by Nana Malone
Her fingers massaged his scalp, and he leaned further into her – wished he could just forget himself. With her, perhaps, he would.
She was right, but there was nothing logical about coming to terms with the suicide of a loved one. At a loss for true understanding, it is sometimes inevitable to blame oneself for the desperation of others. Could he have done something, anything, to alleviate Tony’s condition? Perhaps not, but it was so difficult to accept that Tony couldn’t be helped by anyone, not even by his own flesh and blood.
“Towards the end, we fought a lot,” he told her. “At first I thought it was because of the girl, so I hated her. That was easy. Then, I started to think that Tony didn’t like to hang out with me anymore because I was too young and immature.”
Melita pressed her lips to his temple. “Manic-depressives tend to be irritable and angry. There are so many symptoms associated with the condition. I’ve met a few cases in my work. It’s a tough life for them and those who care for them. They need so much love, but I have no doubt you gave him all that you possibly could.”
He drew back to look at her face and realized he never asked her what she did for a living. “What line of work are you in?”
“I’m a psychotherapist.”
He laughed. “That’s why you make sense when you speak. And why just being with you relaxes me.”
She grinned back. “Wow, that’s a pretty unique testimonial you just gave me. Can I print it on my business card?”
The musical lilt to her voice really did soothe him, and he wished that well-being to last.
“No, but I’ll give you an even better endorsement if you like.”
He took her hand and slipped it between the sheet and quilt so she’d feel how her lingering caresses had roused his need to make love to her again.
“I need you.” And he meant this on so many levels.
Her eyes softened in understanding. She pushed him back on the pillow and leaned over him to read his face. Her tongue grazed the stubble on his jaw and followed a jagged path to his ear. Blood raced to his groin when she bent to pleasure him. Watching her like that, she looked far from vulnerable. She had power – power to fill him with need and want and to bring him to the brink with the slightest touch.
He had to stop her and pull her up to him. She straddled him, brought her torso flush against his. Without breaking eye contact she kissed him passionately, communicating to him that everything he’d said, every emotion he felt, was important to her.
She sat up, her hands clasped with his, and took him all inside her.
“Melita...”
Palms flat against his chest, she rocked above him, neither slow nor fast, while their eyes held – a sultry enchantress, fair and soft and feminine. As his senses responded he became a little more enthralled with her, a little more infatuated. His hands clasped her rounded hips, steady and possessive.
He couldn’t let her go.
When her gaze unfocused, he knew she was at pleasure’s door. She picked up her pace and threw her head back. Alex gripped her tighter. When she fell apart in his arms, he immortalized that moment in his brain.
Only when he heard her cry did he unbolt the heavy door of his mind and let go, allowed himself to go to a plane where he could never feel pain.
Before he drifted off, it occurred to him that he hadn’t used protection. That had never happened to him. He should have felt horrified, but he wasn’t.
No, he couldn’t let her go.
****
When Melita woke up the roosters crooned in the neighboring fields, to hail a new day. The first threads of light had already woven themselves in the black sky. She retrieved her mobile from the nightstand and looked at the time. Five fifteen AM.
The night would be over soon. Alex’s even breathing calmed her and brought to mind the conversation they’d had about their lives and their work. While he systematically emptied an entire tray of its contents, Alex had told her about Brushstrokes, his family’s business, and a name she recognized. She told him about her practice and how she craved a bigger challenge at this point in her life.
“Where does all that food go?” she marvelled at the size of his appetite.
“Hey, a man needs his strength,” he quipped.
Then they made love again with this new awareness of each other. After they’d shared their deepest, darkest secrets, it wasn’t worth even talking about what would happen after the present. Their connection couldn’t be denied. Yesterday, the date of their meeting, was the link that bound them – one that would bind them forever, whether they wanted it to or not.
It was fate that had brought them together for they’d both made the right choice, at the right time. What was it they called such a thing? Happenstance…
That was the word, which led to a wild thought sneaking into her head.
She turned to catch a clouded glimpse of Alex, who slept peacefully, spoon fashion, behind her, his arm circled protectively around her middle. In the dimness, he looked much more like a shadow cloaked over her.
What they just did, the pleasure they shared, she fancied a communion of their psychic energies. Perhaps the past they shared had made it all the more special, even before they’d made the connection on a conscious level. It was possible that their fused energies – again, in the right place, at the right time – could be used to lay the past to rest, once and for all.
Could they do this? The idea seeded in her mind. It was farfetched, which meant nothing in the scheme of things.
She placed her hand over his and ran two fingers over his knuckles. Her touch made him stir.
He murmured something unintelligible and breathed into her hair.
“Alex,” she called softly.
“Mmmm.”
She switched on the lamp and turned into his embrace. “Alex, wake up,” she coaxed, as she smoothed his hair and traced the shape of his ear.
