a shock to my nerves when I felt the sting of the frost on that first day they brought me home. But I was beginning to like the way winter made everything feel closed in and off limits, as if I could hide out here forever and never be disturbed.
“Hey? Good morning. I didn’t know you were awake,” Mike chimed, leaning on my doorframe.
“I’ve been awake for the last three weeks, Mike.”
“You know what I mean.” He looked rested today; his hair was still wet from a shower and the smell of his fresh, powder-scented cologne filled my room, making me feel normal.
“Yeah, I know. I was joking around with you.” I sat up in my bed.
“Joking?” He nodded, pursing his lips in consideration. “That’s a good sign.”
“So is general conversation.” I waited, expecting him to chuckle. “You know, ’cause dead people don’t talk.”
“Oh. Ha!” He laughed once. “Sorry, I’m not used to the lame joke game anymore.”
I shrunk a little. I wasn’t playing the lame joke game. I was actually attempting to be funny.
“Something wrong, kid?” Mike dropped his folded arms and moved to sit beside me.
“Nah, I’ve just been doing some thinking.”
“What about?”
“Stuff.”
“David?”
I didn’t mean to, but I stiffened all over. “Maybe.”
“Ara…” He paused, seemingly assessing his words. “I love you. And I’m your best friend. I always will be. But I’m not stupid and I’m not blind. I know… things…
and I know that he—”
“He’s not what you think he is, Mike.” I cleared my throat, sorting out a response in my head. “You might think you’ve pieced it all together, but you’re wrong.”
His eyes narrowed. “I know you’re upset that he left you, but I don’t think I’m wrong about him. I really do think he loves you and he’s just trying to do the right thing by you.”
Cold shock washed through me. “That’s what you think?”
He frowned. “What did you think I thought?”
That he was a vampire. But that was crazy. How would anyone come to that conclusion? “Oh, um… I thought you might’ve thought he was a jerk, you know, for leaving again.”
Mike shook his head. “No, baby. Not at all. I mean, I… in the hospital, I saw the way he loved you. It was undeniable. And I don’t know what happened between you two, maybe you’ll never tell me, but you need to know that although that part of your life is over now, I’m still here. It’s unfortunate that you fell in love with another man when I dropped the ball, and that’s something both of us will always have to live with now, but you still have a chance to be happy.”
“I’m not sure I’m capable of that anymore, Mike.”
He nodded. “What if I could promise that you are? What if I could guarantee that you will one day find a reason to smile? Would you believe me—at least start wanting to be happy again?”
“I…” I frowned to myself. “I do want to be happy.”
He went to shake his head, but stopped and exhaled. “Only you know the truth of that, Ar.”
He was right. I’d been pretending to want to be happy, because that’s what you were supposed to be. But, deep down, I didn’t want to be, because being happy meant moving on from David, and moving on meant that I didn’t love him.
“But I’m not giving up on you,” Mike said. “Not ever. I don’t care what you say to me, or do to make me mad or hurt, I love you, and I’m not giving up on you.”
My eyes watered. “What if I asked you to go?”
He didn’t even answer. We both already knew the answer. But I wondered if he’d stay if he knew the real reason I was attacked: that I’d let a vampire into my life, then followed one to my own detriment. And I wondered how he would feel to know that the core of my sadness was not because I was attacked, but because of David; because he was gone and because time, death, and tears hadn’t changed what I meant to him and wouldn’t, couldn’t make him stay.
But Mike had stayed, even though everything he worked for back in Australia had fallen apart, and he would always stay, no matter what; if I was human, if I was weak and frail, even if I asked him to go.
And that was more than I could say for David.
“You’re a good man, Mike.” My head rocked from side to side. “And for what it’s worth, I’m glad I’m marrying you.”
His frown softened and a broad smile spread across his face, like the light touching the earth at sunrise. “Then… you still wanna get married?”
“Of course I do, dummy.” I slapped his arm. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“I just thought… with the whole near-death experience and all, you know, people change from those things, Ara. I didn’t know if you’d want the same things anymore.”
“And you stayed? Even though you weren’t sure?” Admiration crinkled across my nose.
His eyes narrowed in confusion. “Ara. I’m in this for life. Whether you marry me or not, I will always be here to love you and be your friend. That will never change. Never.”
And it really only sunk in right then that I had missed this: all along I’d been looking across the road to the boy I thought I loved, when I should’ve been looking right beside me. This was my savior; this was my knight in shining armor. He always had and always would come to my rescue.
“Good,” I said. “Because I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
He leaned down and his warm, velvet smile melted onto my lips. It was the first kiss. My first kiss in my new life. I’d been given the chance to start over—cleansed of all the mistakes of my past. The hourglass had rocked and the balance tipped in reverse, but everything was back in place and, today, I began a new journey with the man I was supposed to be with. We would go on—live, as living was intended—and I would love him for forever. For our forever, because they’d always been the same.
