Читать книгу Ever Lasting - Odessa Gillespie Black - Страница 8

Allie

Since Cole stopped killing my dolls and burying my stuffed animals up to their necks in the back yard, all he seemed concerned with was whether I was going to stump my toe or if I was going to fall to my death out one of the windows of the house. The weirdness started when we were ten. Cole said he didn’t know why he felt so worried about me. But the older we got, the more he hovered over me like a weird bodyguard or something.

I was tired of answering to him.

It was as if I had been born with the most irritating cousin a girl could ever have, but we were of no blood relation. He harassed me about every choice I made in school, probably even more so because none of those choices involved him. When my friends invited to the movies, to the mall, or to the Shake Shop after school Cole always watched the doors behind us, scanned the room, and gave off this weird vibe that kept me from having any fun. He was such a downer.

So I never told him they’d invited him.

“You know he’s head over heels for you, right?” Frankie Frank stared past me toward the gym where the guys would soon come out after football practice. And yes, that was her real first name and last name. Everybody always asked her that.

At the shock of Frankie’s accusation, I dropped my books on the ground beside her pearl-colored Cadillac Escalade.

Frankie hit the unlock button and helped me gather my books. “Seriously. Have you ever noticed the way he stares at you?”

“He’s just being protective. We were raised together so he feels responsible for every move I make inside and outside that big, dreary house. I swear that place is like a mausoleum.”

“You might have twenty-twenty vision, but you’re romantically blind as a bat. He stares at you all day. And you never see it.” Frankie’s golden hair shone in the sun and her blue eyes sparkled. “Maybe if you’d lay a big sloppy kiss on him, he might loosen up a little.”

“Ugh. Stop. He’d probably put me in time out.” I hopped into the passenger side just in time for Cole to exit the school from the gym locker room. “Hurry before he gets here and takes me home to spank me for not telling him where I’m going.”

“You should try that. You might like it.” She snapped her seatbelt and cranked the SUV.

“Just go.” I’d never admit it aloud, but he did look different this year. Better.

We’d reached the end of our sophomore year, he had filled out. The way he let his curly hair grow longer since he was a boy was actually attractive. And he had this cute way of shoving it out of his eyes when he was frustrated.

He never really acted as though he wanted more than the bickering and arguing that transpired between us, but there was always something in his eyes when a new friend, especially of the male persuasion, picked me up or came over to hang out.

Could Frankie be right?

I could be a little bratty sometimes and hard to get along with. Growing up in a house where everyone stared at me as if I was some sort of science project since birth, had been daunting. When I chose my clothes, when I ate, when I talked to Cole, especially then. Stares. Or looks of disdain. Constantly.

And when I walked into the room, the conversation ceased. The abrupt silence exposed their effort to conceal things they didn’t want me to know yet. I would figure it out. Eventually.

I always felt like a fluke. I didn’t feel as though I fit in at school even though I had lots of friends or at least people who wanted to be my friend. I tried to be nice. My mom threw parties to nudge me out of my shell, but I just seemed to coexist with all the other kids the older I got. I attracted guys, but was never really attracted to any of them. I then found a small group of friends to interact with so my parents would leave me alone.

As my sophomore year progressed, Cole began a retreat from being my prison warden to occasionally questioning my decision-making.

I hated to admit it, but I began to miss his constant fuss over me.

He spent a lot of time in the library at the house, reading old books. There was one dark, leather-bound book in particular, the one he’d been reading the first day he told me he had a crush on someone. It never failed, every single time I glanced into the library his nose was stuck in that book. Deeply enthralled by the book, he never sensed my approach.

When I asked him about it, he said, “It’s the family history. You hate history. You’re more of a science girl.”

Since he’d read it more than a hundred times, maybe it was worth a glance through.

When he left the library, I could never find it, no matter how hard I looked. Had he hidden it from me?

One day, a Friday evening when all my friends had dates and I didn’t feel like being third wheel, I was particularly bored. I slipped up behind Cole His head was dipped, his cheek propped in hand and his eyes were misty. There had to be an impression of his body worn into the old leather sofa as much time as he spent in deep thought there.

“You’ve read this a thousand times. What is it?” I jerked the book out of his hands.

