Bound

by Jennifer Dean

  Please forgive me for indulging in something that has been lost in translation to so many mortals. I will arrive at your door at 7:30 this evening.

  - Liam

  I looked to my clock to see that was only an hour away. I laid the rose and note back on my bed as I headed to the bathroom. I tried to carry a quickened pace as I shampooed and poured my Dove body wash onto my loofah.

  When I walked back into my room I was already mentally vetoing every outfit. But looking at my closet doors I found my decision made. There hung a hunter green jersey dress with full sleeves. It was perfect for colder weather, something a celebrity might wear at a winter movie premiere. My attention was caught by the second note in Liam’s same handwriting that hung on the hanger.

  Compliments of my sister.

  My brow lifted at the unexpected surprise. So Grace Alexander herself had lent me this dress. Well, actually a little more once my eyes shifted down to the floor to see one pair of black flats and one pair of black heels. She hadn’t just lent me a dress but a whole outfit.

  I was flattered but also intimidated, because that also meant that she knew about me, knew about the human in love with her immortal brother. How did she feel about it? My natural thought was to go negative. Just because she lent her dress to me didn’t mean she liked me at all. Hadn’t Liam mentioned that his sister wasn’t fond of him talking to me? Being in love with me surely wouldn’t win me any favors with her either. But I was going to indulge on her generosity anyway.

  Once I stripped down to my undergarments, I raised on my toes to reach the hanger before slipping the dress off and over my head. I tugged some of the material down, but once it was in place it fit perfectly. I was a bit torn, but ultimately chose the flats for I wasn’t sure where we were going. Better safe than sorry, I thought.

  I went into the bathroom to dry my hair and pull it back halfway with a small green clip. It didn’t match exactly but was close enough. Before I could look too long in the mirror and question my insecurities, I turned out the light and headed down the hall.

  I went into the kitchen, grabbing a paper and pen. I hesitated for a few seconds, unsure of which angle to use. I thought of Liam’s voice telling me of Sean having another excuse to hate him. With that in mind, I went with an easy go-to excuse.

  Out with the Girls. Be Back Later.

  - Emma

  Just as I shrugged to my words, I heard the doorbell. I looked to the kitchen microwave, 7:30 exactly.

  I didn’t waste time making my way to the front door before opening it with eager enthusiasm. But my smile suddenly dropped as I saw the visitor. Sean took in my appearance with a raised eyebrow.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked.

  “Actually, yes, I have plans.”

  “With who?”

  I shifted my gaze awkwardly.

  “Liam Alexander,” I said.

  He held the bridge of his nose as he moved inside. I watched as he walked to the couch to sit, closing his eyes, his hands pushing up on his forehead.

  “Oh, Emma.”

  The tone was almost a breathed-out sigh of frustration, one that contributed to my own.

  I wanted to shout to Sean how wrong he was about Liam. I wanted to tell him so much. It was hard to stand here knowing that my best friend was right there and I could say nothing.

  “Don’t you think there may be some preconceived judgment because I’m your sister?”

  He looked up at me with stern eyes. They glimmered at me.

  “Not that I would be comfortable with any other male taking an interest in you, but does it have to be Liam Alexander?”

  “What does that mean?”

  I grimaced as if the insult had been to me personally.

  “I don’t support it because I don’t trust him.”

  “Well, that’s fine because you’re not the one in love with him.”

  I gulped when I watched the effect of my words. I didn’t mean to spit it out like that but there it was on the table. I loved Liam, and that kind of emotion was hard to contain. Sean stood, fear covering his frozen face. It was like a moment before the wetness of tears formed in someone’s eyes.

  “You love him?”

  He walked forward to be within a foot from me. His incredulous tone begged for me to smile with a humorous joke at it all.

  “I do,” I said. His eyes looked behind me where the picture frames of the two of us growing up hung on the wall. “I’m sorry if that disappoints you, but I hope you can just trust me.”

