Cursed (Book 1, The Watchers; Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (17 page)

Abby laughed. 
“Yes, he did.  I would really like to meet Tara someday.”

“He said she
died.  Did you know her?”

Abby’s eyes fell
to her plate as she absently played with her potato with her fork. 

“Yes, he did love
her, but I wasn’t around then.”

“Oh,” I said
surprised.  “I was under the impression you two had grown up together.”

“For the most
part, but not that part,” she said.

She placed her
fork down on her plate and folded her hands in front of her before looking up
at me again.  “I know I said I wouldn’t talk about this before, but I need to
know something.”

“What do you want
to know?” I asked cautiously, wondering where this was going.

“I love Brand with
every fiber in my being, and I don’t want to see him get hurt.  I know this
isn’t any of my business but if there’s something going on between you and
Will, please don’t lead Brand on and give him false hope.  He deserves better
than that.”

“I wouldn’t do
that to him, Abby.  He knows what Will has meant to me in the past.  I haven’t
tried to hide anything from him.”

“But what does
Will mean to you now?  From what I saw, he can still affect you a great deal. 
Listen,” she said with a heavy sigh.  “Brand’s falling in love with you.  Well,
to be perfectly honest I think he’s already in love with you.  I just don’t
want to see him get hurt if it can be helped.”

“I don’t want to
hurt him, Abby.”

“No, I don’t think
you do, but you will if you don’t decide who it is you want soon.  One way or
another someone’s going to leave with a broken heart, and I don’t want to see
Brand picking up the pieces of his unnecessarily.”

“I know.  I just need
some time to figure everything out.”

“I just wanted to
let you know how I felt about the matter.  I don’t mean to pry into your
relationships.  It’s just that I love him.  I don’t want to see him hurt.”

“I don’t want to
see that either.”

“Ok, well, I just
felt like I needed to get that out in the open,” she picked up her fork again
and continued to eat her steak.

After that, Abby
was her effervescent self and asked about the Black and White ball Brand had
asked me to.

“Why didn’t you
say yes?” she asked.

“I don’t have a
dress.  I wanted to see if my mom would help me out with some money to buy one
first.”

“Well if you need
a dress to wear, I might have something in my closet that would fit you.”

I looked at Abby
and highly doubted anything she had would ever fit me.  She was at least a foot
shorter and not nearly as well endowed in the chest area.  A vision of me
trying to fit into one of her dresses flitted through my mind and made me want
to laugh out loud.

While we were
cleaning up the dishes from lunch, the insurance agent showed up.  I went out
to speak with him.  Surprisingly, it didn’t take long.  He pretty much said the
car was totaled and wrote me a check on the spot for $5,000.  He explained he
had already looked up the value of the car expecting it to be a totaled claim
from the police report they had received describing the accident and damage.  I
was pleasantly surprised by the amount.  I had only paid $3500 for the car.  I
thanked him for coming out and handling things so efficiently.

After he left, I
sat on the steps of the front porch staring at the check in disbelief.

“Wow, he’s gone
already?”  Abby asked coming to sit beside me.

“Yeah, and he gave
me about $1500 more than I originally paid for it too,” I showed her the check
in my hands still not believing it.

She whistled. 
“Well, maybe you don’t have to ask your mom for money for a dress now.”  She
winked at me and jostled me in the side with her elbow.

“Do you know when
Brand will be back?”  I asked, now anxious to give him my answer to his
invitation.

“No, I’m sorry.  I
don’t know.  He wasn’t sure himself.  But, he’s a sure thing, love.  Need help
picking out a dress?”

Abby’s excitement
made me even more excited.  “Sure, but we’ll need to take Tara.  She’d never
forgive me if I bought something this momentous without her.  Plus, she’s sort
of my balance.”

“Balance?”

“I would most
likely pick out something way too conservative.  She’d force me to pick out
something a little more edgy.”

“Ahh, I think Tara
and I will get along just fine.  She sounds like my kind of girl.”

Abby drove me home
soon after.  I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find Will pacing
anxiously in front of my apartment with my books in his hands when we got
there.

