Fallen Eden

by Nicole Williams

  It was the blue shutters hugging every window that did it. I knew I should turn around, I knew there’d be nothing but heartache waiting for me inside if I didn’t run away and forget I’d ever seen it.

  William had never said it outright, but I knew this was intended to be our home one day. The home we’d create, the one I’d sit on the porch waiting for him to return from a mission, the one we’d spend more time in the bedroom than any couple probably should, and the one we’d spend an eternity of moments enjoying.

  I gave myself an internal pinch. What might have been was just that; I’d lost the boy who’d painted the shutters my favorite shade of blue. These shutters would be repainted with a new shade, until everyone forgot about the original hue they’d worn.

  I tried to turn away, but couldn’t. I tried to close my eyes and was about as successful. It was like a siren’s call was coming from inside the walls, beckoning to me in a way that made escape unattainable. Giving myself over to it, I closed the distance between the future that had been mine in another life and before I could conjure up another fight to drown out the siren’s call, my hand was twisting open the front door. No fight, no matter how impressive it was, could pull me back now. I stepped through the door, entering the place of no return.

  I didn’t let my eyes wander around the first floor, I already knew what I’d find, I just focused on putting one foot in front of the other as I climbed the stairs. The house smelled faintly of him, as if he’d been away from it for awhile, but the closer I got to the closed door at the end of the hall, the stronger his scent became. My pace quickened, not caring what I’d find in a room drowning with his scent which was sealed up with a closed door. I only cared, at present, about being closer to him in whatever way I could.

  Not stopping to listen out for voices or knocking to announce my arrival, I shoved the door open and took a couple of hesitant steps inside. I took a quick survey of the room, and dropped to my knees, my hands gripping over my mouth.

  He wasn’t here in the flesh and blood, but he was here in every other way . . . and so was I. It didn’t seem possible we’d shared enough moments together to have filled the hundreds of frames hanging from each of the four walls. If I could have spent the rest of my eternity in this room, I would have been a happy woman. There were funny faces in a lot, smiling in most, and over-the-moon love in all.

  The one that had likely been his favorite, so naturally it was mine, was the one hanging above the bed. Someone had to have taken it without us knowing—probably Cora—but our backs were to the camera, his arm ringing around my waist, mine hitched into the back pocket of his jeans, and the way the sunset was centered between us gave it that fairy-tale quality of a couple marching towards their happily-ever-after.

  Patrick had been right, William had been gone a lot since I’d left. Had the Council not sent him on so many missions, the dozens of pictures adorning the walls would have been nothing but ashes in a slash pile. I doubted if the other girl had been in this place yet, for I didn’t know a woman alive who would’ve left this room intact if she came in and found it brimming with intimate moments between her man and his ex.

  “Bryn,” a soft voice called out from the doorway, “what are you doing here?”

  My head fell forward, not feeling the need to hide my emotions from Cora. “Does the pain ever go away?” I asked, choking on the sobs I was keeping held down.

  “That depends on what kind it is,” she said slowly, taking a few steps forward. “In my experience, there are two kinds of pain out there. The first kind is like an open wound, bloody, oozy, raw, but it patches up overtime, sometimes without so much as a scar.” She dropped down on the end of William’s bed, tucking her knees under her chin. “And there’s the other kind that burrows into the deepest parts of us we didn’t even know were there—making everything ache and throb—until it’s morphed us so much, we’re no longer the person we once were. If it makes you unrecognizable to yourself and those around you, that’s when you know you’ve got the kind that doesn’t go away.” A smile of apology tugged her mouth up.

  Of the hundreds of conversations we’d shared over coffee and a kitchen table, I’d never heard Cora get so philosophical. If she were six three and male, I could have been listening to William.

  “So what kind do you think I have?” I asked, staring at her full faced, puffy, and tattooed with tears.

  Her eyes searched around the room, looking for something. “Have you seen a girl around here? Her name’s Bryn Dawson and I thought I’d find her here.” She was having a tough time keeping a straight face.

