* * *
After changing into my pajamas and making up the couch, I waited an hour or so before moving over to the piano. Being that it was electric, I could slip in some headphones and no one would know what I was doing. But it made me nervous as well, because with headphones in I wouldn’t hear someone come in until it was too late. In fact, I didn’t hear someone come in until they’d already seen me at the piano.
“What’cha doing?” Mike asked, watching me from the doorway.
“Um…” I took the headphones out of the jack and hit some random notes. “Trying to remember how to play.”
He unfolded his arms, walking toward me with that broad smile in place. “Want me to teach you?”
“Um.” I stood quickly, making him stop in his tracks. “No. I’m tired. I’m gonna go to bed.”
He took the hint and a small step backward as I passed him to sit on the couch. “You know, even if you’re not here to see Harry, you’re more than welcome to come use the piano.”
“Thanks.” I offered a friendly smile.
“Um… so I was gonna make hot chocolates. You want one?” he said.
I wanted one, and I wanted to sit up all night talking with him about old times—the times before I met David, when it was just me and him. Friends. And nothing else. I felt like I missed that version of us, but I didn’t even remember it.
“So that’s a no then?” he assumed, moving to walk away.
“Hey, Mike?”
“Yo.”
“What happened between us?” I pulled my legs up on the couch and crossed them. “Why did we break up?”
He looked as if he just gained ten pounds—all of it on his shoulders—but although it was obvious he didn’t want to talk about this, he came and sat down beside me anyway. “You left me at the altar and then I fell for your best friend.”
I looked at the door. “Emily?”
He nodded.
“And I hated you for that?”
“No. Not really. I don’t think you ever hated me.”
“Then why weren’t we close before I died?”
“It was…” He looked away, exhaling before he looked back at me. “I never stopped loving ya, Ar. Ever. And it’s hard for me to admit that, and I’ll never admit it in front of Ems because it’d kill her, but in order to move on I had to actually move away—see you only a few times a year.”
I nodded. “Is that what David needs to do, do you think?”
He nodded before he spoke. “Yeah. I think… eventually, if you can’t love him back, then yeah.”
“But how? We have kids.”
He reached across and patted my leg. “That’s not a question I can answer, Ar. I’m sorry.”
I took a moment to feel the warmth in his palm against my skin, committing it to memory, but as I tried, I realized it was already there. I knew his touch like I knew my own, and I could recall so many times in our life when he’d touched me just like this, but couldn’t recall the reason why. I could only see his broad shoulders and his kind eyes, like the warmth of a fireplace in autumn. My day. He was my day and David was my night. That’s how it used to be.
“What are you smiling at?” he asked.
“I think I remember you.”
His hand curled around on my leg a little, then he reluctantly, like he was made of tight rubber, drew it back. I grabbed it as he went to stand, and looked deep into those caramel eyes as they met mine. Autumn eyes. So much kindness and warmth and love there that I wondered why on earth I’d ever left him at the altar. “I’m sorry, Mike.”
“For what?”
“For hurting you so bad.”
He smiled, patting my hand before freeing his own from mine. “It’s in the past.”
But it wasn’t and we both knew it. I just wondered why. More than twenty years had passed since I met David. How could Mike have been in love with me all that time?
“Good night, Ar,” he said.
I moved my gaze from where he was to where he stood now by the door. “Night.”
He lingered there for another second, as if maybe he was going to come back in and talk with me some more, but something distracted him from behind and when he said, “Hey, man,” I knew it was David before he even poked his head in the room.
“I thought you were asleep,” he said accusingly, glaring at Mike after.
Mike just sighed, shaking his head as he walked away.
“I’m not really tired,” I said.
“So you’ve been up talking to Mike?” He walked in, standing behind me like a cop interrogating a naughty kid.
“He was in here for, like, three minutes.”
David nodded, not convinced. I got the feeling then that he had a reason to be that way.
“Did she have an affair with him?”
“Who?”
“Ara.” I nodded to where Mike had vanished. “Did she cheat on you with him?”
His arms unfolded and he came to sit down on the end of the couch, falling onto it heavily and making me bounce up a bit. “No. Not really.”
“Not really?” I tucked my legs up and hugged a pillow. “Either she did, or she didn’t.”
“She was still in love with him when… it’s a long story.”
“I’ve got all night,” I said with a timid shrug.
David smiled and after a moment of thought, pushed his hands into the couch to get up and move a bit closer to me. He told me how he’d left Ara on the same day she’d left Mike at the altar. When Mike came back into her life just a few months later, Ara wasn’t prepared for it. She kept falling for his charms and when she came home one night to find him in bed with Emily, it had shocked her and upset her. That same night, David came back on the scene. But that didn’t erase her confusion. She battled with it for a while and almost ended up having sex with Mike, but David had made no promise to stay with her at that point, so I could forgive her for that. It was a poor choice, but it sounded like she’d been through so much. If she were my friend, I’d tell her not to beat herself up over it. Really, the men in her life, who were older and wiser than her, should have backed off and given her a damn break. Kind of like they should now. Well, David at least.
