Wanderlust (17 page)

When I was seated on a shabby couch in the common area, I began rummaging through Addie’s bag in search of her cell phone. My own didn’t function overseas, and I knew Addie wouldn’t miss the long-distance minutes I was going to spend. Besides, she had stocked up prior to our departure so that her and Rob could keep in constant contact, but I couldn’t recall a single call between them in the past 48 hours. Maybe they had been texting instead, but I didn’t think so.

I began dialing the numbers that were scorched into my memory, but just before the first ring, I hung up the call. I repeated the same actions a moment later, and this time, I waited one full ring before I hung up again. I sat there silently chastising myself--at first, for making the call and then for not having the guts to follow through with it. I was startled out of my trance when the bedazzled device resting in my palm began to vibrate violently.

“Cordelia? Is everything okay?”

I couldn’t ignore the panic in his voice, and I held on to the hope that he really did care--even as the voice in my head reminded me that he had once made the same promises years ago to Sylvie that he had made to me only a few weeks ago. I was so angry with him that I could barely keep from breaking down at the mere sound of his voice. At the same time, the familiar sound of his voice ignited a fire in me that I couldn’t deny. In that moment, I hated him for it--for making me feel so conflicted. It took every ounce of strength for me to respond to the sound of his voice on the other end of the line.

“Tell me about Sylvie.”

“Oh, Cordelia…you didn’t,” he said, his voice fraught with dejection. “You didn’t let her get to you, did you?”

“How could I not, Chaseyn? The things she said about you--the two of you--they were awful,” I blubbered. “You have to tell me the truth. Tell me that she was lying.”

“I can’t do that, Cordelia. Not if you want me to tell you the truth.”

***

I sat silently contemplating my options, but it was hard to focus on anything other than the throbbing inside my head. I could hear the rush of blood in my ears from the anger that was welling inside of me. More than anger, I felt hurt. Chaseyn had never really lied to me. I knew he wasn’t a virgin. I knew he had been in love before. He had just left out some major details, and as much as I thought I wanted to hear them now, I wasn’t certain what it would mean for us. There was no doubt in my mind that I loved him, but I wasn’t certain that my love came without conditions. Finally, I spoke.

“Tell me.”

And so, he did.

“Everything you know about my past is true, there are just some parts that I chose not to tell you. There are parts of my youth that I am not proud of, Cordelia, and I was embarrassed to share them with you,” Chaseyn began.

“You could have told me anything, Chaseyn. I wouldn’t have judged you.”

“But you might not have loved me.”

His words were laced with fear and regret. I knew that this conversation was going to be long, so I moved to a chair in the corner of the sitting area and shielded my face from passersby.

“Mina and I left London when I was 19, but it wasn’t buy choice,” Chaseyn explained. “If I’m being honest, I was a holy terror, and I had brought so much shame to Mina that she could no longer stand to show her face amongst the others there.”

“What did you do?”

“When I realized the depth of my circumstances--that I would never face judgment for my sins because I would never die--I started on a path of debauchery. I was insatiable. The drinking, drugs, gambling, women--”

I coughed then, cutting him off.

“Cordelia? Are you still there?”

“Mmm-hmm,” I sputtered. I thought about stopping him there, but I couldn’t. As much as I didn’t want to hear any more, a morbid curiosity overtook me. It was like driving by a car wreck. You don’t want to look, but you just can’t stop yourself. “How many women?”

Hot tears flowed down my face, and I sat sobbing silently. An older woman, who I recognized from the front desk, put her arm on my shoulder and asked if I was alright, but I brushed off her offer of assistance. I took that as my cue to find a more sheltered location, away from prying eyes. I walked outside and, finding a quiet street corner, sat down on the curb. The hot sun beating down on my back offered some solace as it engulfed me in its warmth.

“I was immune to the repercussions. I couldn’t be destroyed by disease, so that was never a concern. I had no faith, so I wasn’t worried about being loyal to my purity. Drink and drugs have little effect on my kind, so I was gluttonous in my consumption of them. And money was no object. I had an unlimited bankroll.”

The more he spoke, the more his words cut. And, he knew it. I could hear the animosity at his own actions in every word he spoke. He didn’t want to tell me these things. He wanted to forget they were a part of him at all.

My head was spinning. Had he just said what I had thought he said? How he could he have done it to spite me when I wasn’t even born yet? My own mother was but a wee child.

“H-h-how?” I asked, stunned at his admission.

“When I was 16, Mina told me about Alexei’s plan for me. I was nothing more than a pawn in his game. He had planned to use me--and countless others like me--to help him end the curse. We would act like an army to hunt you down and help make you his wife. Try as she might to keep me from fulfilling this destiny, Mina knew that, one day, Alexei would come for me, and there would be no way to deny him. He’d left Mina and I when we needed him most, and I wanted no part in helping that sick S.O.B.”

I had never heard such harsh words from Chaseyn before. He was so angry, so upset, that I could practically feel the heat from his fury through the flimsy plastic of the cell phone receiver.

“I resented the unborn girl who had cursed us all, and I decided that if I had no control over my fate that I might as well enjoy myself in the meantime. That’s how it all started. If I had been human, it would have been the fast lane to self-destruction, but I wasn’t. Instead, it was a never-ending cycle of one indulgence after another.”

I was shocked. Truly shocked.