36
True love, by definition, means “someone that is truly loved.”
By the Dictionary of Ara, true love means you could not live without that person. That the love you feel for them is as honest and deep as the love they feel for you; a soul mate; a perfect match.
David was my soul mate, but Mike is my perfect match. They were like two parts that completed one whole: me. But since I could only have one in my life, I was going to make damn sure it didn’t leave. Which is why I agreed to marry Mike today.
With my hand over my belly, I tried to settle the feeling there—like a swarm of black bats had assembled in my gut and bludgeoned the ogre to death—but I couldn’t make myself calm because, in truth, I wasn’t ready for this. Dad wouldn’t let me go back to Perth with Mike unless we were married first, so I had no choice but to move the wedding up a few years. I just needed to go home, away from everything that reminded me of… everything.
Now, standing in front of the full-length oval mirror, with golden light spreading its warm beams of morning over my bedroom floor, I let time pass around me, unable to control it or make good use of it; just existing as a part of its greater plan.
After a while, I reached across and tilted the mirror’s frame, changing the image to the plain white of the roof. I couldn’t look at the reflection staring back at me today; she was error beautified by justification: a young girl who was doing what was expected of her, not what her heart wanted. I loved Mike, I really did, but the quiet prelude to the tempest had me wondering if I was doing the right thing; if marrying one man when I was still in love with another would, perhaps, destroy not just my life, but Mike’s as well.
Behind me, in the near-empty room, my bed was gone and the spongy white carpet dominated the space. A new daybed in the corner had become a shelf for all things bridal, except the bouquets, which were lined up on the hall-stand beside the window. It might not have been my room anymore, but it still felt like my room, except that, like me, it was changed beyond recognition. My face, my hands, everything was polished and shined, shaped and fashioned to look like the bride standing by the mirror in her wedding dress. The swirling vortex of time had swept everything up, and I was next—destined to leave everyone behind.
But that was always my destiny, wasn’t it? And one day soon, I was sure it would carry me away from Mike.
Just… not today.
Outside my window, the familiar chatter of a little bluebird formed the soundtrack to my faraway thoughts. I snapped from my reverie, tilted the mirror back down and watched the bird dancing happily in the reflection, as if life just went on. So simple. That’s it: eat, sing, dance and play.
I wished I were a bluebird. That it could be that easy. But life was not a novel and people didn’t really get happy endings. I finally understood all the negative philosophical one-liners this town loved so much. They were phrases invented by smart people, who knew life wasn’t made of dreams, even though it sometimes felt like one.
David said it best, though: “All dreams eventually die.”
We’re not the leading ladies of our own illusory films. This is life and we are real. The time had come for me to grow up, and if I couldn’t live the life I wanted, I had to at least live the lie.
I took a wispy breath and felt my heart flutter as I pushed David’s face away from my mind. I couldn’t have any thoughts of him today or I’d fall to pieces.
There is, and never was, a David Knight.
He died in nineteen thirteen when his uncle bit him and turned him into a vampire. He never loved me, never promised me eternity—never existed. I was moving on, as he did, leaving al
l hope of love and destiny to the children who read fairy tales.
I looked at myself in the mirror again, at the bride, the woman that now stood before me: this was moving on.
“Ara, are you okay?” Emily smiled at me from the doorway.
“Emily! You look beautiful.” I all but squealed and hugged her as she walked over. Then, standing her at arm’s length, I smiled, admiring her dress. “Yellow is definitely your color.”
“Well, thank you for choosing such a tasteful bridesmaid dress.” She smiled, running her fingers over the chiffon.
“I’m glad we went for the shorter dress; it says spring to me.” I tapped my chin.
“It doesn’t feel like spring. It’s so cold today.” She smiled and tilted her head to one side, pausing there for a second. “Is it David? Is that what you were thinking about just now?”
A rush of hot blood shot through my stomach and I reached for my silver locket. On my own, with the four walls of my room surrounding me—closing me in—convincing myself that I could move on was easy. But in the presence of those who proved life was still real and still hurt, pretending I no longer belonged to him made me want to fold over and cry.
“You know me too well.” I sighed, forcing myself to release the locket. “I’m gonna miss you, Emily.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll come see you real soon. And, as for David… well”—she touched my shoulder—“Mike’s better for you than him, Ara.”
My eyes nearly popped out of my head. “What! Did you just say what I think you just said?”
She laughed. “I know, I know. It’s a bit of a turnaround, but… I’m sorry, Mike’s proven himself in my books.”
“Yeah, he’s pretty likeable.” My fingers found the locket again and held it tight. “And I am happy, you know? I do love Mike.”
“I know.” She nodded.
“I just miss David, is all, and…” I faced the mirror again, dropping the chain from my fingers and letting it fall against my skin. “I just needed a moment to reflect on that, I guess.”
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