by Hilary Duff
So there we go; I had a boyfriend doomed to die young. We had no choice but to squeeze a lifetime of happiness into a few short years, constantly looking over our shoulders at the ticking clock of doom. . . .
Okay, yes, it was horrible . . . but it was also pretty romantic. Like, Titanic romantic. At least it was when Nico first told me. He was so earnest about it. He said he’d dedicated his life to breaking the curse. Not for himself—he didn’t care as much about himself—he wanted to break it for his remaining younger siblings, and for the other kids born into the cult who otherwise would never have a chance.
“My own life never mattered much to me,” he’d said. “Not until I met you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Rayna. And maybe it’s selfish, but I want that life to be a lot longer than the next nine years. I want to marry you. I want to have kids with you. Lots of kids.”
Whoa.
I’ve never wanted to have kids, but the way Nico looked at me when he said that made me see it. We’d get a farm somewhere, we’d save up for “date nights,” I’d stay home with our five little kids while Nico worked . . . maybe I’d even homeschool the kids. If I was going to do that, I’d probably have to pay more attention in school. I wondered if Helmut Lang would ever start making aprons.
I was so far off in happy homemaker land I didn’t even realize he was down on one knee until he took my hand and squeezed it. Then I screamed.
“YES! Oh my God, YES! Nico . . .”
“Wait. Rayna, I can’t ask you to marry me right now. That wouldn’t be fair.”
“But you’re down on one knee.”
“Because I’m proposing to propose. I’d give you a promise ring if I had one.”
“A promise ring? That’s . . . adorable.”
“I mean it. I already wrote to my mom. She has my grandmother’s wedding ring, and I told her to get it polished up and ready, because one day soon it’s gonna be yours.”
I threw my arms around him and kissed him. “Maybe we shouldn’t wait,” I said.
“You don’t understand—”
“I do. I believe the curse is real. I just don’t care. You said you want to be with me for the rest of your life. I want that too, and I want it no matter how long it is.”
Nico smiled, but he shook his head. “I love you, Rayna. I love you too much to let you marry me the way things are now. Let me break the curse . . . and I will break the curse . . . and then we’ll do it up right. All I’m asking now is to know you want the same thing I want. Tell me that, and I’ll have the strength to do anything.”
“Anything?” I gave him my best wicked smile, but of course he didn’t get it.
“Yeah, anything. Why, what did you . . . oh.”
I had just peeled off my shirt and thrown it on the floor. Even he couldn’t misread that one. His lips curled into a smile and he pulled me to him, and it was like in an end-of-the-world disaster movie, where the main characters know this could be their last time together, and they throw themselves into each other with complete abandon and it’s all heady and dramatic and wonderful. . . .
But I didn’t really think it was the end of the world. That didn’t happen until afterward, when Nico took off with Clea and Ben to find Sage. He was excited about it; he was sure when they found him, he’d break the curse once and for all. I wanted to go too, but he wouldn’t let me. He said it was too dangerous.
Dangerous wasn’t supposed to be part of the deal. I mean, it was all fine and good to feel like we were cheating death each second we were together, but I didn’t want him to actually risk his life.
“Don’t go,” I whispered.
“I have to,” he said. “But I’ll come back. I promise.”
I believed it . . . but that was a little over twenty-four hours ago. I wish I could say I still believe it, but . . .
Okay, the 16 and Pregnant girl is in labor, and it looks nightmarish. If Nico does come back—when he comes back?—maybe he’ll be okay with one kid instead of “lots.” And maybe we can wait twenty years or so before we have it. Or maybe we’ll just dress up little dogs.
I turn off the TV and hear something outside. The gate at the end of the driveway, rolling open. My heart thumps against my chest. I’m dying to race to the window, but I’m afraid to look. My parents are both asleep, Senator Weston and her entourage are out of town, Piri and the rest of the household staff are long gone for the day. It has to be them . . . but is Nico there too?