She didn’t need perfect vision to discern how vulnerable he looked with his face relaxed in slumber. She could just imagine what he’d looked like as a young boy who idolized his older brother. A boy who’d lost all that was left of his innocence through the actions of someone else. How do we ever return to looking at the world with hope when the worst nightmare imaginable slaps us into its steel vise?
It occurred to her that there were so many children and youths who faced terrible tests in life, issues so overwhelming that even adults would find it difficult to cope with such situations. There was the opportunity to help such people in her work, especially if she involved herself with certain organizations and the education system, even on a voluntary basis.
She grappled with a newfound enthusiasm, a feeling she’d felt only at the start of her career. She’d had so many plans, so much eagerness to help others in her field, that gradually losing that passion had felt akin to losing a beloved relative. This was what she always wanted to do, after all.
Alex’s story was the catalyst that made her realize that what she needed was an adjustment of course and attitude, not a drastic change of profession.
She ran her hand down his back, while she admitted to herself how great it was to wake up next to him.
“Alex,” she repeated.
He opened his eyes this time, and blinked. “Morning, sunshine. Slept well?”
“I did.”
“There’s time. We can stay a bit more.”
It would be so easy to let his smile seduce her into weaselling out and staying in bed. “No,” she said. “There’s something I want to do.”
“What?”
She got out of bed and grabbed his arm. “I’ll tell you while we get ready.”
At six that morning, Melita’s hand reached out for Alex’s as they stood in the small clearing under the cypress trees in Buskett Gardens. With each passing minute the darkness faded and the dawn sky made way for the waking sun.
Alex was a bit reticent at first when she suggested to him to drive them here, but she insisted it would be the best way t
o for them both to face their fears and find closure.
“Usually, I’m not a big fan of reliving traumatic experiences, but in this case I have a strong feeling it may be the only way to help us go forward.”
“What use could it be, though? It’s not like we can change the past.”
“It’s a shot in the dark, but today is a special day – a day that means something to both of us. Perhaps what happened tonight is a sign that all we need to do is believe and our questions will be answered.”
He said nothing at first, only gave her a disbelieving look.
“Do it for me?” she pleaded. She was clutching at straws because what she’d said was as far from science as she could possibly get. But if he didn’t understand, nobody could. She had to try.
“I suppose we can,” he gave in after an interminable pause. His tone was full of sadness but also present was a faint thread of hope.
So here they were now, hand in hand. Unvoiced emotion cast itself around them with every breath they exhaled into the crisp dawn air. The foxgloves and cypresses were still around, and not much had changed with the passage of time, except that there were no dead bodies around. No remnants of blood and gore that marred the perfect balance of the natural world.
Deep within her, Melita had no doubt that mystical secrets lived here – secrets that divided the known world from the other side. Yet there was nothing now but the quiet woods and the precious sound of silence in the plain outdoors, pure, untouched. Theirs was the only human presence in that serene place, which remained nonetheless just like she’d always loved it in her childhood.
Whatever the truth was, she couldn’t come to believe that her apparition had come from a hostile or evil source, or that it meant her harm. She sent a silent prayer to the forces that had once manifested themselves to her.
Please, say something. Tony, are you there?
Please.
The occasional snap of a twig beneath their soles was the only sound she heard. Her resolve started to waver.
She and Alex looked at each other. He was close enough for her to read the weariness marked on his face and sense the strain that weighed him down like a cinderblock.
“I’m sorry,” she simply said.
He turned to cradle her cheek with a cool hand. “Don’t be. I’ve lived with it so long. I’ll just keep going as I was, no big deal.”
But she wasn’t fooled. It was a big deal. He pulled her close and replaced his hand with warm lips on her cheeks.
“You think Jeanette Lagrange knew about our association?” he asked, while they hung on to each other. “They do say she’s got a nose for these things but I thought it was just a marketing ploy.”
She pulled back. “If she did, she either has a direct line to…” her gaze lifted skyward, “or she’s made a thorough background check on us.”
She stared sideways at the spot where that cold, ghostly hand had shoved her to the ground. It all seemed so long ago now. What had it been? Just a ghost? A portal to another world? She supposed she’d never know.
“Perhaps Tony’s happy now and wherever he is, he’s not sick anymore,” Alex said gravely, as if reading her thoughts.
She gripped his hand tighter and observed his profile. Oh, how she wished to see every line, every angle, every blemish on his face. “I like that thought. Perhaps what I stumbled upon that day was Tony crossing over to the other side. I wasn’t supposed to be there so the hand pushed me back. It’s all the explanation I can think of, although it sounds crazy enough.”
How else could she make him feel better? How could she remove the millstone of guilt that held his heart captive?
“You really think so?” he said.
His lips curved up. Even through the permanent fog, she could see his smile was wan but beautiful. The more the days passed with Alex in her life, the better she would be able to see the way his smile brought into relief the lines around his eyes and mouth, and eased the severe lines of his face.
With time, the better it will be.
“I really think so,” she replied with conviction, while daylight bloomed.