“Give it back.” He stood. His glare was bold and serious.

I read a line of the book to myself.

“Hmm. A sappy romance, yuck.” I started reading the book to him in teasing, “This unusually cold spring night, my arms should be around her keeping her body warm. Now there is nothing on this earth that could do that for her. The cold, moist earth will swallow her and her body will never know warmth again.”

Cole jumped into my face and jerked the book out of my hand, his expression twisted with anger and pain. His voice was a low growl. “I just wish I could hate you.”

“I was just joking around.” What had I done that was so bad?

Cole turned from me and carried the book from the room with him.

So that’s why I couldn’t find it.

He took it with him each time he left.

* * * *

A few days later beside the pool, I lounged on one of the wicker chairs with sunglasses on and a white bikini. It was a perfect day for forgetting the crazy world, my crazy whatever-you-would-call-him, Cole, and taking in some rays.

The perfect mix of chlorine and roses scented the air and a light breeze swayed the long leaves of the banana trees beside the pool fence.

“I’m sorry for what I said the other day.”

I jumped. I hadn’t heard the pool gate open. “You scared the life out of me. What have I told you about sneaking up on me?”

The breeze pressed against Cole’s wavy brown hair. His eyes were dark and his voice was weird. Different. “I don’t want to hate you. I never could.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. I was a little uncomfortable with his admission, but it had been sweet. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to insult you. I didn’t realize you liked the story so much.”

Cole looked away, his gaze landing on the rose maze. “It means a lot to me is all.”

I took my sunglasses off and sat them down. I started to ask him what it was about. Why it was so gripping, but he sat on the lounge chair beside me and sprawled back.

“I didn’t come out here to hound you about anything. Can I just sit here? I won’t talk.”

I cast a sideways glance at him. I wanted to ask him if he was okay, but I simply nodded and decided, out of respect—though I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why Cole could grow so attached to words on a page—to never look for it again.

* * * *

My attention didn’t stay focused on anything for very long when my junior year commenced, but I decided to stop trying to make Cole’s life a living hell. He was only trying to look out for me. Though it was creepy at times, it had its nice points.

Out of aggravation, I narrowed my social outings to joining one friend, Frankie Frank, when she went to the movies, out to eat, and when she just wanted to drive so she could vent about her relationship with her boyfriend, Matt.

As far as date type situations went, I casually dated Derrick Cobb, a friendly guy whose parents own the plantation a few blocks down from ours. It was nothing serious, but he lightened my mood when I was upset.

Lately that had been a lot.

Cole would barely speak to me or even acknowledge my existence.

Mama, Shelby, and Trevor all delivered the same answer when questioned about it. “He’s just going through some stuff right now.”

One night, Derrick called, which rescued me from inside my own head. He was a playful and innocently flirty person who had no trouble filling my time with distractions of the comedic sort.

That evening he was shy and nervous.

“I need to ask you a question about the prom.” Derrick’s voice was higher than usual.

If he was going to ask me to go, I had the odd notion that I didn’t want anyone to hear.

And I didn’t know why but, I was especially nervous about agreeing to go with Derrick within Cole’s earshot.

I excused myself and stood from the long dinner table in the dining room.

An uncomfortable silence smothered the room when I started out.

Cole didn’t look up from the rose china on his place mat. He flipped his fork in his hand as he stared at his roast beef.

Mama and Shelby exchanged worried glances.

“Okay, so what about the prom? You thinking of spiking the punch?” my heart stammered waiting for what I knew he would ask.

“No, I was thinking about how nice you’d look in a ball gown. The theme is Gone with the Wind. I could probably force myself into a tux, if you’d go with me.” Though he tried to sound cool, his voice was a little higher pitched than usual.

I leaned against the banister staring out at the rose maze. “I don’t know. I’ve never worn a ball gown before. They look like they’d be stuffy.”

“You’re going to make me beg, aren’t you?” Derrick laughed the tension bleeding out of his voice.

“I’ll consider it. I’ll get back to you, if that’s okay.”

“Don’t you say yes to anyone else before you seriously consider me. I asked first.”

“I’ll take that into consideration.”