  “I think that girl’s gone—long gone.” I wiped at my face.

  “Sometimes I think so,” Cora said, running her fingers through her sunflower hair. “Especially when you pull these kinds of stunts.” She looked at me pointedly, gesturing her hands around the room. “What if he came home and found you here?”

  I waited for further clarification, but she was waiting for the same from me. Most of the time, I loved how Cora and I could talk vaguely and still understand each other exactly; now wasn’t one of those times.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here, I just couldn’t really help it,” I offered, because—classic Bryn—I hadn’t stopped to think of the possible repercussions for showing up here unannounced. “Although I think she would be a hundred times more upset with me than you if she found me hanging out in his bedroom.”

  Cora stared at me with eyes narrowed in confusion. “Am I supposed to know who you’re referring to?”

  I almost rolled my eyes. “Please, Cora, Patrick’s bludgeoned me to death with this kind of stuff, I don’t think I could bear it from you too,” I said. “You know who I’m talking about, don’t put me on an endless carousel talking and thinking about her because Patrick’s made sure to remind me of her at every turn.”

  To match her eyes, Cora’s face crinkled with confusion. “I think when you were out there roughing it in the world on your own, you got crazy hermit disease. Have you got any conspiracy theories to go over with me or did you only get as far as the crazy-talk stage?” Cora was the only person I’d known who could say something harsh, but look like she wanted to give you a hug right after.

  “Okay, so we’re going to go there . . .” I took a deep breath, rolling my shoulders back to summon some courage. “The she I was referring to was William’s soon-to-be Betrothed. You know, that perfect female of an Immortal that has the Council’s stamp of approval plastered all over her. A.K.A. . . .”—I closed my eyes—“the woman he loves.”

  There was silence. More silence. I opened my eyes to watch her face wring the wrinkles away. And then she laughed.

  Cora’s cheap shots hurt worse than Patrick’s because I’d always considered her my friend, whereas Patrick I’d considered more as a fiend.

  I was preparing to stand up, leave this house, and try to surgically remove the part of my brain that held on to long-term memories when her laughter cut off.

  “Does this look like the room of a man who’s in love with someone else?” she asked, pointing at the room wallpapered with photos of a couple that exuded love in each cheesy smile and exaggerated pouted lip face. “The only person more dense than him is you.”

  Instead of rushing for the door, I rushed to her. I grasped her shoulders, trembling with anticipation. “Like you said, I’ve been walking the crazy path for awhile, but did you just say—in so many words—that there isn’t someone else? No one that slid in my place to be Mrs. William Hayward?” I thought I’d heard the words right, but given what she’d said, it was more likely I’d crossed into a dream.

  She gripped my shoulders back, although her tiny arms really had to stretch to cross the distance. “Listen to me. No. N.O.,” she mouthed, looking at me straight on. “No. One. Else. Besides, I don’t think there’s room on these walls for anyone else. Not to mention room in his heart.”

  Warmth trickled into my veins, like I’d just been hooked up to an IV dr
ip with a potent solution of euphoria. I threw my arms around her, squeezing her to me, managing to perform something of a happy dance with Cora swinging in my arms.

  “Yeah, I missed you too,” she said, her voice tight. “But I’m still angry at you. Really angry.” She pushed back from me, looking at me as sternly as I’d seen her. “You broke his heart, Bryn. You absolutely, positively, crushed him,” she said, looking like she was the one choking back sobs now. “I mean, gosh darn it, you left him when he needed you most, for some other guy of all things. Never, in a hundred-thousand years, would I have guessed you were capable of such cruelty.”

  I winced—replaying in my mind that night I’d left him more dead than alive—but now I’d been given a taste of hope, I wasn’t about to be detoured from it. “Cora, look at me. You know me nearly as well as he does.” I crashed down beside her on the bed—the bed he’d placed in the exact spot we’d designated last summer. “You know my feelings for him. Do you really think I would have left him for someone else—especially someone as infuriating, egotistical, and downright dimwitted as Paul Lowe?” I guess I still had a ways to go on working through my anger issues over Paul’s kiss.