“Where have you
been?” he demanded as soon as I stepped out of the car. 

“I was with
Abby.”  I turned to Abby.  “Abby this is Will.  Will this is Brand’s cousin
Abby.  She lives over by his house.”

“Hello.” Abby
waved to Will, but did not get a reply back just a stone cold look of disgust
which seemed totally uncalled for.

“Thanks for
everything, Abby.  Would you ask Brand to call me when he gets back?”

“Sure thing,
love.”

“Thanks, see you
later.”  I closed the car door and walked to the door of my apartment.

Abby drove off
leaving Will and I alone.

“That was stupid,
Lilly.  Why would you get into a car with someone you barely know?  How do you
know she isn’t the one trying to kill you?”

“Well it was
better than trying to out run you, Will Allen.”

“Lilly,” he
touched my arm tenderly urging me to look at him.  When I did, I regretted it. 
His eyes held a yearning I had almost forgotten existed.  “Can’t we talk about
what I said?  Is it that bad to know how I really feel about you?”

Before I could
answer, Tara pulled up in her car and hopped out.

“Hey, y’all!”

Tara came bouncing
up to us all full of herself.  I instantly knew something good had happened
that day.

“So, what’s put
you in such a good mood?” I asked adjusting the strap of my purse on my
shoulder in a movement which forced Will to drop his hand away from my arm at
the same time.

“Oh, nothing, just
Simon asking me to go to the Black and White ball with him.”  She said hopping
up and down in excitement.

“Great!  We can go
shopping for dresses together.”

“I shoulda known
Brand already asked you.  Why didn’t you tell me?”
     I shrugged.  “Just haven’t had the time.”

“I gotta go,” Will
handed me my books, turned away and walked to his car.

“What’s up with
him?” Tara asked watching Will speed out of the parking lot like the hounds of
hell were after him.

“Let’s go inside. 
You’re not going to believe the day I’ve had.” 

After I recounted
everything which happened between me and Will that day, all Tara could say was,
“Wow.”

“I know.”  I sat
down beside her on the futon feeling completely dejected.

“What are you
gonna do?” she asked turning to me.  “I mean you’ve been in love with Will
practically your whole life!  And now he says he love you back?”

“I just feel…”

Confused was a
weak word to describe how I felt in that moment.  How could I explain my true
feelings to my best friend?

“It’s just that I
feel so much better when I’m with Brand.  I don’t know.  Maybe it’s the newness
of our relationship that excites me.  But, I just get this intense feeling
around him, like he was meant for me.  I feel like someone special when I’m
around him.  And Will….well he’s my past, my childhood love and my first
heartache.  Maybe it’s time I grew up some and left the past where it needs to
be left.”

“Can you do
that?”  The uncertainty in Tara’s voice mirrored my own thoughts.

Could I leave my
feelings for Will in the past knowing how he felt about me now?  My adolescent
dream of Will professing his love to me had actually happened that day, and
here I sat, completely depressed by the experience.  It made me sad to realize
how much time had been lost between the two of us.  How different would I be
now if he had just told me how he felt two years ago?

“I honestly don’t
know,” I confessed.

The doorbell rang
and Tara got up to answer it.

When Brand walked
through the door, I felt the weight of the day lift off my shoulders as though
it had been a physical weight.  In that moment he was my light at the end of a
dark endless tunnel.  I couldn’t help myself.  I launched my body off the futon
and into his arms in a matter of seconds.  The warmth of his skin and the smell
of him made my muscles relax instantly.  It was like coming home after you’d
been away for a while.

“Lilly, what’s
wrong?” he asked holding me easily, like I was the most precious thing in the
world to him.

“Just hold me,
Brand.”

Tara went to her
room to give us some privacy.

I’m not sure how
long Brand and I stood there, but I finally let him go and looked up into this
beautiful face.  Had I ever noticed how Brand’s pale skin glowed before?  Well,
I mean it didn’t glow like a light bulb, but it was like his inner beauty
showed on the outside illuminating him in an ethereal shroud of tranquility.