“You’re seriously going to make me wait for an answer.”

“Okay, I’ll go, but you can’t wear baby blue. I hate that color of tuxedo.” I turned and pressed my back to the banister.

Derrick was one of the nicest looking guys in school, and though we were more friends than anything, everyone always called us the cutest couple. It wasn’t like Cole was going to ask me. Or that I would have said yes if he had.

As soon as I ventured back in to join my family at dinner, I could have sworn someone had dumped a truck load of ice into the dining room.

“Don’t tell me you are still having anything to do with that guy?” Cole’s hands were flat on the table and his eyes were emerald green.

“How do you know who I was on the phone with?” Instant anger boiled in my blood. Here we go.

“I heard his voice when you answered it.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat but didn’t back down from his disapproval. “You aren’t even that interested in him, yet you still go out with him.”

It was so odd that he almost knew what I was thinking sometimes. How, though, I had no idea. He must have been around me so much he could read my body language.

“He just keeps me occupied. And he doesn’t nag.”

Cole started to speak but clamped his mouth shut, his nostrils flared. He scooped up his plate and stormed to the kitchen.

Until a few months ago, Cole always acted as if I was a step away from some horrible danger and that he needed to oversee my every move. Tonight was the first time in a while I had seen him act like the old Cole.

“You should be nicer to him. He only worries about you because he cares,” my father said.

“I know Daddy, but we’re the same age. He’s not wiser than me. I’d like to make decisions for myself without feeling like I have to run my options by him first.” I flopped down in my seat.

My father looked at my mother and sighed.

“Don’t interfere, honey.” She picked up her fork and moved a few noodles.

Daddy looked back to me. “All I’m saying is you should trust his intuition a little more.”

I nodded and let the conversation end. There was no need to argue with them.

Cole had always been over glorified, while I was the one who could never do or say anything right.

I couldn’t wait to get away from the house and all the restraints put on me.

* * * *

On the night of the prom, I’d just begun final touch ups when Cole and his mother’s conversation outside my door stopped me. It was more of an argument than a discussion. I put down a tube of lipstick and stared at myself. Long brown, slightly wavy hair, brown mischievous eyes, a lot of trouble for Cole Kinsley.

Cole’s voice reverberated through the door. “There’s nothing here for me.”

“You need to be patient.” Shelby’s voice waivered.

“I have to move on with my life. I can’t live with hearing what guys really want from Allie. I can’t do this,” Cole said. “I am done.”

“She doesn’t know what she means to you. Yet. You have to give Kaitlyn some time. She’ll tell her as soon as she wakes up in the morning and hopefully then things will right themselves.”

When their footsteps padded closer to my room, I hid behind the door.

Cole and Shelby passed without a word.

The doorbell rang. I took a deep breath and started out of my room.

A weird flash of me doing the same thing, but in a different time crossed over me.

I shook off the notion and went down the stairs in the long purple dress I had found in some boxes on the fourth floor a few months back.

Mama hired a tailor to repair it because it was so old, but it fit right in with our prom theme Gone with the Wind. It was one of the few books I could really get into and that one held a lot of symbolism for me because no matter how hard I tried not to be, the irritated me always came across as bratty, just like Scarlett. But I wasn’t self-centered. It was just that there was always an internal war going on inside me.

I had never looked in the mirror and thought that I was pretty, but as the dressed sashayed with each step and I clung to the banister, the floor-length mirror at the bottom of the stairs returned a stunning reflection. I almost didn’t look like me. The dress transformed me somehow.

When I got halfway down the stairs, Cole looked up from his lazy perch on the sofa.

He dropped the remote, and his chest froze.

I had never seen him so still.

His mouth dropped open and his face drained of its color.

I had to stop, frozen in Cole’s stare, because I had never seen that look on his face. I was very familiar with his expressions of aggravation and irritation, but never a look of adoration. Uncharted territory.

My date stood near the door where Cole couldn’t see him, obviously forgotten.

With our gazes still locked, Cole stood.

He stepped around the coffee table, the weird smolder in his eyes never leaving as he neared me.

I stepped down each step, but my legs were heavy and my chest ached.

Cole stopped just outside the living room threshold.

