Once Upon A Midnight

by Stephanie Rowe

  “Spence and a few others. We were assigned a group project in Honors yesterday and we only have a few weeks before it’s due.”

  That explains his sudden appearance out of nowhere, but not the intimate allowances she grants him. I catch her hand before she passes through the door from the dorm rooms to the lobby.

  “Hey, I really am sorry, Charlotte. Let me take you out. We’ll go to Fritzel’s, jazz and dancing. What do you say?”

  A small smile toys with the corners of her mouth and puts a tiny sparkle in each eye. “That sounds lovely, but it’ll have to be in celebration of completing this project. I’ll have no free time until then.”

  A foreboding pit drops into my stomach. Something isn’t right, but I have no idea what.

  Chapter 18

  Did I wait too long to commit to you…

  I watch them walk across the campus, his arm slung over her shoulders, while she shakes with light laughter. Why does she allow him to do that?

  “Trouble in paradise?” Alyssa stands right behind me, infusing her words with a mocking malice.

  “Go to hell,” I snap before spinning on my heel and heading back to the frat house. I don’t make it ten feet before she falls into step beside me.

  “I’ll see you there.” She pauses, examining me out the corners of her eyes. “I’m surprised you abandoned her so easily.”

  A double meaning drifts in the undercurrent of her comment. I pull up short in response and grab her arm, turning us to face each other. “Spit it out, Alyssa!”

  She pulls free from my grasp and glares at me. “You’ve lost your touch,” she charges with a cool indifference. “She got into your head and controls your emotions, instead of the other way around. Jealousy and insecurity don’t suit you, Henry.”

  Done with the mind games, I demand the information again.

  With an exaggerated roll of her bored eyes, she answers, “Your disappearing act yesterday has her confused over your feelings. I had to listen to her prattle on about your interest, whether or not you care. It was sickening,” she huffs out an exaggerated breath before continuing, “and boring.” A disgusted expression curls her nose. “Why doesn’t he call? Am I boring him? Am I taking things too slow? Am I really ready for a relationship of this magnitude? I’m only eighteen.” The sound of Charlotte’s apprehensive and confused voice coming from Alyssa’s lips would have relieved me of my stomach contents, were there any to lose. “She’s an insecure whiner. What do all you boys see in her?”

  “What do you mean all us boys?”

  Another roll of the eyes emphasizes my ignorance. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice how Spence looked at her.”

  “The Honors boy?” I confirm, not continuing until she nods. “Yeah, I saw it. What does it matter? She’s my girlfriend.”

  “For how long?”

  A stabbing pain pierces my heart at those three little words. “Explain?” is all I can push through my gritted teeth.

  “He came onto the scene a few weeks ago, pursuing her in such a way that would put Wesley and you to shame. He’s a regular Don Juan, that one.”

  That long? Charlotte didn’t say a thing! “I don’t understand.”

  “I guess the reason love makes people do stupid things is because it actually makes them stupid.” The acid in her words burns deep into my soul.

  “I am not stupid.”

  “You sure? You aren’t the same exile you once were,” she whispers under her breath, insuring that only I can hear her. “You scare the shit out of her, Henry. She’s tied up in knots. Move faster? Move slower? Give her heart away or keep it? She’s spiraling and that guy is saying all the right things to make her feel safe.”

  This news shocks me and my jaw drops. While the plan is to hurt her in the end, I have no intention of going through with it. I don’t know who I am anymore without her. “Why would she think she’s not safe with me?” drops like lead from my tongue.

  “Don’t worry, I know you haven’t revealed yourself,” Alyssa responds, misunderstanding my fear. “She’s just terrified of what will happen if you break up with her. Now, you need to get her back from this Spence kid,” she continues, glazing right over that last part. “While dating him will keep her from Wesley, he’s not someone who will last and rip them apart. I need you to do that. You need to undo the damage of yesterday.”

