“Fine. I just needed some… space.”
The sound of the waves and the smell of the ocean work their magic and collect me.
“Why don’t we go sit on the rocks,” he puts his hand out to me, still standing.
“Afraid of a little sand?” I try to joke.
“No.” He pulls me to my feet.
We sit on a smooth dark rock peeking out of the ground.
I close my eyes and listen to the sound of the waves.
“You’re meditative tonight.” Justice observes.
“Better I meditate than find a hole to crawl into, right?” I glance over at him. “I distinctly remember someone telling me to find boundaries.”
“Well it looks like you’re searching really hard.” He says lightly.
“It wouldn’t hurt you to seek out some balance.” I b lurt out.
“What is that supposed to mean?” He asks affronted.
“It means that sometimes it feels like you have your own emotional disturbances to deal with.”
“And what makes you say that?” He squints.
“Well, your face for one thing, it’s always so controlled, like if you smiled, it would hurt. And your mood swings are sharper than a fresh pencil tip.”
He tersely looks out into the dark water, his hands busy crushing grains of sand.
“Not physically,” he says randomly.
“Not physically what?”
“It wouldn’t physically hurt me if I smiled.”
His answer surprises me. He usually isn’t so liberal with his thoughts.
“Want to elaborate?
He pouts.
“I was human once you know,” his attention is still focused on the sea.
“I didn’t.” That’s unexpected.
“I remember every minute.” He dusts his hands together clearing them of the sand. A little streak of pain runs across his forehead. “I was born in Ireland in 1842, in a small town outside of Cork. My father was a poor sheep farmer trying to support a family through the potato famine.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It was awful.”
I can’t imagine living through a famine; I think I’m having a food crisis if I miss lunch.
“My mother and sister died when I was fourteen, leaving just me and my father. It was different then, at fourteen you were seen as a man, expected to take on responsibilities. I was illiterate, scrawny, and my front tooth was chipped from a mishap with a hoe.”
That description was a far cry from who he is now. He’s practically perfect.
“I did my best to contribute, losing my mother and sister devastated my father. He essentially stopped living. His broken heart consumed him.” He mournfully rubs his sneaker over the pulverized sand.
Great, another unhappy ending. It feels like this is becoming a theme around my life.
“So what happened?”
“My father died when I was seventeen, leaving me to tend to a depleting flock, a rundown farm, and land lords who were not forgiving when you paid them late, or in my case not at all. It was a dark time. My only silver lining was a boyhood friend; we were closer than brothers.” He looks hard into my eyes. “We both knew we had an inheritance coming, and for every farmer’s son it was the same, poverty. But we tried to make the best life we could. He did a little bit better than I. He married the most courted girl in our meager town. She was beautiful, long flowing auburn hair and green eyes.” Justice is so invested in his story it is almost as if he can see that poor girl standing right in front of him.
“They had a daughter, Aislinn. I was her godfather.” He rubs is temples like the memories stress him. It kills me to see him uncomfortable, especially since he’s so guarded about his feelings.
“What does this have to do with your smile?” I ask trying to figure out where this story is going.
He gave me one of his infamous faces, this one intensely pained and brooding.
“There are things from my mortal life which I can never forgive myself for,” he says insufferably. “Not in a million immortal years.”
“Like what?” I can’t imagine this angelic creature doing something so terrible it crossed over into another lifetime. I mean, besides his twisted sense of humor and impatience, he’s nothing but gallant. I can’t comprehend how he could have wronged anyone so deeply it was embedded in his soul.
He looks at me with such sadness; I think I feel the emotion pour right out of his eyes. The eyes the water’s reflection has turned a transparent silver.
“One night, I got lucky at the local pub, the only way I could afford to eat or drink was if I played cards for money. That night I got caught up in a cut-throat game, it was more than just pence’s’ and sheep in the pot. There were tickets out of that miserable starving town and a chance at a new beginning. In America. Everyone was out for blood, especially me. And, as if a leprechaun grazed my leg holding his pot of gold, I won. Everything. Money, sheep and the tickets to a new life.”
I listen intently as I rub my naked arms; the temperature has dropped, and the cold summer air is chilling me.
Justice slides close against me, emanating the heat he can generate from his body. His proximity makes my heart race, and I can feel the burning wrought iron coursing through my veins. I have to fight to stay focused.
“I won two tickets. I only needed one. So I offered the other to the only other person I would want to accompany me to the new world. It took some persuasion on my part, but not much. I was being a little selfish asking him to give up the life he had worked so hard to build. And asking him to leave a wife and daughter he lived for. But he agreed. The boat left at dawn two mornings later. We packed the little possessions we had and set out to pick up a carriage to take us to the dock that was a day’s journey away. I’ll never forget the good-bye he gave his family. It broke Neve to see him leave, but he assured her it was for the best, and he would send for both of them soon. It was a promise he had every intention of keeping.” His silvery eyes inched further away with every word to his story.