The clock on the mantle chimed two, and I came up out of the haze that late-night whispers seemed to create. It wasn’t until I blinked off my tiredness that I noticed how close David was sitting to me—his arm on the couch behind me, my legs over his lap, his hand on my thigh.
I pulled back and tucked my legs up again, clearing my throat. “I should get some sleep.”
He closed his eyes for a second, clearly regretting having been so close with me. “It’s a habit,” he said, “for both of us.”
“What is?”
“Sitting like that.” He stood up, leaving an emptiness behind. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Who said it did?”
“I just don’t want you thinking…” He shook his head. “Forget it.”
“Forget what?” I insisted. “Are you worried I might think you’re actually starting to like me?”
He laughed, but it wasn’t the nice one. “Don’t worry, I won’t be stupid enough to let you think that. Ever.”
“Good.” I folded my arms, deeply hurt. “’Cause I don’t.”
“Good.” He looked at me coldly. “’Cause to be honest, Ara, I really don’t like you very much at all.”
“Ditto,” I said snottily. And as he walked away, I had to wonder what just happened. Why did I say that when it wasn’t how I felt? When we talked like we did for the last two hours, when he was just David and I was just Ara—the new Ara—I really liked him. I really enjoyed his company, even his touch. But it would all turn so quickly and he’d hate me again as soon as he realized I was me and not her. If only we could have more moments without her lingering in the present, then he might see that I’m not all that bad and maybe we could be friends again. But that hope died every time we held a conversation.
And each time it died, it too
k away another chance of anything ever evolving between us. I’d given up trying to be nice to him and every time I gave up, he’d go and be so sweet that I’d find myself wanting to again. At what point would I stop changing my mind? At what point would I get so tired of the nasty version of him that I’d stop looking for the nice one?
It scared me that I was even trying. And I didn’t know why.
I did know that if the old Ara was anything like me, she’d be so disappointed in him and I knew it would scare her to see us becoming so distant.
32
David
The giant jack-o-lantern tipped over as I placed it down, rolling down the damn hill until it stopped on the road, grinning at me like a devilish imp. Moments like these, it sucked being human. The old me would’ve had no trouble carrying a pumpkin that size, but this new weaker me couldn’t do it without heaving and wheezing and dropping the damn thing.
I checked down the street to see if anyone noticed my mishap and, thankfully, no one had, so I picked up its lid on the way down the steps, cursing and muttering at it. When I reached the road, I thought about throwing the bastard under the next car, but Harry would be home from school soon and he was expecting to see his house lit up like the 31st of October, even if, by the time Halloween came around, this pumpkin will have been kidnapped by local thugs and held for ransom. Or have a penis drawn on its head. Not that this was a bad area, it’s just that kids thought they were pretty darn funny. Most Australians didn’t celebrate Halloween, and only a few houses had started handing out candy since Mike moved in a few decades ago, so people were still adjusting to the idea of Halloween and, those that couldn’t, thought it was funny to stir those that did. Larrikins, Mike called them.
But it was important for me to make this Halloween as normal as possible for Harry, since everything else in his life was so… fucked up. So I turned around with the offending pumpkin tucked under my arm and as I finished my sentence—informing it that one more escape attempt would result in a ride on the ceiling fan—a wave of dread rushed through me, making my limbs go cold. Ara stood in the doorway, her arms folded, a caged smile forcing itself out across her smug face. She’d clearly seen the whole thing.
“Talking to pumpkins now, are we?” she said, breaking into laughter.
“You can’t judge.” I pointed right at her as I squatted to position the fugitive back on the slope by the porch. “You used to talk to inanimate objects all the time.”
“No I didn’t,” she said, and I rolled my eyes.
“She did,” I said for her, shaking my head then as I walked away. I was tired of this ‘old Ara’ ‘new Ara’ bullshit. My cloud of depression had lifted recently and the absence of it left me angrier about her plan to take my son away from me. I hadn’t really been in the mood for her. At all. I just wanted her to damn well acknowledge that she was Ara—the Ara she was now and the Ara she had been—and stop all the crap; stop correcting me every time I said an innocent comment like ‘you used to…’; stop looking at me, watching me with Harry like I’m going to hurt him with my evil soul; stop talking with me until two in the morning like we’re old friends and then reaffirming, once again, that she doesn’t love me. It was making my head spin and I felt like I could just… spit on her.
I opened my mouth, almost telling her to go hang out with Cal today—since they had a pupil-free day and the last thing I needed was to have her hanging about distracting me, laughing at me—but I didn’t want her with Cal either. Not now that he knew what she was.
She shook her head, walking down the steps with calculated moves, taking me in. “You get so shitty when you’ve been caught out.”
“Caught out?”
“You hate being vulnerable,” she said. “I’ve learned that now. And you were talking to a pumpkin—telling it off for running away—so now you’re angry at me because I saw you.”
I bit my teeth together.
Ara laughed again, but it wasn’t her laugh—it was the ‘new Ara’s’ laugh. It was cute, but didn’t have the soul my Ara’s laugh did. “So now you’re not talking to me?” she said, still smiling.
“Okay, fine—so I’m mad at you for seeing that.” I pointed at her, sticking the lid on the pumpkin’s head. “But that’s not the only reason.”
