by S. L. Naeole
I felt him stiffen beneath me at my words. The topic of my death had never really come up and stayed around long enough to fully discuss it, mostly due to his insistence that we could always talk about it later. Well, it was later.
“Robert?”
He started to rub my back, his voice soft as he spoke, “I don’t want to think about you dying, Grace. I’ve told you before, you are my life. You are the reason I exist; if you’re no longer here, I don’t want to be either. You give me peace when everything in my head is just chaos. You’ve helped the days stop blending into each other so that I can appreciate each one. Each moment of my future is one that I look forward to spending with you. I am who I am because of you. Without you, I will cease to be.”
His hand stopped rubbing. He shifted my body and I felt his hands on my face as he turned my head to look at him, giving me the full impact of his quicksilver gaze. “I wanted to wait to ask this until you were used to what I am, but I think that the longer I do so, the more stubborn you’ll become. I want to know, Grace, if you would consider becoming an immortal.” He held himself still as his words sunk in. He didn’t even breathe.
I didn’t either. I could hear the slowing down of my heart as it struggled in my chest beneath the weight of his words; my lungs were burning for oxygen, and still I couldn’t do anything but stare into Robert’s eyes. If I were to die right now, I’d probably have been able to say that I was far more loved than anyone had a right to be. That Robert was willing to risk so much so that we couldn’t be separated by time felt like he was offering me the world.
“I can’t.”
He nodded, knowing before I had even spoken the words what my answer would be. “Can I ask you why?”
I looked down at my hand, lifting up the right one and stared at the ring on my finger. The star in the dark stone had disappeared, just like Robert had said it would. “I know that I’ve told you many times that all I want in this life is to be normal. I’ve pretty much realized that loving you and being with you sort of cancels out the possibility of that happening, so I gladly accept not being normal in that instance. But, to everyone else, I’m still Grace. I still fit here somehow, even if it is somewhat awkwardly.
“Right now, I’m happy being me. I’ve struggled for a long time to accept who I am, what I am. Eighteen years of never knowing where exactly I belonged, where I fit in—I was always the outsider who wasn’t even comfortable in my own skin. And then you came into my life, and you helped me to see beyond what people had labeled me, beyond what I had labeled myself; you helped me to see that inside, I’m just as beautiful as Erica, just as funny as Stacy, just as likeable as Graham. You made me realize that although I was content to settle for mediocre, I’m much more than that.
“But, if I were to become immortal, all of that would be gone because all of that belongs to the human Grace. If you were given permission to change me, what would I be in your world? What would I be in mine? You’re an angel; people paint you on ceilings and send out postcards with your picture on them. They create statues and-” I held up the pendant that dangled from my neck, “-and jewelry in your likeness because you are important. What would I be but a nobody who can live forever? I wouldn’t fit in anywhere. Not in your world, and definitely not in mine. I’d be able to live forever, but where would I live?”
I fiddled with the hem of my blouse as I let my words sink into him, knowing that he’d have some kind of rebuttal ready to unleash on me. I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to hold up when that happened. Instead, he sighed, the sound sad—melancholy.
“I love you,” he whispered as he kissed the top of my head, his arms wrapping around me tightly. “I love you, forever.”
I tucked my head even tighter into his chest. I felt myself smile, in spite of the tear that slid down the side of my nose, betraying the words that I had just spoken. “I love you, too.”
He could sense the trembling in my words and placed his fingers beneath my chin, lifting my face away from his chest and up towards his. When he spoke his voice was tinged with regret. “Please don’t cry, Grace. It was the wrong time to talk about it—I’m sorry.” He said this with his eyes full of mercury tears, threatening to spill over at any moment into my lap in a shower of crystals. I could see the sadness that my words had caused him etched into his face, and I wanted to snatch them back, to erase them from his memory just to see him smile again.
“I’m the one who should be sorry, Robert,” I murmured, my hand gently cradling his face, my thumb grazing just beneath his lower lashes. “I’m being selfish for thinking of only what I want. I’d have you for the rest of my life, but you wouldn’t—I’m just a flash in yours. If the tables were turned, I’m not sure just how I’d react, but I know it wouldn’t be with your patience. You’ve waited fifteen hundred years for what you wanted, while I complain about waiting a measly eighteen.”