  I reached down to place his hand in mine. He looked at it for a brief moment until his attention was drawn to the door. I hadn’t even realized till now that we hadn’t shut it. But what froze me wasn’t the escaped heat into the night air, it was watching Sean gaze with fury at Liam standing in the doorframe.

  Suddenly, he dropped my hand and the studied anger bounced off Liam and on to me.

  “Are you looking for my approval?”

  I grinned with hope. “Yes.”

  “Well, you won’t get it with him.”

  I shifted my gaze to Liam with an exhale. It gave me relief, if just for a moment, before I transferred my eyes back to Sean.

  “Sean, please. I need you to understand that I tried to stay faithful to my promise to you. I really did.”

  He shook his head slightly.

  “It’s that easy for you to break?”

  “It’s not easy!” My hands flew forward, pointing my fingers toward Sean. “Don’t you see that? I fought it for you! But I didn’t choose it.”

  “Everything is a choice, Emma,” Sean said.

  “I used to think that too. But now I think it’s bigger than that.” I was shaking my head at the surreal ring of my words.

  “So does your fate ask you to pick some boy over your own blood?” Sean asked with a condescending tone.

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Isn’t it?” Sean said.

  “What do you mean?”

  My eyes squinted with denied disbelief.

  “Are you willing to ignore that what I say is not to hurt you, that what I say is true and you are only blinded by your teenage lust?”

  I couldn’t help the anger that clenched my jaw.

  “I trust nobody like I do you, but that doesn’t mean I can ignore how I feel, so I have to trust myself too. And that trust tells me what you think of Liam is wrong.”

  “So it is him over me?”

  “You can’t be serious,” I said.

  “Very. I can’t be around someone who I know will only hurt you, even if you can’t see it. I love you too much to simply ignore that.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You love me so much that you what to leave me?” I could hear the frustration in my sigh. “So you can what…teach me a lesson?”

  “Separation is the only way to make you see.”

  “See what?”

  “The truth,” Sean said.

  The truth? Didn’t Sean realize I did know the truth about Liam, a truth that had nothing to do with how I felt about him.

  “You’re really saying I have to choose?” I said.

  “I don’t want it to be a choice but a realization.”

  “A realization that I’m some stupid lustful teenager who couldn’t possibly know what love was?”

  “To realize how naive you are. To give yourself time to find just how wrong you were in this moment.”

  I looked to the ground with a subtle shake of my head. I couldn’t believe the situation I was in now. It was like the dizzy spin without the vertigo.

  “Please don’t make me choose. You know that I love you. Why do I have to prove that?”

  “You can’t have it both ways, Em.”

  “Why not? I should be able to. It’s you that won’t let it happen.”

  “It’s me or him.” Sean said firmly.

  My eyes traveled from Sean’s eyes to see Liam’s concerned bright gaze that had grown even brighter with the heightened tense atmosphere.

 
I had loved my brother more than anyone for my entire life. But now there was another who carried my heart and understood my soul.

  My throat began to burn with the resistance of the wetness in my eye as I looked back at Sean with fear.

  “Please don’t,” I begged.

  He looked at me with a subtle nod. He knew who I would choose. It was written in my eyes, but I wouldn’t say it. I couldn’t. It felt like betrayal.

  “I see,” Sean said.

  Suddenly he turned away from me, stalking out, shoving his shoulder into Liam’s as he went. I followed his move out the door. But even when I screamed, “Sean,” he never turned back to face me. He just kept on walking until he got to his Jeep and sped away.

  I still held a lump in my throat when I turned back to Liam. It was now as if he had an official unapproved stamp across his head. The two men that I loved were never going to be able to be around me simultaneously. I felt like my heart had just torn.

  “I don’t want to come between you and your brother. In all fairness, he was here first.”