  I shake my head in confusion. “How did yesterday–”

  Alyssa cuts me off. “Look, Henry,” she gives me a shove back towards campus. “Yesterday caused a problem. Did she tell me why? Yes, but I didn’t care enough to listen to the minute details of her insignificant troubles. You disappeared and didn’t confide in her. It hurt her, and now she’s concocted some petty rationale for why. She’s an inexperienced child, while you are a cultured man of history.” She gives me another shove in the back. “Now, go to the Honors College, find your girlfriend,” there’s ice in that last word, “and fix it.”

  I stumble a few steps before looking over my shoulder. Alyssa is in the same spot, arms crossed over her chest and a death glare in her fiery green eyes.

  With nothing left to argue over, I follow her command and make my way to the Honors College. A quick glance into the eyes of a few of the students milling around in the building tells me where to find her.

  Charlotte sits at a round table, piled high with thick books, all on some aspect of Roman history, along with a handful of other children, including Spence. I rub a hand through my hair, trying to figure out how to address her, when he looks up and catches me.

  “Er… Um… Henry, wasn’t it?”

  Bastard’s acting like he doesn’t remember my name. It doesn’t slip my notice that his arm rests across the back of her chair. They are bent over a laptop, her typing away, him leaning in more than necessary.

  Her head snaps up at the sound of my name. “Henry!” Shock widens her eyes while embarrassment colors her cheeks.

  Damn it! Why did I listen to Alyssa?

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Can I have a second?” The plea drenches my words. The entire table looks between us now, all awaiting her answer, though none more so than I.

  Her lips thin and she slowly stands. A snail would reach me faster than she does. We make our way outside and walk a short distance to a clearing with few students around.

  “What are you doing here, Henry?” is emphasized by her discomfort as she crosses her arms over her chest and refuses to meet my gaze.

  “Charlotte,” I whisper and take a step forward. She answers by retreating in kind. “My dear…”

  Hard eyes find mine, and I tense under their scrutiny. “I have a research paper due in two weeks. Actually, it’s more like a small novel. Is there a reason you came here?”

  “To offer you help,” I lie, and her narrowed brows and disbelieving shake of her head tell me she knows it.

  She brushes past me, speed walking back into Honors College. “I don’t have time for this.”

  Four quick strides put me in front of her, blocking her path. “I need to see you.”

  “You could have seen me yesterday,” she snaps.

  I reach out for her again, pulling her against my chest. Thankfully, she doesn’t fight me. “I’m a class A jerk, Charlotte. I should have talked to you. I just didn’t want to add to your stress between school and your mother.”

  She relaxes and her arms slip around my waist. “I can squeeze you in tonight, after this study group. Maybe, we can spend some time on the beach.”

  I lean back just enough to look down into her now upturned face. My lips graze over hers, giving her a gentle, yet possessive, kiss of true love.

  “Get a room!” ends our kiss when Charlotte laughs. Contentment and love ooze from her half-closed eyes. The fading sun makes the rose in her cheeks glow.

  “I’ll meet you on the beach, say,” she pauses to look at her watch, “in about two hours?”

  “Perfect, my dear.”

  Chapter 19


  I never should have spied on you…

  The storm of my emotions rages inside my body, tensing my muscles until they’re sore. I focus my hearing, listening for her voice.

  “What was that about?” Derision colors Spence’s question when she returns to her group, which is spoken so low I can only assume he’s leaning into her ear.

  “Just stuff,” Charlotte mumbles. I can imagine the shrugging of her shoulders and her downcast eyes. She’s used this avoidance tone and phrase with me many a time.

  “What kind of stuff,” he presses, an enticing quality to his words.

  “The kind of stuff I shouldn’t discuss with you.” The words are clipped by her frustration. “Can we please get back to our research?”

  He utters a response just above a whisper and coated with intimate implications. “If I was your boyfriend, I would never up and disappear on you for thirty-six hours, especially with everything that is going on with your mother.”