Giving us the oddest look, Derrick stayed planted at the door.

Cole started closer as a slow grin pulled at the corners of his red lips.

My chest swelled with pride that I’d taken his breath away and made him smile all in the same minute.

The smile didn’t last long. He looked blankly at Derrick and then back to me.

I had just made it to the bottom step.

Cole’s chest rose and fell in heavy, steady breaths.

“You look amazing,” Derrick said.

I couldn’t take my eyes from Cole.

His eyes flickered the oddest color of green as he turned his stone-cold glare toward Derrick.

They’d flashed like that before when we were outside during a heated argument. I’d thought the sun had hit them just the right way to make them spark, but this time there was no source of light that could have caused the anomaly.

The same dark glower happened again, but with even more intensity when Derrick reached out to guide my next step down.

Cole took an unsteady step away from us and rounded to face the back of the house. He stalked toward the patio doors. He went there to think at night. He would stare off into the darkness for hours. Sometimes he even ventured out past the confines of the property into the woods for even longer.

Mama and Daddy came out of the living room, Mama teary-eyed and Daddy with a proud swell in his chest.

He shook Derrick’s hand. “Jordan Night, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Derrick Cobb. Thank you for allowing me to take you daughter out for the evening. I promise she’ll be well taken care of.” Derrick turned to my mother and kissed her hand.

“Kaitlyn Night,” Mama said. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Derrick said.

I looked toward the back of the house.

Mama caught my attention. “You look beautiful, baby.”

I couldn’t get the look on Cole’s face off my mind. “I… Thank you.”

Mama glanced toward the back patio as Derrick started for the front door. “I’ll check on him.”

My parents kissed me and sent me out the door for what should have been the night of any girl’s dreams.

* * * *

At the Country Club the prom committee had reserved for the dance, someone tapped on my shoulder.

Cole’s father, Trevor, had been invited to chaperone the prom. In his tux, he looked just a youthful as one of the junior or senior boys. His dark hair waved back out of his dark sparkling eyes. He’d always treated me as if I were one of his own, one of the few joys of being born into a close-knit family, though none of us were of blood relation.

Mama had given me some spiel about neither her or Shelby being able to have children, so they’d begun fertility treatments and just happened to luck up by becoming pregnant at the same time. Now it was as if I had two mothers and two fathers most days.

When one set of parents didn’t agree about something, they normally held weird meetings and almost always ended up coming up with some sort of settlement that made either me or Cole happy in the end.

It worked.

Everyone was happy.

Mostly.

Cole seemed to be on the brink of happiness until the subject of me came up. That’s when the sparkle in his eyes dissipated—until that night just before I’d left for the dance. It was weird to admit, but I looked forward to the end of the evening so I could get back home and wait for him to come back from one of his brooding walks in the woods.

I wanted to talk to him about the way I’d been acting.

See if maybe we could find some common ground.

Trevor smiled down to me. “May I have this dance?”

“Are you going to fuss at me?”

“Have I ever?” He took my hand.

I stood. “No. Though after my behavior as of late, I’m surprised. Everyone else has.”

“They all mean well. They’re just waiting for you to find yourself. These teenage years can be daunting.” Trevor walked me onto the dance floor.

“Sometimes, I wonder if they don’t think that Cole was born to tell me what to do.”

“You’re way off. But I’m sure it seems that way.”

“It might seem like I do, but I don’t hate Cole. In fact, I care a great deal about him. It’s just so complicated.” A strange tightness constricted in my chest.

Trevor looked around the room as if he were avoiding my gaze. Trevor twirled me as if he detected my curiosity.

“What’s wrong?”

He shook his head, but then did finally make eye contact. “There’s something I think you should know, but Cole has asked me not to speak to you about it. I have been vowed to secrecy, but I no longer think that’s what’s best for you.”

A shudder ran the course of my veins.

His words would change my life. I could feel it in my blood.

Trevor took my hand and pulled me outside to a quiet corner on the balcony. The stars twinkled and a warm breeze did nothing to help the chill in my veins. Trevor took off his coat and rested it on my shoulders.

“Tell me.” I pulled the coat together.

“You’re not his cousin.” Trevor’s voice changed from cheery to businesslike, as if I were a client to whom he was selling a home.