“What else is there?” She painted on an innocent face, but she knew damn well what was wrong. I hadn’t yelled at her for it yet—for planning to take Harry, for leading me on and pushing me away, for correcting me all the time about the old or new her—but I was one more correction away from it. And then she’d probably blame my outburst on the evil inside me and try to take Harry from me.
“I know you, David.” She stopped on the last step, keeping her arms folded, the smug grin taking the sweetness from her face. “I know you’re still mad at me because I wanted to save Harry—”
“So you can read minds all the time now?” I said flatly.
“Maybe I can.”
I looked at her, hoping to God that wasn’t true.
“Or maybe I can just read your face.” The arms unfolded and she walked onto the grass, making me step back as she came closer. Even though she was shorter than me, her face darkened by my towering shadow, and even in those short denim shorts and the pink tank top, she was intimidating. I was afraid to touch her the wrong way, look at her the wrong way, say anything that offended her. It was safer for me to just step back and not look at her lately.
“I gotta get this stuff finished, okay,” I said, turning away to straighten the lantern again. She caught my elbow as I bent though and held me in place.
“We can’t keep up like this, David.”
“Like what?” I snapped, throwing down the handful of plastic spiders I had in my pocket.
“You’re cold to me,” she said.
“Why do you think?” I went to walk away and then thought better of it, spinning around to finally have this out with her. I hadn’t been given a chance to say anything more than a few quiet words since Falcon told me she was going to leave with my son, because every day except today, the house had been full of people. But Mike and Em were out shopping, Vicki was at work, and Harry was at school. I could say whatever I liked and there’d be no one to stop me. “You completely overreacted to what Elora told you, and I feel like you could just take off with Harry when my back is turned. I don’t trust you, Ara!”
She looked timidly at the neighbor’s house across the street, obviously concerned that people could hear us. “David, you’re—”
“No. I am so fucking sick and tired of treading on eggshells around you all the time. I’m tired of you judging everything I do. I’m tired of…” I threw my hands up in the air. “I’m tired of being in love with you.”
“Then don’t be,” she said coldly. “You clearly have enough reasons not to be.”
“No, Ara.” I grabbed both of her arms and squeezed firmly. “None of those are reasons not to love you. I wish to God that they were because, right now”—I laughed derisively—“I’d trade anything. Anything not to be in love with you.”
“Am I really that unlikable?”
When I looked at her, I realized maybe that was a bit harsh. Yes, she was annoying and moody and more of a problem to me now than a friend. But she didn’t deserve that.
“You broke my heart, Ara,” I explained. “I need to hate you so I don’t have to love you.”
She sniffled, looking away as she discreetly wiped her cheek. And when our eyes met again, the hard Ara was in place. “Cal wants to be a vampire—”
“What?” I laughed and pushed past her.
“He asked me to find out how.”
“No,” I said firmly. “It’s a no.”
“Why?”
“Because… no!”
“What’s the matter, are you afraid I might end up with him if he can give me everything I need?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I spun back to face her, feeling bigger now on the top step with her at the bottom.
<
br /> “You know exactly what I mean.” She walked up one step at a time, pointing to her fingers on each point. “The companionship that I can’t get with you, because every conversation leaks into your misery over why I won’t love you. Affection, which he can give because he isn’t always trying to relive the glory days. Blood,” she added. “And with blood comes sex.”
She put so much spite into that last word that I nearly struck her. My hand flickered and I felt my elbow tighten in motion, but I stopped myself and puffed my chest up.
“If you want to make him a vampire you have to go through the proper channels.”
“Which are?”
My jaw tightened. I looked at a random house down the street for no real reason.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll just ask someone else—”
“He has to have approval from the king.” As soon as I said it, I knew it was a done deal. Anything she asked, my brother would give.
“Good,” she said, reaching into my pocket to take my phone. “You have his number, right? I’ll call him and ask.”
I put my hand over the phone. “Don’t, Ara. Please.”
“Why?”
“I…” I didn’t have a good reason. In truth, for her—for the life she wanted—it would work out well having Cal as a vampire. She spent most of her days with him, and it would mean she could feed when she needed it. Between school, her part time job at the café, and her life as a mother, she barely got time to go out to the maze to hunt, and her personal donor had moved on. That only left Eric, and Elora wasn’t comfortable sharing her fiancé with her mother, which had left Ara pale and a bit weaker these days without the right amount of blood to sustain her. Cal would be perfect for Ara. “Would it make you happy, or are you just doing it to hurt me?”
She put her hand over mine. “Nothing I do is ever to hurt you.”
“But you’d have sex with him—”
“Not to hurt you. Okay, I said it to hurt you, but that’s because you’re being a stupid head.”
I laughed, shaking it off after. I hated it when she’d make me laugh during an argument. The old Ara never really did that. She took our arguments so seriously—if we ever had them, which we didn’t really because we both understood each other so well. But with this Ara, our arguments were always petty and quickly resolved with a stupid joke. I guess I liked that in a lot of ways, but it sometimes made me angrier later when I realized that I hadn’t got my point across.
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