  The revelation stuns me. She told him about her mother! Did something happen yesterday? Charlotte talked to me about her, but even that was after a lot of prodding and probing from me. A myriad of emotions–rage, disappointment, confusion, fear–churn inside of me, cinching around my heart and stomach. This nobody is worming his way into her life! I agonize over what to do until I hear another voice say, “Going out for a smoke. I’ll be right back.”

  The face of the speaker fills my mind, and I watch for him to come out of the building. He’s a short man, a few inches under Charlotte’s average height. He has sandy-blond colored hair that hangs limply from his head. I study and catalogue his gait and carriage as I tail him under a canopy of grand oaks.

  I wait to make my move until he lights up. “Can I bum one of those off of you?” I ask, putting my hand out as though he’s already agreed.

  “Sure,” he replies as he digs another cigarette out of his pocket and places it, with the lighter, in the palm of my upturned hand.

  We smoke in silence for a few moments, the nicotine doing nothing to calm my nerves. I try to get a good hold on his gaze, but it’s impossible with his focus locked on the canopy of limbs above. The cigarettes are half-gone before I say, “How’s your group for this paper?”

  His chin drops and his brow furrows. “You’re in Honors? Charlotte never implied that you were.”

  My hopes that he wouldn’t recognize me, given that he only stole a quick glance over his shoulder when I crashed their study group, vanishes. Not that it matters, I own him now. The heat of my jealousy, fear, and anger flares, igniting the source of my true power. I hold his eyes captive and delve into his mind. The webs of his memories crisscross the nerve centers of his brain. Images of the past overlap those of the near present. I dive deeper, searching for all that I need. Faces and names swirl in a messy whirlpool. The details of his posture and the motivations for his thoughts collide before my eyes. I take it all in, pulling and pushing the lines that will seamlessly allow me to take over his life here on campus. It’s rare that I commandeer the existence of someone real, but I need access to the inner circle of Honors, and this boy is my ticket.

  With all the information collected, I drop the tenor of my tone and the words flow in a mesmerizing melody. “You’ve decided L.S.U. isn’t for you, Jaime. Tulane is more your style.” I need to remember to make a call in the morning, get him enrolled, and have everything charged to me. “You won’t come back to campus. You won’t contact any of the friends you’ve made here since you started. Don’t even pack up your things. Go home. Tell your family about the switch and new things will be waiting in your dorm room at Tulane. Oh, and I need your shirt.”

  The pupils in his eyes shrink to pin points in his blank face, confirming that my message has taken hold in his mind. He pulls his t-shirt over his head and hands it to me. “Tulane is more my style,” his hollow voice repeats as I pull his wallet from his back pocket. He turns and walks a straight line across campus, oblivious to the world around him and nowhere near any dorms.

  Is he going to walk to Tulane? “Make sure to get your car and head home first, Jaime!” I holler.

  His feet stop moving, and he gives his head a shake. Eyes clearing of the power of my implant gaze over his shoulder at me. “Thanks for the advice, Henry,” he comments before turning and heading off towards a cluster of dormitories.

  I take a deep breath in before blowing it out and step further into the shadows. Are you really going to do this? Spy on her? My body tingles as it changes, shrinking a good four inches as I pull my shirt off and put his on. The sandy colored hair tickles my scalp as it grows. I long to scratch along my chin as his goatee fills in. I’m comfortable at a height over six feet, and Henry’s persona left me claustrophobic at times. Jaime’s diminished height is even more restricting, with the walls of his skin feeling tight across my muscles, tissues, and bones.

  I consider backing out of this again, when someone taps me on the shoulder.

  “You coming back in, man?” Spence asks as I turn to face him.

  Jaime’s voice stumbles out of my mouth. “Yeah, just give me another sec.” I take another drag off the cigarette to steady my nerves.

  Why are you nervous? my conscious wonders. You do this all the time.

  “I think I’m close, man,” Spence pipes up out of nowhere.

  “Close to what?” I question, utterly confused, though I can tell I’m supposed to know.

  Before he speaks, the answer blossoms in his eyes. The image of him and Charlotte in a bed, him using her more than loving her, lights my insides on fire and the remainder of the cigarette disintegrates in a puff of green smoke.

