Authors: April Smyth
‘It brings people together too,’ I say defensively. It brought me Gabe, Rose and Oliver. Rose is right though. It also took away my mother and was the reason Gabe and I could never be together. Could I forgive this world?
Rose gives me a pitying look as if she is waiting for me to catch up with her and get onto the same page. She is years and many traumas ahead of me when it comes to her relationship with the supernatural world. It must pain her to see me be so naive.
‘What will you do though?’ I ask, trying to change the topic.
‘I don’t know. Channing wants to move to Los Angeles and kickstart his career in acting. I could go with him and open a boutique,’ she says dreamily. I can’t imagine Rose living a life that doesn’t involve vampires, witches or werewolves. She has been more immersed into this universe than me and it seems out of place for her not to be in it.
‘What about Michael?’ I ask. She kept her home in Manchester when she was working for Maurice so she could be close to her brother who was left severely disabled after an altercation with magic. I can’t imagine her leaving him out of her life.
A single tear rolls down Rose’s freshly washed cheek and her voice is strangled as she says, ‘He’s really not doing well, Cassie, the doctors says he’s only got a couple of months left.’
I had no idea. I feel terrible that I’ve spent the past few weeks with Rose going on and on about my problems when she was facing a familial turmoil of her own. Michael is the most important person in Rose’s life, that much is made clear whenever she talks about him, and it will shatter her heart into tiny pieces if she loses him. It explains why she was so offended by my flippancy about the spell today. She would give anything to go back in time and undo what happened with her family and it must be chilling for her to watch me be so nonchalant about it.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say and Rose nods at me with a grave sadness on her face.
That night we don’t say anything more about magic spells or the misfortunes in our lives. We finish our midnight snacks and go to bed. Rose stays with me because we are both feeling too fragile to be left alone. It’s not quite the same as having Oliver’s brawny arms wrapped around me but knowing a friend, a sister, is lying close beside me is enough to quell the demons that come into my room at night.
TWENTY-FIVE
Another week passes and instead of being excited about Christmas’ imminent arrival, everyone is talking and thinking about the spell. So far I’ve been kept fairly out of the loop as far as what this spell will actually be made up of but evidently they are growing closer to a breakthrough.
Most of the time I spend with Rose and Channing. We fill the time with sightseeing. I should be excited exploring New York but my thoughts are mostly otherwise occupied. I call Oliver every day. We talk about our days, we laugh and he lifts me from the doom and gloom but most of the phone calls end on a serious note as we discuss my fate. Oliver has been shifty when it comes to giving me advice on whether I should carry out the spell and lose my Healing abilities. He says what I expect him to that, obviously, he is concerned for my safety and doesn’t want me the spell to go ahead unless it’s completely safe. He reminds me that he will love me no matter what: if I am human, Healer, witch or werewolf. I already knew he wouldn’t be phased by my newfound humanity but it’s nice to have it reiterated nonetheless. However, when it comes down to it, he is as clueless as me. I can tell that he thinks about it a lot. Every day he has new conundrums and possibilities to talk about which pile up on my shoulders and make my head spin.
I don’t call my dad again. I want to hear his voice but I can’t take any more pressure. I know what he would say. He would tell me not to do it because it’s too dangerous but deep down he would be as conflicted as the rest of us because the opportunity for normality is just too enticing, even if it is risky.
‘Good morning,’ Channing is sitting at the kitchen table in a charcoal housecoat and his blonde hair is dishevelled. I watch as his jaw flexes. Rose looks over the partition between the kitchen and dining area with admiration in her eyes as she pours milk into her bowl of cereal.
Seeing them be happy together over the past week has filled me with mixed feelings. I love seeing how Channing makes Rose glow. With all the hardships she is enduring with her brother’s limited time on this planet, it is heartwarming to see her smile. At the same time seeing them doing the things people in love do is bittersweet. It makes me miss Oliver even more. Watching her sit on Channing’s lap, wrap her arms around his neck and nuzzle her face against his body tears my heart apart but I don’t let on how much it hurts. I smile and sip my tea innocently looking on with jealous eyes.
Since the night Rose stayed with me, Channing has stayed over every night and I have been left alone. Oliver calls me just before I go to bed so I don’t feel alone but it doesn’t help when I wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Maurice might be gone but the nightmares are not. I can’t escape his face when I close my eyes and fall asleep. I see both halves: the cool, youthful face that I was manipulated into loving and the aggressive face that Gabe has inked onto his skin. I never did ask Gabe why he had Maurice’s hideous face etched permanently on his skin. It was bad enough trying to remove it from my memory; the last thing I would want is to have it on my body forever. Sometimes the nightmares don’t involve Maurice. Sometimes I am the one with the fangs and the blood on my hands. Some nights I look down and there are the bloody corpses at my feet and the pale, lifeless bodies are not strangers. They belong to the people I care about. The nightmare always follows the same pattern. At first I see Channing and Justin, less beautiful in death, and Channing’s stiff fingers are reaching out for Rose who lies beside Arrow and Gabe. Usually, at this point in my nightmare, I begin to wake up as the image of Gabe and Rose’s breathless, rotting bodies sends me into fits but sometimes I stay unconscious, underneath the dark cloak, for long enough to see Oliver lying in a pool of his own blood and a dagger in his broad chest. On the worst nights, I am still asleep when the vision of my family can be seen. Their corpses are piled up on each other: Shannon, my dad, my siblings.