  “No, not really,” she said, twirling the hair curling behind her ear. “It didn’t make any sense, none of it did. But if you didn’t leave because of Paul, why did you leave?” Her face was exuding concern as she tucked her hand into mine.

  “You know why,” I answered, offering nothing more.

  “I suppose I do,”—she sighed, her head dropping—“I guess I always knew why, somewhere deep down that I kept repressed. Why are the bad things easier to believe than the good things?”

  I laughed. “I’m not going to answer that. We don’t have enough time for me to give you my thoughts on that and you’re too sweet and innocent for me to corrupt with my gloomy ramblings of a wannabe philosopher.”

  She rolled her eyes, giggling all the while. “I really have missed you. So you’re back?”

  I smiled, nodding my head.

  “For good?”

  “That’s up to him,” I said.

  She threw her arms around me again. “What took you so long, girl?”

  “I think you know the answer to that one, too.” I pulled her away from me to emphasize my point.

  “You feel in control of it?” she asked, her face serious.

  “I think I’m as in control of it as I’ll ever be and I don’t have to worry that I’ll kill him if he touches me now.”

  “You know that was a risk he was willing to take—”

  “But I wasn’t,” I said firmly. “I’m still not, but I think we’ve proven that I pose a greater risk to him being away from him than I do with him.”

  “So you left because you didn’t want to kill him. I get that,” she said, crossing her legs beneath her. “But why did you have to let him believe it was because you’d fallen for someone else?”

  I tilted a brow at her, surprised I had to explain. She’d been witness to William’s unfailing devotion several lifetimes over. “I had to make it about someone else because I knew if he found out I’d left to protect him, he’d search the world looking for me . . . again. But I knew if I made leaving him for a selfish reason, he’d let me go.”

  “That’s beautiful,” she said, patting my hand. “In a weird, sick way.”

  I knew we could have wasted the night away catching up and devouring licorice ropes in between gallons of coffee, but there was something else that required my immediate attention. “Do you know where he is?”

  “Not a clue,” she said, her sapphire eyes sparkling in the dark. “But I think I know someone, or someones, who would. If you thought those three brothers of his kept close tabs on him before,”—she shook her head—“well, now they’re watching him like he’s a woman four weeks past her due date. It’s like they’re just waiting for him to lose it.”

  I was already across the room, heading into the hallway when she rushed past me, pulling me down the stairs and out the door. “Come on. Let’s go get your man back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  FAMILY FEUD

  The door was barely opened before my words spilled out. “Where is he?” I’d never been a particularly tactful conversationalist and now wasn’t the time to start.

  “Hi, sunshine,” Patrick said, lowering the playing cards staggered in his hands. “Nice to see you, too.”

  Cora came up behind me, winding an arm around my waist. The glare she had pointed at Patrick had Joseph fighting a smile. “Knock it off, Patrick,” she said, sounding no meaner than a mewing lamb, but I had to give her credit for trying. “You’ve done enough already. Where is he?”

  “Someone’s returned exceptionally crabbier than when she left,” Patrick mouthed to the four members circling the table, eyes pointing at Cora before finding me. “You have a special way of bringing out those kinds of emotions in our family.” He smiled spitefully at me before turning his attention back at the cards he was hiding in his lap. “Thanks for retrieving her, Cora. I wasn’t in the mood, but sorry it made yours so sour.”

  Cora marched forward with me in tow, braking once our legs rammed into the side of Joseph’s chair he’d purposefully scooted out. “I’m sour”—she said the world like she’d just bitten into a lemon—“because of you and the lies you’ve been telling.”

  The outside of Patrick’s eyes crinkled, the most masterful wince he was capable of. “Something tells me I’m going to be in the dog house with the girls,” he looked to Joseph, petitioning for support. “Let me guess, you didn’t find her where she was supposed to be waiting?” he asked Cora.

