by Safari Spell
Something about his answer ached. It felt muddy, like he wasn’t telling the truth. Sage knew the danger in pursuing me all along. That’s why he stood back and watched. So he let Spencer…the realization sat me up suddenly. Sage followed, holding onto my wrists.
“You didn’t tell him because you knew what would happen,” I said, shooting a glare.
I jerked my wrists away and threw the covers off. Sage was beside me that fast.
“Talor, that’s not true. I would never do something like that. Spencer was my friend.”
“You were jealous the whole time, weren’t you?”
He opened his mouth to answer, but I held up a hand.
“Did it ever cross your mind that he would try to bite me? That he wanted me? Didn’t you think it was a possibility?”
He took a deep breath and looked me squarely in the eye. His response was so poignant, his words so heavy, if he had said it above a whisper, I would have collapsed from the force of them.
“I just – never thought that you would let him.”
My heart spiraled in my chest. I didn’t know what to say. No matter how I tried to twist it so that Sage was at fault or Spencer was at fault, I knew I never should have given in. The worst part was that deep down I knew I never actually wanted to be with Spencer. I just liked the way he pursued me. I liked the thought of a jealous Sage. Spencer was dead because I wanted Sage to be jealous. I grabbed my head, trying to control the throbbing.
“Oh my God, what you must think of me now. You think…you think,” I whimpered.
Sage held up his hands and tried to corral me as I wavered left and right, eyes wide and distraught. Sage thought I was smarter than I really was. He didn’t tell Spencer of the Grigori seal because he never thought I would fall for him. I had no idea how to feel about that.
“No, I don’t. You’re just tired and you need to rest,” he replied.
I shook my head, staring at the ground.
“I’m so ashamed. God, you put me up on some pedestal, Sage. I’m not perfect. I’m so embarrassed.”
“Please don’t.”
His tone was gentle and pleading, but I refused.
“I don’t know what to do. I just want to die,” I sobbed.
He wrangled me into a loving hold.
“Talor, stop all this.”
I broke away.
“No! I need to get away. Oh God!”
He stared at me.
“Ok, I’ll take you home.”
“No, I don’t want to see you anymore.”
“What are you talking about?”
I kept taking rapid breaths, knowing what I was building up to. It was a panic in my chest causing the ruckus.
“You have all these powers, but you can’t make this right. You can’t bring him back. You can’t make me forget. You can’t get this off my body! We just need to end this.”
“This is grief. You need to feel it, not run away.”
“No, this is me seeing things for the first time. Why does it feel like I know you less the more I learn? That’s not how it’s supposed to be, Sage. I think it’s because we’re not supposed to be.”
“Don’t say that.”
I ignored him and gathered my things. I needed to get out of there fast or he would find a way to get me to stay. We both knew it. He closed his eyes as I passed.
“Please,” he said.
I opened the house door and left. He stood there in the doorway as I fumbled my keys to get in the car. He kept his distance. It was a good thing, too, because I almost hated him right then. I never thought I could. I wanted to get somewhere safe and normal, not rampant with supernatural drama. Spencer was gone, and he was already haunting me. But after mom and the ghost at Bosh’s, I could handle that. It was Sage I could never look at the same way again.
He respected my wishes for a full day. In that time, I tried everything to feel normal. I tried reading several books, but I never got past the first page. When I thought I’d been reading, it turned out I was only staring at the page. Bosh wasn’t around, so no one was able to break my thoughts up into conversations.
By the time night fell, I had worked myself into an emotional frenzy. First, it was from fearing what would happen if the detectives discovered anything about Spencer and came asking more questions. I knew things. I’d seen his death, and not only had I been a witness to it, I was an accomplice in it. I could never explain how it happened; I could merely admit that in the truest sense of the facts, I killed him.
Once I released that unfounded fear (I mean, we were talking about Cypress detectives, not Sherlock Holmes), I found a new, more gut-wrenching one to tremble under. I replayed every syllable from my breakup with Sage and soon an ominous feeling came over me. Would I ever see him again? And if I did, would he forgive me? Would he understand why I walked away? And the hardest, worst, most terrifying one of them all: how would I ever live with myself if he died because I left him?
It was nearly eight o’clock when I heard a car come roaring up the driveway. Even before looking, I knew it was Sage. His car stared eerily through the windows from the driveway as the rain pelted the windshield. I peeked out the shades and my heart dropped. I could make out Sage’s silhouette in the driver’s seat. He didn’t get out and I didn’t go out. We stared at one another through glass for a few minutes while I tried to imagine what I would say.
He turned off the car and came up to the house. We looked at each other through the glass exterior door. He was soaked to the bone, his eyes pleading. I opened the door for him. When he got inside, he pulled off his shirt and threw it down. Of course I’d seen him shirtless before, but something about him soaked in rain, vulnerable and frustrated and lovesick…I couldn’t help but stare. His freckles spanned across his body. I wanted my fingers forever on his skin.
We stared, neither able to speak. The house phone rang and startled me. Happy for the interruption, I hurried over and read the caller id. Telemarketer. They get the machine. I turned back to more important matters – Sage standing half-clothed in front of me.