  I closed my eyes with a sigh before I looked back at Liam. I said nothing as I opened them to walk over and simply slip my arms into the small space between his elbows and waist. I clung closer to his body, terribly unsure of what to say or even do next. All I knew was that I wanted Liam near me and I wanted to be near him. But I knew it wasn’t that easy, it never was when it comes to love. Sean may have thought that I had made Liam my choice, but in fact I didn’t know. I felt a small tear roll down my cheek.

  I knew without a doubt that my heart and head were torn.

  14. Shadow

  I felt his kiss on my hair before I pulled back to look at his face. I looked into his eyes, knowing the emerald green would always be permanently imprinted into my mind. I felt so happy and so unglued. It wasn’t fair, but I couldn’t go through what I had three years ago. A life without Sean wasn’t going to work. It was hard enough to say goodbye the first time, I wasn’t going to do it again.

  I felt the burn in my throat. I sighed for some sense of composure before I dropped my arms from Liam’s body. I stepped back slightly, keeping a tight hold on his gaze. I needed the comfort of his eyes just to get through the words.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  And I was sorrier than he could even imagine. Why did it have to be this way? Why must Liam be the one I knew would carry my heart until I died? Why must Sean not understand that kind of love?

  I could hear the negotiations in my mind. Maybe we had just met too early. Maybe Sean would learn with time to trust that I was right. This just wasn’t our time. Yes, maybe our love would allow us to meet again. Well, at least it made it easier to think of a someday. The truth was much more terrifying because it was unknown. All I did knew was that I was making a choice that ignored what I wanted, so I was going with the compromise of someday.

  I sighed and his lips straightened. The back of his hand touched my cheek with a bittersweet reality. I didn’t have to say the words aloud. He knew.

  “You told me once that you don’t do well without him.” I began to open my mouth but my throat was dry and the words refused to come out. “He is your brother. I understand.”

  I tightened my lips as I tried to ignore the lingering wetness and resisted the continued burning in my throat. This was exactly what I hated about love. What was the point if it didn’t last, if you couldn’t keep it? All it did was leave me with this ache in my chest. But I had to ignore that and put Sean first, because I loved him first, because he was my blood and always would be. I wouldn’t turn my back on that, not when one day it would just be the two of us.

  “I would give anything to make this different,” I said.

  I watched as his hand moved to catch the tear that slowly leapt down my cheek as if it were a cliff jumper from my eye. I wanted to shake my head violently in order to resist the need to let any more escape.

  “As would I,” he said. “And perhaps it is why we immortals have this rule.”

  “So being with me is against your kind?”

  I had suspected that. Wasn’t that just the norm for a supernatural, stay away from humans? I could see as I gazed at his lips that there was a crooked smirk that made my heart jerk.

  “I think it is not very relevant in the circumstances.”

  Though my curiosity was peaked, I nodded my head to agree. He was right. There was no point now that I was choosing to say goodbye. I didn’t need to know anymore.

  I caught sight of my sleeve and automatically found awkwardness in my clothes.

  “Should I change?”

  He put his hand over the one of mine that had slightly pulled the fabric.

  “You keep them.”

  “But I wouldn’t want your sister to be angry with me,” I said.

  “She has plenty to spare.”

  “Are you sure she won’t give me dirty looks in the hallway?”

  He smiled like I had said something to amuse him. “No, she is actually quite fond of you.”

  “But I thought she didn’t even like me talking to you,” I said confused.

  “Her only problem was with me,” Liam said. “She feared the risk on you for being so close.”

  “Oh,” I said. It gave me a small comfort to know Grace Alexander didn’t loathe me as Sean did Liam. She was actually being protective of me. But then again it was kind of her job to be. I sighed. I was done, despite the further questions that began wondering through my mind—mostly about Lillian Edwards. How did she fit in? Could it be that she too was—

  I stopped my thought. Like I said before, I was done. I couldn’t resist as my hand moved up to touch the right side of his face. My body screamed at me to change my mind. My heart pleaded as I lifted on my toes and gently connected my lips to his, closing my eyes. I felt as if my legs had lifted and my body began to flip upside down. Just for the moment I let myself slip into a paradise.