  Cora pounced her hands on her hips. “Like you really thought I would. You don’t have me believing for one second, Patrick Hayward, that you didn’t know where she’d wind up.”

  “Well, I don’t think I’ll need twenty guesses to figure it out,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Given your expressions.”

  Cora’s foot began tapping noiselessly. “I’ll give you one guess.”

  He threw his hands in the air, his cards scattering behind him. “I knew I should’ve vaulted up that freaky shrine of a room before snoopy found it,” he said, accusing me with his eyes. “So, big deal. I lied about William being all hot and bothered for another woman. I was only doing it to piss her off and to keep him from coming across as a pathetic sucker still in love with her.”

  He paused, looking around the room at six sets of eyes staring at him. “What? Why are you all looking at me like I’m the enemy? I’m not the one who played a game of hacky-sack with William’s heart.”

  Cora lurched forward, stalled again by her husband, but Joseph couldn’t wrangle both of us.

  “Where is he?” I demanded, swinging around Joseph’s chair, giving Patrick’s tilted one a shove with my foot. Unfortunately, he moved quicker than lightning, catching himself before he fell, but I’d achieved one thing—I had his attention and had wiped the smirk off his face.

  I was nearing my eruption point, thankfully not that eruption point, but it wasn’t all due to Patrick and what he’d lied about. He’d only lied to protect William and I couldn’t fault him in this, as mangled as his delivery had been. However, I was beyond anxious no one seemed to know where William was. Given the recent events—that being John Townsend’s bloodhounds on the sniff for Haywards—that wasn’t a good thing.

  Patrick shrugged. “I don’t know. He said he needed some time away. It seems him finding you making out with your boyfriend sent him over the edge.”

  “What boyfriend?” Paul hollered, bursting to a stand.

  “He’s talking about you,” I said, squeezing the bridge of my nose. There was so much to explain and I didn’t have the six months time it would take to give a full disclosure.

  “Me?” Paul’s voice sounded a few octaves higher.

  “I understand, given her track record, I should use a first and last name—maybe even the last four digits of their social security number—when I�
�m making a reference to one of her boyfriends,” Patrick said, undoing the top button of the dress shirt he’d changed into, “given the multitude of them out there, but in this case, I was referring to you when I said boyfriend.” Patrick smirked at Paul; Paul stared at Patrick.

  “You’ve got the wrong man, bud,” Paul said finally. “Although it isn’t for lack of trying. Isn’t that right, Bryn?” All eyes in the room shifted to me, waiting for an explanation, but I wasn’t sure where to begin.

  I decided to let the eyes that were narrowed the most severely on me get me started. “Paul isn’t my boyfriend. Not now, not then, not ever,” I said, letting some of my pent up annoyance with the new Immortal seep through.

  “You told me there was someone else,” Patrick said through his teeth, “that night at the airport. You said you were leaving William because of someone else.”

  “I had to tell you that or else I knew you’d hog tie me and hold me hostage until William woke up,” I said, biting at my lip. “And I knew once he was awake and assuring me that everything was fine, I couldn’t go through with it.”

  Patrick looked me over, up and down, not so much intentionally, but like he wanted to ascertain if the woman before him was me. “You lied to me?”

  “I had to. I knew that’s the only way you’d let me go,” I whispered. “And I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt him again.”

  Patrick snorted. “So you thought by leaving him behind, letting him think you’d left him for this loser”—he motioned at Paul, but flashed him an apologetic look—“that you wouldn’t hurt him?”

  “No, I knew leaving him would hurt for awhile,” I said. “But I really thought he’d be able to move on one day—find someone else—forget about me—”

  “Yeah, that sounds like William,” Nathanial said, sarcasm making its debut appearance since I’d known him.

  “And when you told me he had found someone else, I was happy, well, I was devastated, but you know what I mean,”—Patrick lifted a brow, looking indifferent—“but then as I started to master my gift and knew I wouldn’t kill him, I wanted to come back. The only thing keeping me away was this other woman, but since I know you were just lying to me about this, that changes everything.”