He kissed her softly, solemnly. It felt like a vow – one that she’d always protect his heart and, from his end, a promise that he’d cherish her, help her truly live like she never had. Life had a way of giving back that was sometimes hard to process; it was both a blessing and a curse.
They turned to leave together, their arms around each other. Two steps forward, and a rustle, followed by a soft bumble, made them pause.
Then came an unpleasant grating sound that plucked at one of the fragmented strings of her memory. The one that took her fifteen years to the day.
Heart pounding, she swivelled them both in a u-turn. Then it dawned on her.
“Alex, turn back now!” she cried.
She clasped his head and pulled it down, buried his face in her shoulder while she looked away from the blinding flash. The raw electric charge sizzled around them. She knew the exact moment when it dulled down because the harrowing glare mitigated to a warm, golden radiance that flirted with Alex’s hair and the back of her hand.
She released him and gingerly turned toward the circle of light. This time there was no hand but the figure of a tall man who stood at the entrance. He looked half real, half wraith-like, and the halo that framed him cast a deeper shadow on his form.
He stepped away from the radiance and onto the earth. The sun sneaked through the foliage above and revealed further the ethereal features of his face. Still, the creature seemed nothing more than an indistinct phantom to her.
“Tony!” Alex gasped. He broke away from her and took a step toward the figure in front of them.
“Oh, God. Is it him? Alex, is it really him?”
Alex didn’t answer her, transfixed as he was. “Tony, I want to… Tony, I’m so sorry.”
Tony’s face transformed into a thing of beauty when he smiled at Alex. His expression, earnest and full of love, conveyed a silent message. If she managed to notice it, Alex had to see it.
“Why did you do it? I miss you.”
Tony turned to her, then back to Alex. He extended his hands toward both of them. Alex reached out but Melita stopped him. She curled her fingers around his arm and held him back.
“That’s his world, his place. Let him be. He’s at peace.”
Tony nodded to them when she spoke those words.
Alex stared at his brother. Silent suffering oozed from his pores, as though he waged some brutal inner battle and no matter who prevailed, there’d be no win. His body felt somehow tougher, more rigid, like rock. He was strong enough to shake her off and rush through the portal if he wanted to, but fortunately, he relented and accepted her gentle restraint.
“It’s time to say goodbye, Alex,” she said softly.
He breathed in harshly and released a broken breath. “Tony, you’ll always be a part of me, but I’m glad you’re happy.” He paused. “Goodbye, bro.”
Tony smiled again and faded back into his world. With him went the light, and all traces of the portal.
Alex’s tension seemed to ease. He moved to where Tony had been standing. “Melita—” he started, but his voice broke off.
“I know,” she responded. “It’s over now.” He had to learn to be all that he was meant to be, to live without the cloud of regret.
He gave her an intent look. “Yes. Thank you. I know he’s okay, and he’s not mad at me.” He extended a hand to her. “It’s our cue that we should be happy, too. Will you do this with me? Will you be with me?”
She took his hand and smiled.
I am not alone any more. This man is all my own.
“Breakfast?” she suggested.
“Sounds like a plan.”
They walked to the car, huddled close, while the future loomed bright. She did believe Tony was at rest now, and because of him, they’d learned a lesson.
To hold on to life. To relish the little things it offered, while they lasted. To follow
their dreams.
And to never be alone.
For all people really required to be happy was someone to go home to after a day’s work, and to have a life lived with purpose.
They needed someone to share all the madness of life with, the good and the bad. All that mattered was a reason to be.
Someone, and something, to live for.
~ ~ ~ THE END~ ~ ~
A note from Natalie:
Thank you for reading 'Something to Live For'. If you would like other readers to find this story, please consider leaving a review. Independent authors need our readers to help in spreading the word to other readers. A couple of sentences will do to increase the story’s visibility in online stores.
And here’s a taste of my paranormal series, 'Eternelles':
Inescapable (Eternelles, Book 1)
By Natalie G. Owens
A two-thousand-nine-hundred-year-old immortal and her daughter must protect their town, Shadow Bridge, from the Evil that threatens its existence and the very life of all supernatural creatures on Earth.
Read on if you like kick-ass heroines, irresistible heroes and great action!
Excerpt:
The central London fog swirled around her with ethereal tentacles until it enveloped everything as far as her eyes could see. The chill tried to invade her, but she focused her thoughts on the man she was to marry, William, and warmth coursed through her body. With hurried steps and a light heart, she walked on…but something blocked her path.
A large man appeared in the mist. Tall, powerful…dangerous. His magnetism called to her in a way her body could do nothing but heed, and she raked up his form with a slow gaze, as though savoring a box of the finest truffles she didn’t want to run out of. Her security however eroded with every inch discovered, with every glimpse of muscle lingered on. She finally lifted her eyes to his.
God above. Mercifully, the words gathered in her mouth but never left her lips. His dark, handsome face arrested her; every plane, every curve an exercise in perfection. An exotic sheikh in civilized clothing. A wolf in disguise.