“We hurried into town like two giddy school children. We could see the carriages picking up passengers by the dozens. But we never made it beyond the cobble stoned alleyway. Two men pulled us back into the shadows; I knew immediately who they were and what they wanted. I thought I was getting away scot free, but my debts had caught up with me. They were merciless; they spoke no words, only executed. I watched helplessly as one of them painfully murdered my dearest friend. It was enough to wish death upon myself. It came soon after.”
I swear I saw him choke back tears as he spoke about the killings. Justice put his head in his hands trying to hide the pain on his face, but I didn’t need to see it to know. I didn’t need to feel it to know. He was suffering. All the time. I can’t help but empathize, how ironic. It was agony to see him this way. No one deserves to carry around that kind of guilt. It’s the worst emotion to bear, trust me; I know. It eats away at your soul, like corrosion, only leaving behind a dusty a skeleton. I wonder if that’s all that’s of left of Justice, stripped bones.
“Do you know what happened to your friend?” I ask cautiously. Heaven hopefully.
He looks up at me with wide woeful eyes. “Yes,” he replies. His stare is removed, like his spirit is lost somewhere inside him. “You know what happened to him too.”
I find myself confused. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s like me.” He says softly.
“Like you?”
“Yes, you indulged in his melody earlier tonight.”
I stare at him awestruck. “Derrin? Derrin is your boyhood friend?” I shake my head disbelieved. “I don’t understand, what do you have to feel so guilty about?”
He’s alive.
He gives me a confounded look. “You try knowing that for the rest of eternity, you will have to look in the eyes of the person who holds you responsible for their human death. It’s a constant reminder that I stole his life, made his wife a widow, and robbe
d his daughter of her father. Every day I see my demons in his face.” He rests his elbows on his knees and hangs his head in his hands. My heart broke for him. I know what it feels like to carry blame. It’s torrential.
He feels so far away, but for one brief moment, I want to be closer. I reach my hand out to him, not knowing what kind of reaction it will spark. I touch his bare arm with cautious fingers wishing I knew how to absorb his pain. He snaps his head up as soon as my cold fingertips touch his warm arm. He looks down at my small gesture and then back up to my face; his liquidly silver eyes are so empty and sad.
“I don’t think you’re as bad a person as you see yourself to be,” I say in the most soothing voice I can muster. He stares blankly back at me, then his words are sharp. “What could you possibly know about it?” His lip quiver as he speaks. He moves swiftly off the rock and down to the water’s edge. I watch his silhouette stand motionless in the dark; the south wind rippling the hem of his shirt.
“I know you saved my life without batting an eyelash,” I’m standing right behind him now.
“Penance.” He scoffs.
“I don’t believe Derrin blames you for his death either, and I don’t think you deserve to carry around a guilt-ridden cross.”
“I don’t think you know very much about it.” He turns and snaps at me.
“I know magic has an agenda.” I say holding my ground. “What are the odds both of you were killed together and reborn at the same time. I don’t believe it was just stupid coincidence. And I don’t believe it was your fault. What happened to magic reveals itself in its own time and its own way?”
His face is hard as he stares down at me. “Who’s channeling Confucius now?”
“I would channel every philosopher in history if it meant you would listen to me.” I close the gap between us.
“I could say the same of you.” He says in replication.
I’m surprised by my newfound courage. I usually try to keep an amicable distance from him, but tonight I feel different. I can’t just sit on the wayside listening to his painful story and not share my feelings; it’s as if it would be an injustice on my part if I went unspoken.
“Justice,” I say softly, the summer breeze whipping flyaway’s across my face. “I will never believe you’re to blame for the events that lead you into this life. I will never believe that Derrin blames you for his death, for leaving his wife a widow, or taking away the father of his child.” The words I speak are true; I know it on my deepest level. Even if he doesn’t believe me, I still feel compelled to tell him. “You’ll never convince me that your fate as an immortal is to be tortured by guilt from a person you once held so dear.”
He stands silently for several long moments, completely inscrutable, while I battle a silent war with my hair.
J is for Justice
A psychiatrist once told me soldiers don’t like to show weaknesses for fear as being seen as weak. For some reason, those words ring loud as I watch the enigmatic Seraph stare endlessly beyond me.
I didn’t understand it at the time, but he meant that we all have a fight and a struggle to overcome. In my case, he was referring to my resistance; the resistance Cross impenitently laid out on the table. I understand that letting go will set me free, but my intransigence prevents me from doing so. I don’t want to be weak, but I don’t know how to fight.
I don’t think the same holds true for Justice, releasing the binds that tie him means giving up the fight; it means giving up Derrin, and it means giving up the bond they once shared. I can’t blame him for resisting, if it were Nikkee I thought I wronged; I would carry my fault into another lifetime too. But one hundred and fifty years seems long enough to grieve, especially when you have repented time and time again. I have no doubt Justice was committing heroic act’s way before I came into the picture.
He’s tried so hard to smother his pain, he’s deflected himself from feeling. And, like me, the more he suppresses those feelings the more they torture him. Two paradox lives, both trying to mend the riffs in their broken souls. I want to tell him he doesn’t have to fight anymore, that he is strong enough to let go, but would he even listen? Why should he? I’m no shining example of an emotional rock.
My own advice should mean something, yet even I fight to assimilate the words.