I leaned my head back down and nestled it in the hollow of his neck. I pressed my lips against the spot where his pulse should be, another tear slipping out as I thought back to what he had sacrificed to try and give me what I had wanted; a normal life, I had told him. And yet, I couldn’t help but recall what Sam had told me, about what it had cost him to try and make the woman he had loved into an immortal. She had become a monster and consequently, he had to destroy her. That fear was too much…the cost for both of us was not something I could risk, not when I finally had everything I could ever want.
“Can we not talk about this again? At least for a while?” I said to him in a small, diffident voice.
His arms tightened around me again, his sigh of concession feeling more like a groan of defeat. “Whatever it takes, Grace.” He hadn’t heard my thoughts, and I was relieved. It would only make him more adamant about changing me…but I was already different.
I pulled my head up to his and tilted my face to kiss him, but he held me back. “I think we should go back downstairs, now,” he said, his eyes brimming with sadness and…plotting?
Feeling my lips pull forward in a pout, I nodded, understanding that we had risked being away long enough. “Poor Lark. I’m afraid you’ll probably never see me again after tonight—what with all of the favors I’m going to have to owe her for putting her through this,” I said with a half-hearted laugh.
Robert stood up, easing me into a standing position with him, his arms still wrapped around my waist. “I’m afraid that you’re probably right, but don’t be too upset if I play the hero once in a while and rescue you from whatever horrible human task she has set out for you to do.” He smiled, the humor and enjoyment in his eyes returning quite swiftly. He leaned forward and softly kissed my pouting lower lip. “And when I do rescue you, I will demand a reward.”
“Oh dear bananas,” I panted, my heart thundering inside of my chest like no storm ever had.
Laughing at my reaction, Robert loosened his hold and, grabbing my hand, pulled me towards the door. I dug my feet into the ground when something caught my eye. Sitting on the corner of my dresser was a little object. I walked closer to examine it and bit my trembling lip. A small, lopsided whale with an odd protrusion from its head was seated on my dresser, the pink of the whale contrasting with the green of anomaly.
“I broke this…the day we met—I don’t even know what happened to it afterwards,” I breathed as I picked up the figurine with shaking fingers. “How?”
Robert reached for it and looked at it closely, his eyes seeing far more than I ever could. “Janice had put it away in a small box in your closet. I knew it had meant a great deal to you, and it still does to Graham. He just doesn’t want to ask for it back. So, I fixed it.”
I took it back with careful fingers and looked at it, though with far more scrutiny. I had made this, after all. “You can’t tell where it broke, or that it had broken at all.”
Robert smiled and touched the corner of my eye with his thumb, taking away a drop of moisture with it. “It’s much stronger than it was before. Just like its maker.”
“Thank you,” I mouthed, unable to form words or sounds. I leaned into his chest as I replaced the small whale on the dresser. He didn’t need to hear me or see my lips moving to know that I was grateful. I was more than that. I was unbelievably blessed. “Okay, let’s go back downstairs now,” I whispered when I could finally manage the emotions that overflowed within me.
With the blinding speed that I was slowly getting used to, he picked me up and flashed down the stairs until we were back in the living room, sitting on the floor beside the couch as though we had never left.
I heard a melodious noise fill the house that sounded a bit…off. I looked at Robert—his shoulders were shaking with laughter as he pointed in the direction of the wall across from the couch that held the television and Dad’s stereo. There, standing with her arm around my dad, was Lark—she was meowing the harmony to the second chorus of Jingle Bells, Dad meowing the melody.
Ameila and Janice were both still in the kitchen, laughing at the antics of the two meowers in the living room, and I shook my head at the impossibility of it all.
There was no helping it now. How normal could I possibly be with an angel meowing Jingle Bells in my living room? I glanced over at Robert and saw that his eyes were sparkling with genuine joy. He grabbed my hand and pressed his lips against my fingers, smiling at me when he saw the flush suffuse my face—roses and freckles.
This was my normal. Being in love with an angel, listening to cat Christmas Carols, and…possibly contemplating living forever was as normal as it was going to get for me, I realized. I smiled at my acceptance of this, and stood up. “I think I’ll go and sing along with Lark and Dad,” I said cheerfully, and did just that. Meow.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks go out to Tia, Kerri, and Alan, without whom I would not
have had the feedback and criticism to know what needed fixing and
what needed to be left alone and never touched ever again. You guys rock!
About The Author
S.L. Naeole spends most of her time writing, reading, and living life to the fullest with her husband, four children, and fuzzgut cat in her home in the Aloha State.
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