An Ever Fixéd Mark

by Jessie Olson

  “She was wrong, Lizzie,” he knelt in front of her. “I have karma coming at me from so many directions.”

  “But Charlotte took your life and then you…”

  Oliver pried one of her hands away from the mug. “Charlotte could only see hate and evil acts. I told you, she was here too long. She had no perspective. She didn’t understand forgiveness because she never gave any.”

  “I don’t want to kill you,” Lizzie’s voice trembled.

  “I know.”

  “I…” she tried to speak but Oliver pulled her into a kiss to stop her words. He slid his hand under her dress, burning against her thigh. She felt her mind slipping away once more. She couldn’t do it. No matter how good it felt in the moment, she knew the moments after would make her cry. She shut her eyes and stopped moving her lips against his. He pulled away a few inches without removing his hand.

  “We can’t go anywhere,” his breath was warm against her face.

  She opened her eyes to meet his gaze. “I need to go home.”

  “It will take forever to get my car out,” he touched her cheek with a gentle kiss.

  “I’ll take the train,” she clenched her jaw.

  “Don’t go,” he moved his hand closer. She grabbed it and pushed him away.

  “I can’t do this,” she stood up quickly.

  “What?” Oliver reached for her hand.

  She shook it off and found her stockings on the floor. “I can’t be with you, Oliver. Go back to California.”

  “Lizzie, let’s talk about this.”

  “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  “Are you going back to Ben?”

  “I …” she lost her breath over another sob. “I need to be by myself.”

  “You are frightened. I shouldn’t have told you what Charlotte said.”

  “It isn’t about Charlotte.”

  Oliver nodded slowly and went back to the view of Boylston Street. “You still love him.”

  “Of course I still love him,” she raised her voice. “I never stopped. I don’t think I ever will.”

  “Even though he lied?”

  “We all lie,” Lizzie started rolling her stockings up her legs. “Maybe in this life, Oliver, Lily finally breaks free from vampires.” As the words left her, a strange cool clarity seeped into her mind. “Maybe I came back this time to release you.”

  “Release me,” he repeated quietly to the window.

  “Maybe, Oliver,” she found her heels under the chair. “Maybe you keep looking for Lily in all those women you fall for. When they aren’t Lily, you lose interest.”

  “But you ARE Lily.”

  “I don’t want to live the life that Lily didn’t finish,” she felt the confidence of her emotion. “I want my own life.”

  He left the window quickly and pulled her tightly into his hold. She felt trapped beneath his strength. “This is your life. It has always been your life, Lizzie. Maybe you don’t know it yet. This is where you are meant to be.”

  She let the tears form in her eyes, afraid to make the slightest movement from the clutch of his arms. “I want… I want to figure that out for myself, Oliver.”

  “You want to be alone,” he dropped his hands and stepped away.

  “I’m sorry,” she went for her coat in the closet.

  “I will wait Lizzie.”

  “Don’t,” she walked out the door.

  Chapter Thirty

  Lizzie took the straw out of its wrapper and swirled it around in the ice water. She was accustomed to awkward silences with Sara. They slipped into their conversation frequently. It wasn’t much different from every other annual meeting they had to catch up. Only this time, Lizzie carefully ordered the salmon and was mimicking Sara’s sobriety. And yet there was Sara, as skinny as ever, ordering a steak. How could she achieve that after a fourth baby?

  Sara was happy. Lizzie wasn’t going to discredit the smile, even with the hint of sorrow about her dad’s absence at the holiday. Sara may have lived in a cloud of reality Lizzie didn’t accept. But the truth was, Sara was genuinely happy. She may not know the thrill of a vampire’s kiss or bite. She would condemn it if she would let herself believe in such things. But Sara knew the thrill of a husband who loved her and children who claimed her as a mother. She had a happy, normal life.

  Was anything really normal? Most years she looked at Sara’s smile and condemned it as ignorant. This year she couldn’t help but envy it.

  “It’s really too bad about you and Ben,” Sara didn’t waste any time after the waitress set their food down.