If I don’t look, if I pretend I don’t know they’re back, then I won’t have to hear the bad news. I can spend all night believing he’s okay.
Unless he is okay. Then putting it off just makes it longer until we’re back together.
I race to the window and press myself against it just in time to see headlights and what looks like the outline of Ben’s car cruise past my house, past the main parking area for Clea’s house, and around the corner to the back.
Oh shit. Oh hell. I can’t breathe. I hear myself hyperventilating, and everything’s getting swimmy.
Ben wouldn’t drive around to the back like that if Nico was okay. He wouldn’t. He and Clea have to know I’m freaking out. If everything was okay, they’d park right in front of my door and run inside. The house is on a gated estate; it’s not like we keep the door locked. The only way he’d avoid my house is if he’s avoiding me, and the only reason he’d avoid me is if he and Clea didn’t want to give me bad news.
As I fly down the stairs and out the door, I come up with other reasons Ben could have driven around back. If they succeeded and saved Sage, Clea and Sage might want to slip inside and have some privacy. Or Clea could be the one hurt, so they’re pulling up to a door that’s closer to her room. That’s got to be it. And I’m not a horrible friend for thinking it, because if she was really hurt, she’d be in the hospital, not at home. She’s just sort of hurt. Sort of hurt’s no big deal, but it would be weird for Nico to excuse himself and come see me when she’s even sort of hurt and they’re getting her all situated and comfortable, so it’s good I’m coming to him.
That’s why I’m running so fast. It’s not that I’m worried about Nico. Nico’s fine. I’m running to help Clea.
I race barefoot across my front lawn and the mulched grove that separates my house from Clea’s, then onto the smooth blacktop of the long, winding driveway. Little stabs of pain pierce my sore heel with every step, and I can just picture myself limping the last few feet to Nico. I see it so clearly, I don’t even notice something’s in front of me until I slam into it and topple to the ground.
“Rayna?”
It’s Clea, but that doesn’t make sense. She’s supposed to be hurt, and Nico and Ben and maybe Sage are supposed to be helping her up to her room.
“Are you okay?” she asks. She holds out her hand so I can grab it and pull myself off the ground, but when I look up at her and see her face, I freeze.
“No,” I say. “No, no, no, no, no.”
I won’t look at her. Then she won’t say it. I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head and wait for her to go away.
She doesn’t. She thumps down next to me.
“I’m so sorry, Rayna. Nico . . .”
“Don’t say it. Don’t say it.”
“I’m sorry. Rayna . . .”
Clea puts a hand on my knee and ducks low, trying to catch my eye. I look up at her . . . and my stomach rolls over.
She looks happy.
Not like jumping-up-and-down happy, but I know her. Before she left last night she was shattered. Now she looks sad and sympathetic, but she’s not. Not really.
“Sage,” I say. “You found him. He’s okay.”
The words taste like acid in my mouth. Clea’s eyes get wide, and her mouth curves into a shocked little O, but she doesn’t deny it.
“He’s okay, but Nico isn’t.” It’s an accusation, and Clea knows it. Now she’s the one who won’t look at me.
“Sage is . . . He’s okay. Yes.”
“And Nico’s not.�
�� The words are awful, but I feel stronger for saying them, like they’re arrows I’m shooting into Clea’s body. I know they’re hurting her; I can see her body hunching over around the wound. It feels good. I want to do even more.
Of course Sage is okay. Of course. He belongs to Clea, who always gets what she wants. It’s been like that forever. She’s the celebrity. She’s the one everyone wants to photograph and interview and hover around. She’s the star of the movie, the one who always gets the happy ending. I’m the sidekick; no one cares if my heart gets broken.
Clea shakes her head. Nico’s not okay. “I’m so sorry, Rayna.”
She wraps her arms around me, and I freak out. “Get off me!” I shove her away, but I can still feel her on me, and it’s so gross I can’t even deal. I hold out my hands in front of me, my body rigid and my fingers bared like claws.