“I already know that. We’re from a—”

“You and Cole weren’t just named after Cole and Allie Kinsley. You are Cole and Allie Kinsley. The reason Cole obsesses over you all the time is you’re his wife.” Trevor’s gaze was bold, serious.

I was silent. Surely he couldn’t think I had the patience for jokes at a time like this.

“Your soul was drawn to the fetus inside your mother, as was Cole’s. You were raised side by side so that you could be together without all the wasted time of searching for each other. You are endlessly reincarnated. In your previous life, you and Cole decided this process would, if it worked, save you two time and heartache. Cole always remembers his past lives, you don’t. It was a curse laid on you by your sister in the 1800s. She was a terrible person. She graced you with nothing but a horrible past. Before you call me crazy and go running from the room, all I need for proof to back what I’m saying is at Rollins Manor. Once you see it all, you’ll have no doubts.”

“I don’t even know what to say to this. It’s too farfetched.” I turned from him.

He touched my arm. “I’m sorry I’m the one to break it to you, but like I said, Cole made us promise after you two became teenagers. He saw a difference in you than he’d ever seen before and thought that maybe you might not actually return his devotion. If you didn’t, he wanted you to have Free Will. To be able to live your own life without the misery of sharing it with him.”

“Why would sharing it with him, if any of this was true, cause me misery?” My voice shook.

“You’re haunted. Or cursed. The ghost of your sister, Grace Rollins, used to follow you two and harass you to no end. We think she’s been done away with for good, but we’re not completely sure. He doesn’t want to take a chance in drawing Grace back to you, if there’s a possibility that you could be happy without him.”

“I need to find my date.” I slid the jacket off my bare shoulders and handed it back to Trevor. Unable to make eye contact with him, I turned.

“Promise me you won’t run away,” he called after me.

“I’m not going to run.” I picked up my skirts and searched the crowd for Derrick. With very little explanation, I left him at the dance by himself.

The limo sat at the restaurant on the corner a few blocks away.

I would have walked home so I could think through things, but with the mental state I was in, there was a possibility that I would forget my way.

Miles saw me approach and opened the door for me, a confused look on his face. “An early end to the evening, Madame?”

“Yes. I wasn’t feeling well. Would you mind taking me home?”

He nodded. “Will Mr. Cobb need a ride to his house at the close of the dance?”

“No. He’ll be riding with friends. Thank you.”

Miles shut the door and drove in silence as I propped my hand on the window and stared at the nightlife around me.

Past lives.

No.

I couldn’t think about it.

That meant too many things about my life had been a complete lie.

Who were my parents, really? Who was Cole?

No. I wouldn’t think about it.

But how could I not?

It explained so many things. And created so many more questions.

Ones Cole would answer as soon as I got home. And he would be the one to show me the proof. If this was all a joke, I would… I would….

It wasn’t a joke.

I could feel it.

As soon as Trevor had begun speaking, all the icy pulsing in my veins had seemed to ebb and a warm, comforting heat had replaced it. As if I was finally on the right track to finding out what my life meant.

As if I had finally found myself. Even though I’d had no idea I’d been lost.

Miles pulled he car to the front door, into Cole’s vacant parking space. He normally parked his black, antique Camaro right out front.

I gathered my skirts and lifted them so I could scale the steps two at a time. The squeaky elevator carried me to the third floor. I almost ran into Libby, one of the housekeepers, when I turned toward Cole’s room.

She had sheets in her hands.

Past her, Cole’s room was empty. The posters were off the walls, the bed was bare, and the dresser and nightstand where his alarm clock, pictures and watch normally sat, were empty.

“You just missed him. He left about five minutes ago.” Libby smoothed the sheets in her hands. “I was just about to make the beds with new linens.”

Upon closer inspection of the room, the only thing he’d left behind was a picture of us in a goofy pose stuck in the mirror.

I dropped my skirts and my hands dangled at my sides, lifelessly. I was so numb. When I finally got feeling back in my hands enough to move them, I took the picture down.

I was sticking my tongue out, but Cole was looking at me.

