The Heart's Ashes
Page 25

My heart dropped into my stomach. “You butt-wipe. I hate you!” I grabbed a pillow off the floor and ditched it at his head; he, of course, caught it and laughed at me.
“Relax. You’re hot. A little skinny for my tastes, but you still look good naked.”
I shook my head, biting my teeth together hard enough that I heard a small crunch, then felt sand against my tongue. “You know, if I ever see David again, I’m telling him all about you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?” I turned around to get my clothes out my dresser drawer, and when I looked at Eric through the reflection of the mirror, saw nothing.
Wait, vampires have reflections.
Confusion littered my face. I glanced over my shoulder at the empty bed. “Eric?”
Gone? Seriously, he’s gone?
I turned back to my mirror with a look of utter pleased astonishment in my smile. Wow, that was easy.
Not that I want him gone—not really. I like him. I just don’t want my virginity to slip into his persistence...and I can’t resist that cheeky mannerism. It’s going to be the end of me, I’m sure. Which will, in the end, drag him down, too.
“Ara?” Mike knocked on my door.
Man. Can’t a girl have some peace to get dressed? “Hang on, Mike.” I wrapped the sheet around my chest and under my arms. “Okay. Come in.”
“I thought I heard voices in here?” He popped his head in the door, scanned my bed with his eyes, then looked back at me.
“Yeah, I was just talking to myself.” I flashed him an innocent smile.
“Mm, of course you were.”
“You know me—crazy as,” I said, then let out a long hint-laced breath.
“Anyway,” he said, opening my door fully. “I was just wondering if you were working today.”
“Yep, and I’m actually late, so—” can you get out of my room and stop looking at me like I tore your heart out.
“Sorry. I’ll uh—I’m sorry.” He shook his head and backed away.
“Mike, wait.” When he stopped, I almost slapped myself. I wanted to say Wait, I love you, please stop hurting for what I did to you, but only a few quivering G’s came out as I walked over and placed my hand on his arm. “I just—”
“Ara, don’t.” He shook his head and took a step back, holding his hands up. “I can feel that—the energy between us. It’s still just as intense as it was before. I know you love me. I know you want me—so please, just don’t.”
“Mike?” I reached for him, but he gently moved my hand away.
“Just don’t, Ara. Just please stop trying to make everything right again.”
“I just want you to be happy.”
“If you wanted that, you would’ve married me.” His voice broke on the word that meant we would’ve been together forever—human forever. Our gazes held all the pain of truth long enough that he saw my eyes water; he pressed his lips in a tight line and backed away from me—taking my resolve to be alone with him.
As the shudder of cold confusion rose up under me, I slammed my door shut and fell onto the bed.
I needed to be strong. I knew it was in these moments that you learned what it meant to be strong. Mike would get by—I had to hope he’d eventually move on, find the true love I so badly wanted him to find. But each time I watched his heart break for the love I wouldn’t give him, a little piece of me wondered if he was right—if he had already found it.
Compiling all my external strength, I left my heart on the bed, and walked to the shower. Only as the steam fell around me did I find the will to breathe again.
The cool glass under my fingers seemed to bring relief to the sinking energy I felt within my soul all the time. Water, like raindrops, fell from under my palm, and I looked at the tiny scar on my right wrist that David made when he sliced my skin and drank from me. This was my good side, but the other hand—the one down by my side—I couldn’t even look at. Those were the scars of pain, from when Jason cut viciously with his teeth, through my skin, through the vein, and drank from deep inside me.
I studied my hand for a while; smooth, and youthful.
But I wanted it to be aged. I wanted it to be so wrinkled and ready for death that people would shake their heads and ask how I was still breathing.
Life without David is too painful to live with; Mike being here makes it worse, but also, somehow, better. But I want to be old—so that death will be closer. I can’t take the pain much longer.
My mind, as I closed my eyes for a second, imagined David stepping up and placing his hand against the glass—mirroring mine, as he had done, so long ago, in a different time; a time before we ever knew that immortality could tear us apart.
“I don’t expect you to move on with your life anymore, David,” I said to the apparition, “I understand now. We never can move on.”
Drying myself off in front of the mirror, I cringed at the sight of the skeleton peering back at me; the bones in my shoulders stuck out like branches seeking sunlight, and my once pretty white skin had become grainy and bluish, settling around my eyes in a combination of misty greys and purple.
Since the blood transfusions, after being attacked last year, my iron levels had been really low. I felt tired all the time. All I wanted was to go back to bed and sleep it off. But I had to go to work—to that pokey little shop, to teach kids that didn’t want to learn.
I covered my hideous face with my magic concealer and, satisfied with my new bright skin, threw on some clothes that covered my shoulders, and wandered out to the kitchen. “Mike?” I called, looking around, half expecting him to be right outside my door.
All the windows were open, the morning light helping itself to my dark little world, bringing with it a cool, dewy breeze. I stopped near the bench, confused by the cold toast sitting popped up in the toaster, and the two mugs half-filled with milk and coffee, awaiting the hot water. There were signs of life, but no Mike.
He probably went for a run again. That’s what I’d have done after our heated little…moment. Poor guy—he’s lost so much in these last few months. I bet he planned to win me back by coming here.
With no sense being made from wasted toast, I stole it from the toaster, popped it on a plate then grabbed one of the coffee cups.
“Where’s mine?”