“We’re going to talk about this,” he said.
I thought I would have more clarity by then. I’d spent a day away from the drama, but I was in worse shape away from Sage than with him. Sage didn’t move from the wet mat inside the door. He just kept this intense look pointed at me, throwing around that power he wielded so tenderly. He pulled off his shoes with gusto, flinging them against the brick. I fumbled all over words in my head, and it wasn’t pretty when they finally made it out.
“Um, no – we’re not. I can’t. I just can’t,” I managed to spurt out. “I’ll dry your shirt.”
I snatched his shirt from the floor and marched off towards the laundry room. He followed.
“Do you really think I’d set Spencer up? I need to know you don’t really think that.”
I turned on the dryer.
“Tumble dry on low, right?”
He didn’t answer. I rounded the corner out of the laundry room and saw him there, his hands on his hips.
“I don’t think less of you because you cared about him. That isn’t what I meant.”
I bit my lip and gave a slow nod. Satisfied, he wiped a hand across his stubble and bobbed his head.
“Ok, good…so that’s all good. I didn’t want –”
“You should leave.”
“No. You’re scared.”
“I mean, of course I am. Is there any reason I shouldn’t be? I don’t even know this Rami and he’s going to rip me away –”
“No, that’s not what this is about.”
“Yes, it is. Do you even realize what you did to me? You ruined my life. You and Spencer and your father! Don’t you understand that I lost my mom and my dad and now I’m going to lose everyone else in my life?”
I felt the sob start to rise, but I swallowed it whole and threw the shirt against the wall. I’d forgotten to put it in the dryer at all. Th
e dryer hummed its electrical tune, filling the dead air between us. I couldn’t look at him. It took all of my energy to contain my tears. Suddenly, he was in my space. I wanted him there, but I stopped him anyway.
“I don’t want to do this, but I can’t deal with everything. I can’t – just – I just can’t, Sage! I think this thing between us is a mistake. We both know how it’s going to end. You need to leave before Rami comes for me.”
I couldn’t help but notice the nervousness in his voice. No, wait. That was my voice.
“I’m not leaving.”
“Who’s Adair?” I asked, suddenly remembering the name. I have no idea where it came from or why I decided to ask him about the girl right then.
Sage’s forehead relaxed just as the muscles in his neck tightened.
“Who told you about her?”
“Who is she?”
“Who told you about her?”
“Wow, he really was right,” I scoffed, nodding to myself.
“I don’t want to talk about her. I want to talk about us.”
“There is no ‘us’ anymore!”
“Come with me.”
I paused, dumbstruck by what he just said. If we were in high school, it would be called running away together.
“I can’t just run away from my life here –”
“You have to run from the Grigori, Talor.”
“I have school and a job, Sage. Remember? I mean, when’s the last time you went to work? Haven’t you been fired yet?”
“We’ll come back when it’s safe.”
I laughed at him.
“You mean when you figure out how to kill an immortal, right?”
I knew there was no escape from the Grigori. I was just a human, and I had no powers to fight. I had no choice. Sage was unfazed.
“I’ve evaded the Grigori for centuries. We can do it. Maybe it isn’t the best life, but it’s the only way we can do life together, and that makes it worth it to me. Come with me. We’ll leave right now.”
“No, I can’t – my dad, Bosh. I can’t just leave them.”
“Then tomorrow. Come on, Talor. We can be happy. We can be together.”
His confidence was intoxicating, but I had to stand firm. So I lied.
“I don’t want that. I can’t trust you and if I hadn’t harassed you into being with me in the first place…”
He shifted his weight and toyed with the keychain attached to his belt loop.
“Are you kidding me?”
“All I know is that I can’t save you and you can’t save me, so we need to end this right now.”
I wasn’t fooling anyone – not even myself – but I was telling the whole truth and I hated it. I had done all the damage to myself that no one else could do. I wanted to block off the emotions welling up. I didn’t want to let Sage in. We had only known each other for a few months and soon he would be killed or I would be kidnapped, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. We were set on a destructive path, and this was my last chance to put on the brakes. Maybe one of us would survive.
“You’re scared,” he replied.
“I know,” I cried, getting frustrated that I couldn’t make him leave.
“Because you’re in love with me.”
My teeth were clenched so tight my jaw began to ache. I never wanted to fall in love. I wanted to be this strong, confident woman, not some self-conscious little girl who needed applause every time she pronounced a new word right. He eased towards me with this hopeful look on his face. I looked at him this time. I was angry, but I didn’t want to miss him looking like that.
“It’s scary to say, but you’re brave,” he urged.
My mouth went dry as he gave me a look that said he needed to hear the words. I knew it was over. The feeling right before you say I love you the first time is just like drowning. I know because I almost drowned in a wave pool when I was six.
He was all around me now, and his arms weren’t pleading – they were possessing. He was both the waves and the rescue. I started to panic, so I reached a hand up for help and it caught in some of his hair. I had only a second to decide whether to breathe in death or shatter my chest instead.
“I love you.”
The words inhaled us both as his lips closed over mine. There, in that moment, I breathed my last broken breath. I drowned in him and his love, and what a blissful way it was to die.
