He closed his eyes. “Then you should have let me die, because without you…what’s the point? You can’t ask me to live if you take away the reason I have for living.”
“Stop saying that, Tristan.”
“Stop saying that? Ana, everyone I’ve ever cared about is gone—everyone except you.”
That was too much. I was the reason Aiden and Surya were dead. I’d left him with no one and nothing and now I was saying goodbye? He turned and I called to him. “I’m sorry. Tell me how I can make this right. I don’t wanna leave things like this. I don’t want to hurt either of you—I don’t know what to do. I care about you Tristan, I do, but…” Finally, in the midst of a hurricane of emotions, I broke down.
He appeared in front me, steadying my body with his hands. He kissed my forehead and spoke gently. “I am sorry, Ana. This isn’t how I want you to remember me. Remember that I loved you. Please… even if that’s all you ever remember—remember that.” He let another moment pass before he spoke his next words. “This really is goodbye then.”
I swallowed before speaking. “Where will you go?”
“To find Daemon. Your purpose may be to kill him, but that doesn’t mean the people around you will be safe. Or even that you’ll survive the encounter. If I can end this, then your destiny will be secure. I won’t fail you, Ana. Not again. Fear nothing.”
My mind connected the dots. “That was your plan all along wasn’t it? Why you suggested we run away for only a year. You were planning to leave, to destroy Daemon yourself, before my seventeenth birthday came. That’s how you were going to force me to stay on the path to heaven. I was right about the “bad thing,” it was my short life span, but you didn’t keep that from me so that I would die without asking for more time, you kept it from me because it wouldn’t apply to me anymore, not after you sacrificed yourself by killing him. I was so angry with you…it’s the reason I decided to give Darren a chance. I’m so sorry.” I was looking down again. “You’re always trying to protect me...” I whispered.
He forced a smile. “Maybe I shouldn’t have underestimated your detective skills after all.”
Another wordless moment passed, both of us lost in thought. I was wondering what tonight might have been like if we had never went to the beach that night, if I had never told him about my getting memories.
“Ana?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“Do you truly love him?”
I dropped my eyes before meeting his again. I nodded.
Defeat and acceptance settled into those stunning green eyes and my heart nearly broke anew. “Then ensuring your safety will be my one reason for living. I won’t fail in that.”
He made another move to leave.
“I’ll…I’ll miss you,” I said. My goal tonight was to make him understand that I was choosing Darren. Only, succeeding in that made me feel like a failure in everything else. Choosing another boy while he gave up his life to keep me safe wasn’t okay. It wasn’t fair to him at all. None of this was. He deserved so much more than me.
“Then think of Nadia,” he replied. “I pray that if your memories ever do return, that her memory might bring you some comfort. I didn’t deserve you. Goodbye, my love.”
“Nadia…” spoke London’s voice in my head. The world around me began to fade until suddenly I was lying in bed, with Tristan in front of me. My stomach was large; I was pregnant, and he had his hands on me, trying to feel the baby kick. There was a joy in me unlike I had ever experienced, a contentment, a feeling of fulfillment. I looked into his smiling face and said, “If for any reason we ever drift apart, or if I’m just plain angry with you, remind me of this moment, of the happiness that I feel right here, right now.”
He gave me a full smile. “I’ll hold you to that.”
I laughed and slid my hand over his. “I know you were against having a baby, Tristan. I just wanted to give you something, a piece of me to have after I’m gone. I know it’s hard for you when I’m not here, so baby Nadia—I’m certain it’s a girl, no matter what you say—will be here for you.”
The memory shifted and now I was alone in my bed. I had a craving for some strawberries and though I could hear Tristan’s warning in my mind, reminding me that the doctor had ordered me to remain in bed, I got up anyway. As I tried to take on the stairs, my foot slipped and I tumbled down the staircase. I was with the doctor when I woke up. He took a hold of my hand and told me that I’d lost the baby.
Again the memory shifted. I was waiting for Tristan to come home now and I found myself terrified of how angry he would be. I knew that there weren’t enough words to say that I was sorry for losing his child, it was unforgivable. I had finally done the thing to push him away—to change the way he felt about me. As I soon as I saw him I burst into tears, I could tell by the pain in his face that someone had already told him what happened.
Tristan came over and laid his arms around me. “Now, Nadia will be my gift to you. When our forever finally does end, and you are able to ascend to a place that I cannot follow, she’ll be there waiting for you. And if you should ever find yourself lonely or missing me, then you will always have a piece of me in her.”
It was the moment that I realized that his love was unconditional, that he would never leave me, and I vowed then, to make myself his forever.