  “It is too bad,” Lizzie took a sip of her water. “I really… loved him.”

  “Well, God never closes a door without opening a window.”

  “I suppose not,” Lizzie felt as though she was trapped without any doors or windows.

  “Is anyone else a possibility?”

  “A possibility?”

  “Lizzie,” Sara shook her head and took a sip of her iced tea. “Before you know it, you will be forty. Don’t you want to be married and a mother by then?”

  Lizzie looked at her, uncertain what to say. She didn’t want to get married. She didn’t want to be with anyone. How could she explain that to Sara, who lived and breathed her role as doting wife and mother? How could she tell Sara she had enough of relationships, not just in this life but in two? “Not everyone needs to get married to be happy,” Lizzie picked up her fork.

  Sara laughed in disbelief. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Well what else … it’s not like you have a career, Lizzie,” Sara shut her mouth and took up her knife to slice the sirloin. Lizzie watched the juices run out of the meat and seep into the potatoes. “How’s Jack doing?”

  Lizzie’s eyes left Sara’s plate and met her eyes. “He’s doing well,” she breathed out slowly, surprised something Sara said could sting her so profoundly. “His son Zach is starting to play guitar.”

  “Kids are amazing,” Sara took a bite of her steak.

  Lizzie slid her fork into her salmon, debating whether to indulge a jab or let the conversation fade into the hum of other voices talking around them. If she was still with Ben, there would still be an awkward conversation about marriage and children. If she was still with Ben, she would be living with him without a ring on her finger. If she was still with Ben… why did she let the idea enter her mind?

  “How is Josie?” Lizzie filled the silence between the bites. She wasn’t able to leave the subject of children.

  “She is growing so quickly,” Sara’s sour attitude brightened immediately to a smile. “She is such a joy. She has been a perfect comfort this first year without Dad. Especially the first Christmas.”

  “I can imagine,” Lizzie looked at the pink flesh on her plate. “And Ted?”

  “He might be getting a promotion at the bank.”

  “Very good,” Lizzie felt the sharpness of Sara’s comment about career and wondered if the inspiration for pleasantries had dried up.

  “Did you hear about Melissa Benson?”

  “They found her body,” Lizzie stared at her untouched food, wishing the conversation would revert to marriage and children.

  “They say it’s difficult to determine the cause of death at this point.”

  “It was raining the night she disappeared,” Lizzie muttered the detail she heard several times in recent months.

  “I think it was foul play,” Sara put the knife through her steak again. “She grew up in those woods. How would she not know where the brook was?”

  “Maybe she wasn’t in the right frame of mind.”

  “True,” Sara closed her mouth over her next bite. “She was an unusual girl.”

  “I didn’t know her very well,” Lizzie breathed in slowly and looked directly at Sara. “I can’t say I remember if she was unusual or not.”

  “She used to date Kyle Granger. Jack didn’t like him.”

  “Yeah, wel
l, Jack didn’t like pretty much everyone in high school.”

  “Kyle was into D & D and all that stuff. Don’t you think he might have had something to do with it?”

  “With Melissa?” Lizzie made herself raise her eyebrow in alarm. She didn’t want to show she had any knowledge whatsoever of why Melissa was not in her right mind the night she fell and drowned. That she knew Melissa had her blood drained by a vampire. That she tricked the vampire. “No, I don’t think Kyle had anything to do with that.”

  “But she was cheating on him.”

  “What?” Lizzie lost the reserve of her pretense.

  “She used to sneak around with Ben’s brother,” Sara looked at her. Lizzie wondered if her revelation was really about Melissa or just an attempt to say she knew more about the Cottinghams than Lizzie. Not that she had any clue about the Cottingham boys or how they were connected to Melissa’s death.

  “How do you know that?”

  “She told me on the bus one day. She wanted to know what I knew about Oliver and Ben. She mostly wanted to know about Ben.”

  “What did she want to know about Ben?”

  “Just trivial stuff. I don’t remember. His favorite color. His favorite food.”