He looked at me as if he was looking at the soul inside me and that it housed the sun. Too painful to look at without cringing slightly, yet too breathtaking to look away.

My fingers trembled, and I almost dropped the picture.

What was this craziness going on inside me?

What had made Cole decide tonight that he was leaving?

Why couldn’t he have said bye to me himself?

I turned and took the picture with me.

On the second floor, at the last bedroom on the right before the stairs that led down to the main floor, I stopped, a strange pull leading me to put my hand on the door handle. It had been the deceased owner’s room. So, if all the stuff Trevor had told me was in fact true, it had been mine and Cole’s.

How could I not remember?

How did he get to?

I had avoided that suite of rooms at all costs, though I’d seen Cole close the doors behind him many times. He always gave himself entrance to the room just as if it had been….

Holy.

Crap.

I stumbled into the room and shut the door behind me. My chest swelled with breath I couldn’t release and my eyes burned with tears. I staggered to the bed and sat.

I yanked the draw cord on the claw foot lamp on the nightstand.

This room held ghosts.

Not ghosts that I could see but memories I could feel. My soul spun with a whirlwind of emotions—happiness, sadness, fear, terror, humor, love, and last but not least, a completeness—that made me feel more empty than I ever had in my whole life without Cole there to explain them to me.

I tried to walk around the room and look at some of my past belongings, but the air became thicker, Cole’s cologne found my senses. The smell of his neck when he’d hugged me from time to time wrapped around me. I suddenly couldn’t breathe in the thickness of a past that hadn’t been mine until only hours ago.

I had to get out.

I ran right into my mother as I fumbled to shut the door behind me, still clutching the picture in a death grip.

“Are you okay?” she said.

I rushed past her. “Why don’t you ask my husband? Apparently, we’re cursed and haunted by a ghost.”

Her gasp echoed through the hall and down the stairs.

I kept going. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

“Everything from your past lives is upstairs. On the fourth floor. You need to see it all.” Her voice trembled.

I stopped on the next to the last step. “Why? He’s gone. It doesn’t even matter. If it was true, he should have at least told me. Gave me a chance to see how I felt about it.”

“The reason he didn’t is because it’s true. He didn’t want you to suffer if the curse was over, if the part that involved you hurting for eternity on end was over. He felt like he was the cause of that hurt.”

I gripped the banister still facing away from her. “No. He was a coward. He didn’t want to find out how I really felt. He couldn’t face rejection. If that’s what it would have been.”

“As angry as you are right now, I don’t think it would have been.”

“We’ll never know, now will we?” I continued my descent down and went out the back door. It was my turn to take a long walk.

Living without him wouldn’t be that bad. I had for this long. I’d be fine.

Maybe things would be better now.

* * * *

The day before Christmas Eve, I was sure I’d see Cole over the holiday. I didn’t want to be without a gift for him, so I shopped until I found the perfect thing. A new journal and a pen that I had his name engraved on.

He wrote in a journal every night. Surely he could use a new one.

On Christmas Eve, I sat up staring at the Christmas tree long after everyone had opened the traditional one gift that we always opened in celebration of Jesus’ birth. After everyone went upstairs, I sat in the glow of Christmas tree lights, the rest of the room darkened, with the box in my lap.

No one had mentioned Cole.

My heart had punched my chest every time I started to ask if they’d heard from him.

So, I had opened the gift Mama got for me and left Cole’s gift under the tree until everyone left the room. I stared at it until four in the morning.

Mama had had many talks with me between the junior prom and Christmas. She, Shelby, Trevor and Jordan wouldn’t age. To hear them tell it, Mama and Shelby were ancestors of one of the most powerful witches ever known in these parts. They could do things only most witches could ever dream of.

I was the love of a shapeshifter’s life.

If they’d told me that part along with the whole reincarnation thing back at the prom, I probably would have run away, but now Cole’s long walks in the woods made total sense. Though he could scarf down a gargantuan amount of normal food, his metabolism called for much more protein that normal human consumption allowed.

And he was so hot.

Not just looks-wise.

Because he was.

I had been too blinded and pissed at him for all his hovering and moping to notice how much.