I shudder and finish the dregs of my tea as I think about my nightmares. I can’t wait for this living nightmare to be over so I can rest peacefully beside Oliver again. Can’t I? Will I have to return to my own, solitary bed where the nightmares will be waiting for me just in another town? I can’t imagine my dad will be too pleased about my significantly older, werewolf boyfriend spending the night or, worse yet, moving in with him.
Keeping my mind off of the nightmares or thinking about whether I’ll be starting the next year as a Healer, I wonder what it would be like to introduce Oliver to my dad and Shannon for the first time. I don’t know if I would explain that he is a werewolf or whether the fact that he is five years my senior will be enough to give my dad a heart attack. I imagine my dad shrinking as he shakes hands with my tall, broad boyfriend. I find myself grinning at the thought of Shannon eying up his untamed beard and Jana crawling up his knee and onto his lap. They might be afraid at first by his wild appearance but I think they would grow to love him like I do. They might be unsure whether he is good enough for me but once I explain everything he has done for me and how safe and warm he makes me feel they will idolise him, I’m sure of it.
Rose catches me smiling as I clean up my dishes. She pops her head up and rests it on the ledge of the midway wall that separate the lounge and dining area for the small, modern kitchen. ‘What you smiling about, Bullet?’ Rose asks. It still makes me shiver a little to hear the playful nickname that Gabe conjured up for me way back in Paris. The mention of Gabe’s nickname makes me wonder where he and Claire have disappeared to since the night I gave him my blood to save him. We’ve been living in the same building all week but I haven’t caught a glimpse of him or his willowy, blonde girlfriend. I clear my throat, ‘Oh nothing. I was just thinking about Oliver.’
‘That’s sweet,’ Rose says.
‘Yeah,’ I shrug. I’ve been trying to keep Oliver out of the conversation when I’m not on the phone to him in my attempt to live in the moment and stop pining after him. I love spending time with Rose and Channing; I made a promise to myself to appreciate the time I get to spend with them instead of wishing I was somewhere else with someone else because by the time next year calls on me I might not get to see Rose or Channing for a long time.
I don’t want to end up trapped into talking about Oliver and how much I miss him so I immediately swerve the conversation in, quite the opposite, direction. ‘Are Gabe and Claire still in the building?’ I ask.
Rose observes me as I dry off my mug wondering why I’m quizzing her about my ex-whatever-he-was and his beautiful, clearly unhappy with me, girlfriend. I worry that I’ll never be able to talk about Gabe without people giving me odd looks. I know who I love, I know who I want to be with, but it will never stop me caring for Gabe; I just wish people would accept that and stop worrying about me reverting to my old ways.
We make our way back to the dining table, where Rose, Channing and I have spent every day talking in our pyjamas until afternoon, before Rose finally answers me. ‘Gabe and Claire went to stay with Claire’s parents in Washington,’ she gulps.
A thousand thoughts run through my mind at once but I do my best to look blank and distanced. At first, I feel hurt that Gabe left without saying goodbye to me then I wonder why. Did I really offend he and his girlfriend that much when I let my blood fall into his mouth? Did I really not warrant a farewell? I know Gabe isn’t good with goodbyes but I thought I deserved at least an acknowledgement.
‘For good?’ I ask with a small frown.
‘Well,’ Rose exchanges uncomfortable glances with Channing. ‘I think so, Cassie.’
So that’s that. Gabe has left without a word and he won’t be coming back. Soon, I’ll be leaving too and this will all be over. I’ll never see him again. How do I feel about that? Gabe and I have never had much of a relationship or a friendship so it seems ridiculous that I could miss him when I barely spend any time with him but I would’ve liked some closure. I’d like to know that what I shared with him for a brief part of my life was very real and it had been
love
. I’d like to look him in the eyes and get an answer from him at last. Gabe holds back, he locks up his feelings but I need an outburst of emotion. I need to know that my seventeen year old, bored and lonely, mind did not create our epic love. We aren’t in love anymore, I’ve reserved that space in my heart for Oliver, but at least if he said goodbye I would know we will always care about each other even if we never see each other again. I would like to see his impish features and see that fleeting, brilliant smile appear on his brooding face. I feel my breathing get loud and ragged as I imagine a life completely void of Gabe.
‘Are you alright, Cassie? You look pale,’ Channing observes in his sexy French accent. Rose shoots him a hard stare which tells him to leave immediately and like a good little boy he obeys and excuses himself to go for a shower.
Rose smiles weakly, ‘It’s obvious who wears the trousers in this relationship, eh?’
I’m not in the mood for Rose’s jokes, maybe in an hour or so when the blow has lessened, but right now all I can think about is how hurt I am that Gabe thinks so lowly of me that he couldn’t bring himself to pop his head in the door and say goodbye.
‘Right,’ Rose pulls her long hair up into a knot at the top of her head and rests her hands authoritatively on the table. ‘Are we gonna talk about this or what?’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask, clenching my jaw.
‘Since you left Toulouse you’ve never been able to talk about Gabe,’ she says.
‘Yes, I have!’ I say, irked by her accusation, I’ve had one too many conversations about the first boy to ever break my heart for my liking.