  “Why would she ask you that?”

  “I assume she wanted to get on his good side to impress Oliver. I don’t know, Lizzie. It was so long ago. That was really the only time I ever had a conversation with her.”

  “Did you tell Ben?”

  “I don’t think it matters,” she hesitated over her next bite and then set it down. “You know, I wondered if Oliver might be a suspect. But he was already in Oregon or wherever it was he went to college.”

  “California.”

  “Well wherever it was, he wasn’t still in Coldbrook. Maybe she got all depressed because he moved away,” Sara shrugged. “She didn’t understand why I didn’t like Ben.”

  “Why didn’t you like Ben, Sara?”

  “He wasn’t my type,” Sara said lightly. “He always seemed… I don’t know… old. I suppose that didn’t bother you, Lizzie. You always liked history and stuff like that. But Ben just wasn’t that much fun in high school. Anyway, I’m kind of relieved you aren’t seeing him anymore. He always made me uncomfortable.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, he was always there. Watching things. He was weird, too. Just like Melissa. And Kyle Granger. I bet he was into that D & D stuff as well.”

  “He…” Lizzie began a thought and lost it as the tears tempted her again. Why didn’t she remember Ben so well in high school? Why hadn’t she paid attention to him if he was someone she knew and loved in another lifetime? Why didn’t she recognize him when she was the age that Lily was when she met him?

  “It is too bad that she died so young,” Sara concluded the topic. “But she is at peace now.”

  “She is now,” Lizzie scooped up some rice on her fork. Who was to say that Melissa Benson wasn’t going to come back someday?

  “You know, Lizzie, Ted’s cousin just got divorced last year,” Sara slowly patted her lips with her napkin. “He lives in Boston. I could give him your phone number.”

  Lizzie breathed in and stopped herself from rolling her eyes. She simply smiled and took another bite of her meal.

  *****

  Lizzie held a small paper plate in her hand, hesitating over the table of hors d’oeuvres. She picked up a few vegetables and let her eyes wander to the window. She could see the apartments across the street and a few buildings behind them. Just a few streets over was Ben’s. It was the closest she was to his place in nearly three weeks. Those three weeks seemed like three months in a lot of ways. She ached to see him again, to see the freckles under his green eyes smiling at her. She could tell him she was missing something. A shoe. A hairbrush. And she did just happen to be in the neighborhood.

  Three weeks wasn’t enough. It was two weeks since she walked away from Oliver. She wouldn’t open his message. She left it amongst the other neglected messages of her inbox. The confusion was still swirling in her brain making everything unclear. The only clear thing was that she had to resist taking every tempting piece of food off that table and scarfing it down.

  Lizzie heard a conversation swell as Davis led some of his theater friends towards the table of food. She didn’t have to turn to recognize the fact Will was among them. She couldn’t face him. Not when Oliver’s teeth marks were still red beneath her collar.

  She found Andrew in the kitchen, stationed with Davis’ martini shaker plus a table of food to stop her from repeating her party habits. He was in a crowd of work friends. Lizzie lingered by the empty kitchen table, contemplating a plunge into the seven layer dip. She hoped she could hold it together for just one more hour. A half hour. Then she could leave. If she couldn’t… if she fell apart in the next ten minutes, she would run to Ben’s apartment. She didn’t care. She needed someone who wouldn’t think she was crazy or some pathetic loser who couldn’t keep a boyfriend. But Ben… Ben wouldn’t want to see her. She was worse than crazy or pathetic to him.

  “So what’s this Paula was saying?” Andrew put an arm over her shoulders. “You aren’t coming back to the Fulton House?”

  “I just thought I’d take a couple months off is all,” Lizzie pulled her confidence out of thin air.

  “You will come back?” Andrew pouted. “You’re the only one with a sense of humor in that place.”

  “I’ll be back,” Lizzie didn’t want to think about the Fultons or the impulse that prompted her to say something to Paula an hour earlier. She wanted a few extra Saturdays. She wanted a break from… Lily.