33
Sage agreed to let me say goodbye to everyone. Of course they didn’t know it was goodbye. I went to see dad. He was so happy and healthy. I bawled at the end of the visit, which thoroughly confused him. I spent the night before talking to Bosh and watching her favorite TV shows. The day we were leaving, I got up early. I wanted to spend some time with Bosh before embarking on an adventure that meant I might never see her again. I awoke to the familiar sounds and smells of her cooking breakfast for me in the kitchen next to my room.
Bosh was always awake by four in the morning, and I regularly slept until one in the afternoon. Every now and then, she forced me awake so she could cook for me. She would burst through my bedroom door blaring praise and worship music from the old radio in the hallway. I couldn’t make her understand that I had an alarm on my phone to wake me up when I needed to get up – or that I didn’t work in the morning.
I think she just enjoyed cooking for somebody, like most grandmothers. I appreciated it more that day than ever before. Completely unaware of my dilemma, Bosh laid a plate full of eggs, bacon, and sliced buttered toast in front of me with a warm smile. She rubbed my upper arm swiftly as she sat down next to me.
“Tell me, Talor, how are you? I don’t see much of you now. How many jobs are you working? You are too skinny. You aren’t eating enough.”
Bosh was always worried that I was starving myself since mom died. In her defense, I did kind of forget to eat for a few weeks. Once I moved in with her, she made sure to cook every meal for me. It didn’t matter whether or not I actually wanted to eat; she always had a hot meal ready. I took the fork she handed me.
“Bosh, you know I don’t go to work until three this afternoon, right? I don’t need to eat breakfast this early.”
She shook her head and touched the edge of her glasses.
“Well, you were up, honey. And breakfast is for the morning, not the afternoon. It isn’t healthy to lie around until one o’clock. You look like you are losing weight again.”
I had only lost about ten pounds in six months, but I was smaller than she was used to. I rolled my eyes.
“I’m not losing weight, Bosh. I promise.”
She peered at me from over her glasses and took me by the elbow. Without a word, she led me a few feet over to the scale she kept conveniently by the kitchen table. Why she kept it there in the open kitchen instead of hidden with the shame of the bathroom, I’ve never figured out. She pushed me up on it as best she could – being less than five feet tall and over seventy. We both looked down at the number. I had lost weight. Five pounds. I kept my celebrations to myself as Bosh scowled.
“Your promises are no good. Sit down and eat. I will cook more.”
She immediately went to the refrigerator and grabbed a tube of butter. She scooped out a spoonful and plopped it on my eggs. The yellow wax melted slowly, pooling into oily reserves on the plate. I fought the gag reflex as she pointed. I obeyed. Bosh had a way of making anyone do what she said. Tiny and feisty, that woman.
While I gobbled down butter eggs, Bosh eased herself into her recliner with the morning newspaper in her lap. I discreetly scraped as much butter off the eggs as I could and wiped it off with my napkin. The only sound in the house for the next minute or two was my fork scratching against the glass plate as I shoveled the next bite into my mouth. While sinking my teeth into crispy toast, I spent a good minute thinking about how many miles I would have to run to work off the gallon of eggs and butter. When I finally looked at her, her face was white, her hands trembling as they
held the paper.
“Bosh? What’s wrong?” I asked, concerned.
She ignored me, but her eyes raced across the black and white ink. She was immersed in whatever she was reading.
“Bosh?”
The panic in my voice broke her attention away. She lowered the newspaper and looked over at me, smiling through her wrinkles. Her expression was normal, but the color in her face wasn’t. Something was off.
“Yes, honey? How were the eggs? Better?”
I grimaced.
“Um, they’re great…are you ok?”
Her voice was singsong, like she had just stepped inside from strolling through a garden complete with musical woodland creatures.
“I was just reading. Two more bars closed down. They went out of business. That is good to hear, isn’t it, sweetheart? Do not be late to work, honey.”
I cut my eyes and walked over.
“Well, what were you reading? Let me see,” I said, reaching for the paper.
She quickly tucked it under her arm and sat back in the recliner. Patting me on the thigh, she then proceeded to scold me for being curious.
“Go on now. I washed your uniform. It’s in the dryer. Let me know if you need me to iron your shirt. I hate when young people go around with wrinkled shirts. The sight of it.”
I forced a chuckle. She was hiding something, and it was bolded on the front page of the local newspaper. It’s not like I couldn’t see it somewhere other than on her doorstep. I rounded the corner to the laundry room and looked back. Bosh crinkled up the paper with such angry force that I thought I was imagining things. She tossed it in the trash and huffing, left the room. Whatever made her upset was worth digging through the trash over, so as soon as she disappeared, I scurried over to pull it out.
“Bosh, thanks for washing my uniform. I don’t think I’ll need you to iron anything,” I called, listening for her.
Her voice answered from back of the house.
“All right, dear. Now don’t be late.”
I reached down and pulled the paper out as quietly as I could. I unrolled it, seeing the story about two more local bars closing from losing customers. It was strange, but not nearly as strange as the headline of the newspaper.