He’d always been warm as if he was running a bit of a temperature. If we’d ever cuddled, which was rarely, like during a scary movie or after the loss of my favorite pets—and there’d been many, being the animal lover that I was—he was always toasty and comfortable. Looking back, I wished I had taken the opportunity more often. Maybe then emotions I was supposed to feel would have slapped me in the face or kicked me in the ass.

They crushed me now, and according to everyone in the house, no one knew where he was.

Sure, he’d called to check in, but he wouldn’t disclose his location. He’d finished up high school at some other school out of town and had begun college level classes earlier than expected.

Of course. Because he was brilliant. He always knew how to do everything.

It all made so much sense now. If he’d lived all those lives, he’d learned a century of irritating skills to make me feel stupid.

I’d always felt so inadequate where he’d been a freaking genius.

I sighed, as pain wrenched at my chest.

If he’d just come home, I would have given him an apology. And probably yell at him. Some. I wanted to say to him how sorry I was for acting like a spoiled brat all those years and that I hoped he would consider a friendship with me. I would have told him that I missed his nagging and that I would never complain again if he would just tell me that all was forgiven and give me some sort of insult or needless advice. That would have been a start.

After that, I’m sure my notion of having been jaded by the truth being withheld from me all this time would kick in and an argument would ensue.

But hadn’t my friends always said making up was the best part of a relationship?

Before the sun came up, I finally retired to my bedroom and placed the gift in the top of my closet.

Even on Christmas Day, he never showed.

I stayed under my blanket for the next twenty-four hours.

The thing I had been fighting against most my whole life had turned out to be the thing I wanted most, and it was too late.

The day after Christmas, Mama came to check on me. Her slight weight settled on the bed beside me. She caressed my elbow. “Are you going to be okay?”

My voice was muffled by the pillow and hoarse from crying. “I thought he’d come home.”

“He’s not doing as well as you would think—if that helps any.” Mama continued to rub my arm.

I sat up. “Why doesn’t he want to see me? Haven’t you told him I know and that I want to talk?”

“Yes. Now he thinks you only want to see him because of your past. He wanted your time in this life to be unblemished by that past.” Mama looked down the flowered bedspread.

“Well, that’s stupid.” I coiled a handful of blanket into my fist. “It doesn’t make sense. He wanted me to love him. Now that I do, he’s running away. Ugh, I could slug him.”

“He’s just as stubborn if not worse than he was in his past lives.” Mama shook her head, her face twisted with disdain.

“Do you think he’ll ever come back?” Tears filled my eyes.

“I don’t know, honey. He was pretty upset when he left and with the curse not in place, there’s no telling whether the pull you once felt toward each other will ever guide you again.”

“Free will sucks,” I said flatly.

“I am a strong believer in fate working itself out. You just try to make it through the next day, and when you get sad, just take deep breaths and remember you are a breath closer to figuring yourself out with each one. Don’t try to tackle eternity just yet; take it one breath at a time.” Mama squeezed my hand.

“How’d you get so wise?” I looked to the picture of Cole and me lying on the bed. I had tried not to crumple it as I slept, but it was starting to show signs of wear.

Mama picked up the picture.

“I had good role models.” She nodded to the picture with a bright smile. “They taught me the value of love, life and everything in between.”

Mama got up and kissed my forehead. She put the picture on my nightstand, and left me with a lot to think about.

* * * *

Summer dragged by.

I vacationed in Paris, Barcelona, England, and Switzerland. No matter where I was, I couldn’t get the look on Cole’s face that last time I had seen him out of my head. There was no longer a crushing feeling in my chest though. I had begun to find peace without him.

I may have even matured a bit. Now that I had no one to point out all the stupid things I had done or would probably do, I no longer felt the rebellious urge to carry on the way I had.

Stupidly.

Looking back, I couldn’t understand how anyone in the house could stand me. I had been a complete spoiled brat, and I was embarrassed that I had behaved so insolently.

When I returned from vacation, my senior year was fast approaching, and I was actually excited about school. As I sorted and hung clothes that I had purchased from shops at the various cities I’d visited, I came across a box in the top of my closet.

From time to time, I took it down to swipe the dust off the top but couldn’t bring myself to look on its contents. It saddened me too much.

It reminded me of what I’d lost.