  “Are you okay?” Andrew rubbed her back.

  “I’ve been better,” Lizzie let her eyes rest again on the seven layer dip. It would taste so very, very good.

  “I have something for you,” Andrew coaxed her out of the kitchen towards the bedrooms.

  “Oh really?” she managed some sarcasm.

  “Davis will be upset that I gave it to you without him. But he invited Will, so whatever,” Andrew pulled her hand into their room. He opened the closet door and pulled out a gift bag. Lizzie took the cue and pulled out a circle of tissue paper. She unraveled it to reveal a small hinged painted box.

  “This is exquisite,” Lizzie almost feared to touch it.

  “We went antiquing this fall. It’s an old powder box. There’s even still some powder in it.”

  Lizzie opened it up to a dusty puff of air. “All I need is a beauty mark.”

  “Careful, that stuff is toxic. Probably has mercury or lead,” Andrew laughed. “Just don’t eat it.”

  “Okay,” Lizzie realized she no longer had as much risk touching lead as she had two weeks ago. “Andrew, this is really sweet. It’s beautiful.”

  “I wanted to give it to you as a …. Christ, I wanted it to be your something old when you married Ben. But even if you aren’t marrying him, it’s yours.”

  “Thanks,” Lizzie couldn’t stop the tears.

  “Not that I don’t think you’ll get married,” Andrew said quickly. “It’s just… well, I can’t give that to you when it’s someone different.”

  “It’s okay, Andrew.”

  “I’m disappointed you won’t be living in the neighborhood, Lizzie,” he sighed. She remembered Andrew’s fondness of Ben, but knew his loyalty was with her. She hadn’t told him about Oliver, but knew there would be a night when she would indulge in one of Davis’ martinis and tell all. They would forgive her, just as Meg and Nora had. They were her friends, even if they were her critics. They would help her get on her feet again, even if she didn’t know where to go when she got there.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Lizzie rolled up her spine and collected her breath before stepping into the store. It was three miles to the one and only store in Coldbrook from her parents’ house. She went inside to buy some water and returned to the mild January air. She went behind the building where some picnic tables overlooked the water. They wer
e abandoned for the winter but a good height to stretch her hamstrings before running the three miles back.

  There was a sweetness in the unnaturally warm air. The water was normally covered with ice at that time of year. Instead it reflected the gray cloudy sky like platinum film. There was just the soft rattle of a few branches in the lilting trees. She wondered if any of the lake fed the springs. Did it have the same mystical waters that lured Maria to Coldbrook a hundred years before?

  She was surprisingly calm. She spent the holidays and the weeks after concentrating on running and not eating. The focus provided release from the confusion of her emotions. She was happy in her solitude. She was satisfied with her choice to go back to herself. Relieved to longer have thoughts that didn’t belong to her life.

  She was fortunate to have the gala fast approaching and leave her with fewer idle moments at the hospital. She withdrew from her friends and social activity. She didn’t have to answer more questions about what happened with Ben. It was easier to run herself into exhaustion and go home to bed. It made her dreams quiet. Lily went back to whatever dark corner of her mind from which she was disturbed by Ben and Oliver.

  She was aware of someone watching. She took in a deep breath as she dropped her leg back to the ground and turned around slowly to see Oliver. Lizzie looked away from him and breathed in to contemplate her reaction. She couldn’t deny the thrill of seeing his tall, strong physique and moody dark eyes. But it disturbed that calm she recently realized.

  “Hi,” he entreated quietly.

  Lizzie picked up her water bottle. “Hi.”

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he bit his lip, keeping a wary distance from her. “I saw you walk out of the store as I drove by and… I just … I wanted to say hi.”

  “Okay,” she felt her nerves enliven as he took a step closer. She hadn’t been with anyone since she walked out of the hotel room five weeks before. She ran off that frustration and loneliness every day. Was it desire that excited her so suddenly? Or was it something else? She stepped back from his advance. “Why are you in Coldbrook?”