“Finally, after three long years of watching me waste away my days and nights, everyone had seen enough,” he said, sadness creeping into his voice. “And, they asked Mina to take me away. I had made a lot of enemies, and it was starting to reflect on the others. They couldn’t put themselves at risk any longer.”

“What happened?” I asked. It was like he was telling me a fable, not the story of his life, and I needed to hear how it ended.

“We moved to Paris, and that’s where I met Sylvie,” he said reluctantly. “Did she tell you much?”

I shook my head in response before realizing he couldn’t see the action through the phone. But, I knew he understood, which was good, because I was fairly certain I was speechless. Sometimes, the fact that he had sixth sense really came in handy.

“At first, she was really good for me,” he explained. “I was so focused on being with her that I didn’t have time for anything else.”

I didn’t want to hear this, but I remained silent and listened anyway.

“Sylvie was a respectable woman who demanded that I woo her in the traditional way. She had been born many decades before me, and she insisted that I court her in the same way as the men of her time. I was completely changed--no more drinking or gambling. Mina was so proud of the man I had become.”

At this point, I was so engulfed in the story that any jealousy or animosity was clouded for the moment as I waited to hear what happened next.

“After we had been together about a year, we decided to take our relationship to the next level. And, that’s when things changed. She became obsessed--her appetite insatiable, just as mine had been before I met her. And, who was I to deny her? I was a teenage boy, after all. With Sylvie at my side, I started to slip back into my old ways. I would do anything for her, because I thought I loved her, Cordelia. Anything. And one day, I took my lust for her too far.”

I couldn’t imagine what that meant, but a million thoughts ran through my mind. None of them good.

“She asked me to help her find a ‘pet,’” he said. “So I brought her a young girl--no more than 10 years old. She had been at the market with her mother. She didn’t want to come with me at first, but I used my special charms to convince her to leave with me. I don’t know what I thought Sylvie would do with her, but I never imagined…”

“She wanted me to turn her, Cordelia, but I couldn’t do it. She was just a child--frightened and alone. Sylvie wanted us to live forever as a happy undead family, but she keep throwing my cowardice in my face. Sylvie had never really loved me. She had been using me to get what she wanted. So, she did it herself. Finally, I couldn’t take her cruelty any more, and I left. Mina did too. That’s when we moved to America. I needed to get as far away from that life as possible--to start over. I’ve spent the past 50 years atoning for my sins.”

“How could you do this to me?” I asked incredulously.

“How could I do this to you? Are you serious, Cordelia?” Chaseyn shouted through the receiver. He had never taken that tone with me before. “I pour my heart out to you, tell you things I have never told anyone before, and all you can think about is how this affects you? Are you really that selfish?”

“Me? Am I that selfish? How about you? All of those terrible things you did, and you were never going to tell me, were you?”

“No, Cordelia. I wasn’t. Not if I could help it because I’m not that man any more. But, you can’t see past that, can you? It was three lousy years of my life, Lia.”

He had never called me Lia before. Not once. And, the implication of it terrified me. He was screaming at me now. Something he had never done before, and I didn’t know how to respond.

“My entire life--even before I was born--has been about you. Can’t you see that? It was always been about you, whether I knew it or not. Those years…those wasted years…they were the only time in my life that was about me. No one but me. And selfish as I may have been back then, I could never have come to appreciate you--love you--if I hadn’t been that person.

“I love you Cordelia Lorelei Jameson. And even though nothing that happened in my life before you matters to me, maybe it’s for the best that we’re not together right now.”

And, then he was gone. I stood staring at the phone in complete awe and utter hopelessness. Chaseyn had hung up on me. Me.

I went back upstairs and crawled under the covers. Addie, Eli, and Chip were all still asleep. The scene was exactly the same as it had been when I had left nearly an hour earlier. It was like nothing had happened. Nothing at all. Except that
everything
had changed.

Chapter 21 - After

I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, counting the minutes as they ticked by on the clock. With every one of them, I felt Chaseyn slipping farther and farther away from me. My mind raced. Maybe we had simply lost connection. But then, why hadn’t he called back? Maybe he knew the others would be asleep and didn’t want to wake them? No. I knew that wasn’t true.

And, then, I had to ask myself, did I even want to talk to him? The things he had told me. The parts of his past that he had revealed…they were beyond anything I had imagined. He had hated me so much that he brought pain to those he loved. How could I want to be with someone like that?

But, I did. I knew it now more than ever. The fact that he could find it within himself to be so honest with me only proved how worthy he was of my love. Chaseyn wasn’t that person. Not any more. Not for a long time. He was all things good, and caring, and wonderful. I could allow him these simple imperfections, and in fact, I was a bit relieved to learn that he was flawed. I had forgotten that regardless of who his father was--and what his mother had become--he was still at least half human, and humans are inherently flawed. He was more human than he thought--than I thought. I hugged my arms tight across my chest with the knowledge of it. I let it comfort me.

“Ow. Did you have to kick me so hard? This is a tile floor,” Eli said as he rose from the ground. I could only assume that Addie had kicked him out of the bed.

“What were you doing in her bed?” I asked.

“Yeah, Eli. Why were you in my bed?” Addie repeated.

“I was cold, so I crawled in a couple of hours ago. Turns out she hoards all the covers anyway, so it’s not like I was any warmer. Doesn’t help that her blood runs cold either.”