  His eyes pop wide open. “What the hell was that?”

  I shake my hand as if burned and take a step back, more to keep from punching him for his sinister fantasy than anything else. “I don’t know, man, must be defective.”

  The toe of his right shoe digs at the spot where the ashes fell. “I haven’t ever seen a cigarette do that.”

  I shrug and head back to the study group. “Who cares?” I stuff my hands in the pockets of my jeans. “So, what makes you think you’re any closer?”

  He whistles and a shit-eating grin splits his face. “That Henry dude fucked up yesterday, and her roommate has never been a fan. She doesn’t think he is good for Charlotte. She thinks he is too oppressive and controlling. And, her other friend, that guy who’s in love with her but too chicken to say so, he hates Henry. I don’t think Henry realizes that he’s not drawing her back to him, though. She’s so confused, ripe for the picking.”

  Shit! Did Charlotte tell him all that, or Alyssa? A problem I’ll have to deal figure out later. “You don’t say?”

  He nudges me with an elbow and whispers, “I do,” right before we join the group. “You’re losing this fuck bet, Jaime. I’m banging that fine piece of ass before the month is out.”

  It takes everything I have not to light him up right then and there.

  Chapter 20

  Fear drove me to take things too far, too fast…

  I spend the next two hours working with a student, someone I don’t care enough about to even commit their name to memory, while watching Spence make moves on my girlfriend. She put him off in the beginning, but, by the end, she flashes him small smiles, blushes, and bites her lip.

  “Jaime?” my partner snaps for the hundredth time.

  Everyone at the table looks at me.

  “What?” I answer, stalling as my mind searches for whatever it is he said.

  You think you can write the intro to our topic on mythology’s impact on societal morality? his voice whispers from the recesses of my memory.

  “Oh yeah, sorry,” I mumble and nod my head. “Thought you saw me nodding.”

  Spence notices the focus of my attention, snickers, and slips his arm off the back of Charlotte’s chair and around her waist. She jumps and looks over at him in shock after scanning the entryway, I can only assume, for the face I should be wearing: Henry.

&n
bsp; “Spence, how many times do I have to tell you…” she trails off when he leans into her ear.

  “You know you like it, babe.”

  Her shoulder meets her ear, but I can’t tell if it is because she’s embarrassed, uncomfortable, or flirting.

  “There’s a lot more to this if you’ll just let me–”

  I pretend to glance at my watch. “It’s getting late, don’t you think?” comes out gruff as I cut off his blatant attempt to get into her pants.

  Everyone stands, collecting notebooks, laptops, and pencils. Spence glares at me the entire time, but I can’t bring myself to care. I need to leave before everyone else, get to the shadows, transform into Henry, and change shirts. There is no way in hell I’m letting that jackass walk with Charlotte alone, especially after the plans to draw her to his dorm room play out in his eyes. I contain my growl and clench my fists as I move away from them. The humid night air weighs on me when I get outside, making the already uncomfortable shell I wear heavier. I dart around the corner, breathing through the change and stretching all my constricted muscles. Better, I think, but I long to wear the skin and face I’ve chosen as my own. I toss Jaime’s shirt into his backpack after replacing it with my own and stash it in some bushes along the side of the building to be retrieved later.

  “Charlotte, come on,” the whiny voice of Spence accosts my ears, drawing me back around the corner of the building. He’s trailing in her wake as she turns in the direction of her dorm and Greek row. “He went thirty-six hours without you and didn’t give a damn. Another thirty or forty-five minutes isn’t going to matter. Let’s go grab a cup of coffee or something.”

  Her chin is tucked to her chest and her arms are crossed, all cues for him to leave her be. But, why doesn’t she just tell him the back the hell off? She stops when he grabs her arm and her head dips further in resignation.

  I can’t let this continue. “Charlotte!” I call before he has a chance to say anything more.

  Both of their heads snap in my direction. “Henry!” merges in the night in her surprised, high pitch and his frustrated, low growl.