When the memory was over, Tristan was gone. Instead it was London who faced me now. Her wings were bright and lit up my face and room.
“Why?” I asked. “I don’t understand. I did what you wanted. I said goodbye to him.”
London looked at me with sympathy in her eyes. “Too little, too late. Bringing Tristan here was a test of your commitment to your purpose—all you had to do was let him go. The others would have been satisfied with that. But you failed and now they’ve lost faith in you. We’ve done so much to make this easier and still you chose him.” She sighed and shook her head. “You’ll be on your own now. They won’t let me help you anymore. I can only remind you that the future’s already been laid out. Only two paths are available, and both will ultimately yield the same result. Either you will fail and watch Darren die, or you will succeed and see Tristan dead because of it. That’s your choice now. It didn’t have to be like this, you were supposed to do the right thing. I made it so easy for you, Ana.”
“I just couldn’t,” I replied.
“I know,” she answered sadly. “If no one knows, I do. It has been a privilege to share these lives with you. You will always hold a place in my heart no matter what happens next.”
I wasn’t looking for a goodbye. I wanted to know why she’d done this to me. “I didn’t want to remember, London. I was happy the way I was.”
“I care too much about you to let you face what’s coming unprepared. Daemon’s given the order, Ana. The vampires are coming… by the thousands. You need to be ready. Tough times are ahead. You’ve only got three days…”
With that, the room darkened, and London looked human again. She put her arms around me and images began to flash in my head of all the faces she’d worn during our many lifetimes together. Wiping tears from her eyes, she said goodbye for the final time, and then waved to me as she disappeared into a flash of light.
Without hesitation, I reached out to Tristan. “You said once that I was your Wendy, and that you were my Peter Pan. You told me that you would never grow old, and that you would never stop searching for my window, wherever it might be the next time. We’d continue to have our adventures, our own personal Neverland. Well here I am Tristan, find me one last time.”
I had only waited minutes before he swept onto my balcony. His eyes were wide and hopeful and he took my hands. “How much do you remember?” he asked.
“Absolutely everything,” I replied. “Let’s have Neverland for one last night.”
He smiled, and I could feel the tension in his soul ease.
I was still Ana, only there was so much more to me now. That initial fear that I’d expressed to London was dissipa
ting as I stared into Tristan’s eyes. Understanding was taking its place. It was as though I had never truly known myself before, and I guess I hadn’t. My other incarnations didn’t seem so strange and foreign anymore, they were just me in a slightly different light. And I could remember things—events that I’d read about in history class and places that no longer existed—back to the beginning of time. I could remember the indescribable wonder that was heaven. I could also remember my heaven on earth—Tristan.
I had fallen from perfect goodness and Tristan had risen from the blackest evil. Our souls had met somewhere in the in-between, completing the broken half of the other. I had been cast out by the other angels until I fulfilled my purpose. I felt terribly alone, the closest I could come to home was to spread my wings every now and then and dance the way we danced in heaven. Tristan, who was hiding in the grass on one of those days, watched me and was made to feel again. He credited me with preserving his newfound goodness, but he wasn’t aware that he’d saved my own as well. He saved me from my loneliness, and from the grating bitterness that being cast out created in me. He reminded me why it was that we angels loved mankind so much—he was flawed but wanted to be good, fought to be so. Our love would fight too, refusing to die, even when I did, even when I couldn’t remember.
But we always knew that this night would come. Our forever was destined to only ever be temporary. Tomorrow, our fairy tale would really be over. Daemon was coming to us; there would be no more running from my purpose. Tomorrow meant warning the haven of an unavoidable war with the vampires and all of the worry and fear that came along with it. How could that many get here unnoticed? How could we face them once they did? Would the haven unite despite me? Was I truly up to this?
I couldn’t worry about those questions tonight. I wouldn’t. But there was still the question of Darren. Well, it wasn’t a question really. He was my choice. He was, to this point, the love of my life—this lifetime anyway. I still felt those feelings for him, even now. He was another reason I couldn’t fail this time, because he had to live. Tristan was fated to be my past after my encounter with Daemon, one way or the other. But if I could succeed in defeating him somehow, then Darren would get to be my future.
Tonight wasn’t about the future. It was about honoring the past—the boy that I’ve loved with the whole of my being. My soul mate, my companion. The clock in our fairy tale was about to strike midnight, leaving us time enough for one last adventure—one final night of being without a care, to pretend as though the whole world consisted of only the two of us.
“Thank you,” he whispered. He took me into his arms and we disappeared into the night.
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