  My hands moved around his neck as his arms clung around my waist. There was an intensity that both of us relented to and let escape. When I pulled my lips off, my eyes flashed open to find that our bodies remained bound together. My breathing was heavy as he leaned his forehead to mine.

  “I love you,” I said.

  It was almost a whisper to avoid the crack in my normal voice. He titled his head so that his lips could kiss my forehead with a nurturing gentle touch. “I will always love you, Emma,” he said. “Always.”

  I wanted to say so many things back to him, like how I knew that I would always love him too. Or how everytime I closed my eyes I would find him there in my small paradise. But I remained in silence until I felt the new cold breeze around me. It had only been a moment’s blink, but I found myself now alone, heart, body and soul.

  I walked back inside and shut the door with tired effort before heading down the hall to my room. I traded my clothes for some socks and sweats before hanging my new dress and placing both shoes in the corner of my closet, a place I would hardly see so that I wouldn’t have to be constantly reminded of what was or could have been.

  After pulling the clip out of my hair, I pulled my comforters aside and climbed back in bed. The realization of what had happened hit me forcefully in the chest. I loved Liam, and I chose to ignore my heart’s desire for Sean, someone who had carried my love for seventeen years. My mind spun in disbelief. No, I hadn’t come back to Washington to fall in love, but now that I had it was hard to play blind. I wished for so many things: that Liam had met me at a different time, that Sean had been friendly and accepting of him now, that I could forget about the hole inside of me that already missed Liam inconsolably.

  I felt breathless as I reached for the pillow behind me. I hugged it tightly as if it carried the oxygen needed to keep my lungs from collapsing. I closed my eyes as the silent tears rolled over my nose and onto my pillow. But there with the darkness of my pain I found a temporary paradise waiting for me. For tonight, that was enough.

  When I woke up the next morning I
was both physically and emotionally drained. From the moment my eyes had opened, I felt the same sting of heartache. It was as if I had gone through a terrible breakup, even though technically Liam and I were never together; at least, not officially. We just loved each other. Yeah, that was better, I thought sarcastically.

  Since I had yet to tell Sean about my new decision, I could only assume that I was supposed to drive myself to school. But surprisingly as I shut the front door, my eye caught sight of the running engine that sat parked on the driveway. Walking toward his Jeep I found it odd how I didn’t carry enthusiasm to seem him, like I had been hoping for the drive alone. I had never felt that way about Sean before.

  I took a deep breath that I let out just before I opened the door and climbed in. Though the volume was barely audible I could still hear Taylor Swift coming through the speakers. My mouth grinned halfheartedly, though my eyes refused to look at him fully. It was only from the corner of mine I could see his cautious gaze.

  “I thought you weren’t going to speak with me anymore,” I said. “So why the ride?”

  I did find it odd that he was even here. Why would he still pick me up if he was deciding to severe our ties, for as long as I was involved with Liam? God. It hurt to even think his name.

  “I was giving you the night to sleep on it,” Sean said.

  I rolled my eyes in annoyance. “Well, how nice of you to give me time on your ultimatum.”

  “Emma—”

  “You should be happy to know I decided to not see Liam anymore.” I hadn’t the patience to hear his excuses again. And to make things worse I had been wrong. Thinking his name was painful but saying his name aloud was like taking a bullet in the gut.

  “I know you don’t like me right now but I can live with that.”

  “Good,” I said. Because he was right I didn’t like him right now.

  “But eventually you’ll see what I was doing,” Sean said with conviction.

  I leaned forward, turning the volume up enough to drown the chance of any more conversation between Sean and me, before turning my neck to gaze out the window. I wasn’t exactly relating to the love song at the moment but I could live with it. Once we had got to school I was grateful we were on the late side so that I could avoid too much time wondering where Liam was. It was going to be hard enough seeing him in the hallway and avoiding the desire to be near him, to hold him, to kiss him. It was hard enough to not think of him.