“Rayna . . . what are you doing?”
She comes toward me again!
“Stop! Get away from me!” I scramble to my feet. She’s so small down on the ground, her perfect blond hair and big blue eyes and fake-angel face. I want to kick her right in her chin.
“I know how you feel—”
“You know how I feel?” I snarl. “How? It all worked out for you, Clea, just the way you wanted it!”
“No!” she says, her lying eyes wide now, like that’ll make me believe her. “I never wanted anything to happen to Nico.”
“You did if it would save Sage. He’s the important one, right? You and Sage and your ‘eternal’ love. Nico and I, we didn’t have anything like that. He was just a guy and I’ll get over him, so it doesn’t matter what happens to him. That’s what you think!”
“No!”
“It’s exactly what you think!”
“That’s not true.”
“Then why did you let him go with you and Ben?”
Clea’s mouth is open to answer, but nothing comes out. Of course not. There’s nothing she can say.
“You can’t answer that, can you?”
She does, but she looks at the ground when she says it, not at me. “He wanted to come.”
“So? You could have stopped him. You could have left without him. You could have left him here with me.”
Clea buries her face in her hands. When she looks up, her eyes are puffy, all ready to cry fake tears. “It’s okay if you’re mad at me,” she says. “I understand.”
“I don’t give a shit if you understand! I don’t need your permission! My God . . .” I tangle my fingers in my hair and pull. I’m so angry I can’t handle it. I don’t know how to handle it, so I want to rip and tear and destroy, but all I can do is lean into Clea’s face and scream as loud as I can.
“Rayna!”
The voice is panicked. It’s my mom, lumbering toward us in her robe, her tight curls sleep-matted to one side of her head.
“I heard screaming. . . .” Mom looks around, her eyes darting back and forth between Clea and me. “What’s going on?”
I can’t answer.
Nico’s gone.
He’s gone.
I don’t feel myself start to cry. One minute I’m standing there and the next I’m on my knees, bent double, sobbing and choking.
Mom’s arms wrap around me and I hear the worry in her voice. “Rayna? Baby, what happened? Clea?”
I don’t want to hear how Clea explains everything to my mom. I pull out of the bear hug and stagger to my feet. I lock eyes with Clea for what I hope is the last time ever.
“This is all your fault,” I say. “You did it, and I will never, never forgive you.”
Clea and Mom both say things as I walk away, but the tears are coming harder than ever now. I can’t hear them, and I don’t want to see them. I wave them off and run back home, run back to my room and fling myself onto my bed. I pull all my pillows close and curl into a ball around them, squeezing them tight while I cry and cry and cry.
I’ll probably cry forever.
four
CLEA
“She’s right,” I tell Ben. “It’s my fault Nico’s dead. I sacrificed him to save Sage.”
Ben and I are in the family room. We face each other on the couch, our feet pulled up and our backs against the armrests. He’d found me outside, sitting in the grass after I’d tried to explain to Wanda. I hadn’t made a lot of sense, but once she’d understood that Nico was gone, she hadn’t listened for more. She’d left without another word. She probably believed what Rayna said, that it was my fault.
Within the last seventy-two hours I’ve been shot at, threatened at knifepoint, and pummeled head to toe by flying rocks and branches, but nothing scared me like Rayna’s face when she said I killed Nico. Nothing hurt as badly, either. I think I’d still be sitting out there, wounded in the grass, if it weren’t for Ben. He gathered me under his arm and led me inside to my favorite of the overstuffed gray couches, then draped an afghan over me while he went into the kitchen and made tea. Azteca Fire, mixed with sugar and almond milk, my favorite comfort drink. I clutched the mug in both hands, and only after I’d taken several sips did he ask what happened.
“It’s not your fault Nico’s dead,” Ben says now. “It’s mine.”
“No, it’s not. You can’t blame yourself.”