The tender way he
looked down at me made me want to kiss him until I couldn’t think about
anything else anymore, until everything Will had said was vanquished from my
mind and heart.  But, my promise to him stopped me from doing it.  Abby’s words
reverberated in my mind too.  I had to make sure my feelings for Will could be
kept in the past where they belonged first.

But could I do
it?  Could I let go of my adolescent fantasies which had stared Will for as
long as I could remember?  Could I trust my heart again and let myself fall in
love with Brand?  It would be so easy to love my Adonis in the flesh and let
him love me back.

“Do you want to
talk about it?”  He asked gently rubbing my back with his hands.

“Yes and no,” I
admitted.  How could I tell my new boyfriend that my one time best friend had
professed his love for me just a few hours ago?  Yet, why keep it a secret? 
Hadn’t he already said he knew Will cared for me a great deal?

“Will and I had a
fight and then he said he loved me.  That he’s always loved me.”

“Oh, I see.”  The
understanding smile on his face told me he had expected this to happen.  “And
what did you say?”

“I told him he was
too late.  Then I ran away.”

Brand’s brow
furrowed at this news.  “Why did you run away?”

“I couldn’t handle
it.  I’d given up hearing him say that to me a long time ago.”

“Did you like
hearing it?”

I laid my head on
Brand’s chest, unable to look at him.  “I don’t know.”

He let out a
relieved sigh.  “I’m glad to hear that.”

When I looked back
up at his face, his expression was one of understanding.

“I thought you’d
be upset,” I admitted.

“No, Lilly, you’re
only human.  I’d rather hear you didn’t know how it made you feel than to hear
you say yes or no.”

“Why?”

“If you had said
yes, then that would mean I’d lost you.  If you had said no, it would probably
mean you were denying your feelings for him.  But, the fact that you don’t know
means you realize you do still have feelings for him but you’re not sure they’re
as strong as they used to be.  That maybe you’ve developed feelings for me that
have started to run just as deep.  That’s what’s confusing you.”

“And you’re ok
with that?” I asked puzzled at how logical he was sounding.

“I would rather
see you make a decision with your eyes open to everything.  Don’t mistake my
acceptance of the situation as giving in.  I want you for myself.  I don’t
intend to share your heart with Will.  It’s me or him but only you can make
that decision.”

“Thank you,” I
laid my head back onto his chest.

“Why are you
thanking me?”  He asked laying his cheek against the top of my head, hugging me
tighter.

“For not expecting
me to know all the answers.  For not pushing me to make a decision before I’m
ready.”

“I’ll never push
you to do anything you don’t want to do, Lilly.  I care too much about you to
do that. I just want you to be happy.  Even if I’m not the one you choose, I
want you to know that.  But…”

I waited for him
to continue, but after a few seconds of silence I looked back up at him.

“But what?”

“But I need you to
know that… I love you.”  I could tell the words were hard for him to say.  Not
because declaring his love for me was hard, but I got the impression he was
realizing just how much he truly cared for me.  “I can honestly say I’ve never
met anyone as special as you are.  I’ve searched a long time for someone like
you, but I’d given up hope you actually existed.  If anyone in this world was
made for me, you were Lilly.  There will never be anyone else for me but you.”

I didn’t know what
to say.  But I did know I didn’t feel like running away.

“Do you remember
the question you asked me in physics class yesterday?”

I could see the
wheels in his mind turning trying to remember what I was talking about.

“About the Black
and White ball?” he asked.

“My answer is
yes.  I got my check today from the insurance company for my car and it ended
up being a lot more than I thought it would be.”

“I don’t
understand.  What’s that got to do with the ball?”

“Well, I wasn’t
sure if I could afford to buy a dress to go with you.  Now I can.”

“I would have
bought you a dress, Lilly,” he admonished.  “But I am glad to hear that was the
only reason you didn’t say yes when I asked.”

“You know I
wouldn’t have let you buy me a dress.  Why did you think I didn’t say yes right
away?”

“I thought you
might be waiting for a better offer,” he admitted. 

The unsure look on
Brand’s face made my heart skip a beat.  How could anyone like him be unsure of
himself?