Letting go is hard, accepting to let go is harder.
“Why do they call you Justice?” I ask hoping to turn the course of the conversation.
He squeezes his brows together, “how do you mean?”
“Well, when we first met you said your name was Justinian, but to call you Justice.”
He twists his lips and gives me a dark stare. “I did say that, didn’t I?” He speaks the words aloud, but it feels more like he’s talking to himself. “Not for any reason you may think.” He replies.
I wish that just once he would give me a straight answer.
“When I was reborn, Derrin was livid with me. Not only had he been violently taken from his mortal life, but now, for the rest of eternity, he was amalgamated to the person whose debts he paid for. He told me in a profuse rage that there was no justice in life or death. His words made me feel like I’d been murdered all over again. After that he would only address me as Justice to remind me of the pain I caused.” He looks down gravely as if he’s hearing Derrin say the words all over again. “The nickname just kind of stuck.”
It’s apparent that I need some serious work in the spiritual counseling department. My attempt to spin the conversation has backfired right in my face, keeping Justice on a tender path.
His face suddenly changes from sad to irritate. His eyebrows frown and he looks at me with smoldering silver eyes. “I don’t know why any of this matters anyway; my past is my past, and there’s nothing anyone can do to change it.”
“It hurts me to see you upset.” I say delicately. “You can’t keep blaming yourself for something that was out of your control. Your character is more irreproachable than you know and there’s nothing in your past that can make me think differently.”
He gives me a suggestive look. “You don’t know me very well. I hope you remember you said that.” He tells me.
“Well or not, consider it stamped on the butt of my sweat pants.” I joke.
He pauses, his eyes wide, and then to the surprise of both of us; he laughs, shifting his icy silver eyes into warm pools of sterling platinum.
“You know,” he steps closer to me, “you’re more powerful than you think.”
I can feel the cotton of his shirt rub against my bare arm as he shields me from the wind whipping off the water. I no longer smell the sea air; it has morphed into fresh linen, the scent that intoxicates me.
As I stand there, smothered in his scent, I battle thrashing tresses of hair trying to subdue the radical pieces. Justice notices my struggle. He lifts his hand, trapping a rebellious strand between his fingers and locks it behind my ear. He traces his finger down my jaw line stopping at my chin, and then lifts my face. My skin tingles from the trail of embers left by his touch. He looks down at me with such consuming eyes I freeze right where I stand. In the wake of the moment, I see blinking caution signs all over my mind, but choose to ignore them. My brain is screaming no, but my heart drowns out its interference. I decide right then to take Justice’s advice and start separating what my head is feeling from my heart. Forget denying love, I can never deny myself of him. From the moment I laid eyes on him, I was his. He consumes every part of me, and I surrender, knowing full well, all I need is to simply love him, no matter what.
My thoughts are no longer my own; they belong to the wind, and I was more than willing to let it have them.
He inches slowly into my face, his finger holding my chin at the perfect angle. I feel like Derrin’s song is invading me all over again.
My heart isn’t the only part of my body pulsating as I close my eyes and brace for convergence, my face warms with the closeness of his. I feel the slightest brush, and then my lips catch fire
with contact.
A moment later, the cold summer wind abruptly extinguishes the flames.
I open my eyes; I’m left dangling. Justice’s head is turned back towards the house. I can’t fathom what just happened. What could have possibly stolen that moment right from underneath us? I was collected on the outside, but within my thoughts are fanatical.
“We need to get back,” he says urgently.
He picks up my sandals from the sandy floor and then does the same to me. He tosses me over his shoulder and sprints towards the house. It was only a several second trip. He moved so swiftly it was soundless. I wonder if he even left footsteps in the sand.
There was no one outside when we arrived back, but the deserted backyard didn’t alarm me as much as my bladder, when Justice threw me over his shoulder, I thought I was going to have an accident.
No Wishing for Death
I watch the toilet water swirl down the white porcelain bowl, even it has a graceful way about it, just like the occupants who own it. The sea foam green bathroom I’m hiding in is the size of my bedroom. I meander around the large marble room looking for any excuse to prolong my return to Justice. I trace the tiny bubbles etched in the glass of the shower door, and am tempted to yell down the deepest soaking tub I have ever seen just to see if my voice will echo back. I slink by the large round window and spy down to the patio where Derrin induced my descent onto the beach, and then my descent into Justice.
I can’t believe what I just let happen, reflecting back now that I can form a coherent thought. All the amicable space I tried to keep between us, I managed to eradicate in seconds. My mind has nothing but him impressed on it. What have I done?
I run my fingers through my frizzy bangs. I can’t bring myself to face him, I won’t be able to conceal my feelings now that I’ve opened a floodgate I can’t close. How could I have been so reckless with my heart?
I look up into the vanity mirror. My hair is a windblown, knotty mess. I yank at the black ponytail holder entangled in my rat’s nest. It snaps at my index finger, inducing an instant blood bubble beneath my skin. “Ouch!” I bellow shaking my hand in pain. I stick my finger in my mouth trying to ease the sting as I bend down to pick up the universe’s reprimanding elastic.
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