“Pretty sure I can, seeing as I actively tackled him into a knife.”
“You actively tackled him away from killing another man. What happened after that . . . just happened. He fell. It’s my fault he was even there to begin with.”
“How do you figure that?”
“I should have made him stay home with Rayna!” I insist.
“The man’s a house,” Ben says. “You really think you could have stopped him?”
“Why not? You think you could have stopped gravity!”
He leans forward to make another point, and I’m set to volley it back . . . when he slumps back into the cushions. “Wow . . . Can we stop fighting about which one of us is more horrible?”
I find a weak smile. “Okay. Is Sage upstairs?”
Ben nods. “Asleep. I didn’t know where you’d want him, so I put him in the guest room.”
“Great. Thanks.”
Neither one of us says anything for a long time. It feels good, though. I’m so down-to-my-bones exhausted, I can’t imagine trying to chat . . . but with Ben I don’t have to. There’s no pressure. Even after everything, I can just sit with him in silence and feel totally at home.
Then I wonder. “Did you ever tell Suzanne about . . .”
I wave my hand in the air. It’s the only way I can think to sum up everything Ben might have told his girlfriend—all about Ben’s past lives, and mine, and how time after time the men with Ben’s soul caused tragedy for me and Sage.
Ben gives a short laugh and shakes his head. I smile too. I know Suzanne—she works for my mom—and there is no way I can see her handling that kind of conversation.
“Just as well,” he says. “She ended it. You know, after . . .”
Now it’s his turn to drift off, but I know what he means. After the night on the beach, when I threw myself at him. Maybe it should make me uncomfortable that he brings it up, but it doesn’t. I can tell he’s not upset about it—not anymore. He just says it that way because he’s as tired as I am; it would take too much energy to do anything else.
“You okay?”
“Oh yeah. It’s better, actually. Suzanne’s a little bit . . . high-maintenance.”
I nod sympathetically, but a second later we both burst out laughing because Suzanne isn’t just a little high-maintenance, she’s ridiculously high-maintenance. But even that isn’t it. Not really. We laugh because it feels so good and light and easy and normal, and we both keep going until we’re gasping for air. When I’m completely spent I take a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh . . . at the exact same time Ben does, which starts us laughing all over again.
“Can I tell you something?” Ben says once we settle down. I expect him to make some kind of joke and I narrow my eyes
at him. “I really admire you.”
I scan his face for sarcasm, but there’s none. “Me?” I ask. “For what?
“I admire your strength. Most people, if they faced even a fraction of the stuff you’ve had to deal with, they’d land in a psych ward. But you handle it.”
“Badly.”
“Better than you think.”
Ben has a throw pillow in his lap and twines his fingers in and out of its fringe. The circles under his eyes . . . I’ve seen him pull three all-nighters in a row juggling work and research projects, but I’ve never seen him look this tired. More than tired. He looks worn, like . . .
Like an old soul.
Ben can talk all he wants about how much I’ve had to handle, but he’s dealt with just as much. Nico’s death was the worst. If I were any kind of friend at all, I’d urge him to go on vacation someplace far away, where he could try and forget everything that happened this year. The Elixir is gone; my drama doesn’t have drag him down anymore.
The problem is there’s no one else I can ask.
“I’m hoping you can do me a favor,” I say.
“You want me to do some research and find out what’s going on with Sage.”
It’s exactly what I want, but now I can’t say it. I can’t drag him into this any deeper.
“No,” I say. “Forget I mentioned it. You’ve done enough.”
“Stop. Of course I’ll help you. We’re friends.”
He looks at me meaningfully, and I hear what he doesn’t say: that all the confusion about our relationship is in the past. We’re friends. That’s all, and that’s everything.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“Happy to do it. I figure I’ll start with the library at Yale. They have an ancient text collection that’s pretty extensive. The content is all over the place, but you can find some incredible things if you know where to look.”