by April Smyth
I shrug, ‘Bright and breezy.’ People throughout my life have envied my inability to be wounded but it has always been my burden. I guess never feeling the clogging effects of too much alcohol is a perk but I would give anything to to have the scars of my past laid bare on my body for all to see. Instead I wake up everyday looking as fresh and healthy as the day before showing no signs of my horror story with Maurice. My skin erases the past; in a way I’m not so different from Gabe.
Oliver sits on the end of my bed as I finish my breakfast. I can feel him watching me and it’s burning a hole in my skin but I avoid his gaze. I don’t know where we stand. Our discussion had been interesting. I learned that Oliver felt guilty for whatever sexual tension burning between us and I established that while I want him, it can never happen yet I don’t feel like anything has been resolved.
‘Come inside. Rose has some things she wants to show you,’ Oliver says and I follow him back into the house where June and Rose are sitting in fluffy white dressing gowns around the kitchen table.
‘Morning,’ they say in unison which is followed by their giggles. I hope June didn’t tell Rose that Oliver had to stay with me last night.
June excuses herself to go for a shower and everything turns a bit more serious. Rose sets out a parcel wrapped in greying cloth on the table in front of us and smiles at me. ‘Arrow made these for us,’ she says with a lot of satisfaction as she unravels the cloth and reveals two chunky metal bracelets.
‘They’re beautiful,’ I say as I pick one of the bands up and slide it over my hand onto my wrist. There are pretty floral designs engraved in the metal but I know it’s more than just a beautiful piece of jewellery if Arrow made it. It must have some sort of magical power. ‘What is it?’
Rose looks smug and puts her bracelet on. It looks more elegant on her wrist. It’s chunky and clumsy looking against my pale skin. ‘This is the ultimate friendship bracelet. It means if we are both wearing it and if one of us is in trouble then it lets the other person know and we can help.’
I know that she means if I am in trouble. It’s another safeguard, like Oliver, for Rose and Arrow to make sure I don’t get killed I am glad to have the bracelet. I appreciate the gesture though and know that her ability to know I’m safe will be immensely helpful in the coming weeks yet but I wonder if this magic is powerful enough to detect other feelings. How strong is this thing? Is it only if my life is in danger that the signal will be picked up or will she know if I’m happy or turned on? I look at Oliver and my heart races. Will she feel that? If she does she doesn’t show it on her face and thankfully she pulls the bracelet off and lays it back on the cloth. ‘No point wearing it now when I’m right here with you.’ She squeezes my hand.
Oliver takes a seat and examines the bracelet in his big hands with a frown. I get the impression despite being supernatural himself Oliver isn’t too fond of all the witchcraft and vampirism. He never wants to talk about being a werewolf and he tries to avoid anything from that world.
‘What do you want to do today then, Cassie?’ Rose asks with a smile. It will be nice to spend some quality time with her and try to push the questions which are plaguing me to the back of my mind. I’m not sure how much more soul searching I can take. It will be nice just to sit in peace while Rose braids my hair or paints my nails. These things seem like frivolous acts but sometimes the unimportant things in life can save it.
Oliver leaves us alone for girly time. I don’t know how I feel about that. The past week has just been him and I watching movies, laughing and asking each other stupid questions. I have missed Rose but within an hour or two of make up application I feel a pang in my stomach as I miss spending time with Oliver already.
It doesn’t take long before Rose begins to dig deep. She has never been one for avoiding issues. She tackles them head on even if I am less willing. She is combing my hair between her long fingers on the spare bed with my head between her legs like a small child. ‘Has it been hard? I mean I know it’s been hard but how bad as it been?’
There is a pause where only my breath can be heard as I take the time to contemplate what Rose has been asking. Has it been hard? Yes, it’s been the worst thing I’ve had to endure. In one year I have lost my family, lost my love, lost my best friend and along the way I think I’ve lost myself. Yes, it was hard. I missed her ferociously and living without Gabe seemed impossible but I made every day work. God knows how I did it but I survived and now I can almost taste the freedom of this whole ordeal being over.
‘It was... horrible,’ I sigh.
‘I should’ve called more. I’m sorry,’ Rose says sincerely. ‘I just didn’t know what to say with all that Gabe stuff going on and trying to figure out a way to stop Maurice...’
‘Don’t beat yourself up about it,’ I say softly but a part of me wants to shout at Rose for not calling more. Every day I longed to hear her voice. Our phone calls were always cut too short. A few more minutes talking to her could have eased the pain instead I was left alone to my stupid acts of normalcy. I can’t blame her; I know how difficult it was to face up to the fact that the Gabe we knew and loved is gone now, well at least the one I loved is.
Having my hair played with makes me sleepy and content. I don’t want to talk about Gabe right now. I spend enough time thinking about him. Rose apologises again but then senses that I’m ready to drop the subject and starts talking about how pretty my blonde hair is and how I should never dye it. This is what I needed from my best friend.
We spend the day like that. Eating junk food that June makes us, watching movies from Oliver’s collection, and messing with our hair like teenage girls should. Beneath the horrible things Rose and I have experienced is an innate desire to behave like a fifteen year old girl. God, I’m only eighteen I shouldn’t be worrying about all these heavy things; I should be able to have fun once in a while.
While Rose is cleansing the murkiness of my mind with her funny escapades and shampoo recommendations, I feel a yearning to spend time with Oliver. He hasn’t intruded on us at any point. I know he is trying to be respectful of our reunion but by the time it is dark outside I am desperate to see his big, goofy smile which even his bushy beard can’t cover up.
I never thought I’d want Rose to leave, not so soon, not after missing her for so long, but I can’t deny that things aren’t the same. I never imagined having to keep secrets from my best friend but my feelings and time with Oliver are stuck in my throat. When I first met Rose I had been intimidated by her beauty but eventually I learned of her sweet nature and I thought I’d met someone I could be completely myself around but things feel uneasy with Rose now like we are both hiding things from one another. On the surface we are the same but since Rose arrived yesterday I have felt uncomfortable. Maybe I don’t trust that I won’t be heartbroken again when she leaves. Maybe I’m taking out my frustration that Gabe is going to be with Claire on her. Is that it? Am I angry at her for not trying harder to make things work between Gabe and I?
‘Are you alright, Cassie?’ she asks as she finishes buffing my toenails and starts painting them a brash pink colour. ‘You seem distant.’
There are countless things I could tell her are wrong. Missing my family, missing Gabe, frightened that she is going to leave soon, worrying about my troubling relationship with Oliver but I can’t say anything. I make a small, wearying noise and try to pretend I’m too fascinated in the movie we are watching to answer her question.
‘It’ll all be okay, Cass,’ she says and her words nauseate me. This is the second time today somebody has told me that everything is going to work out and this constant reassurance is getting more sickening than any hangover I could experience. Usually when things aren’t going to be fine, people feel the need to press to me that it will.
Rose and I don’t say anything else for the rest of the night except a few comments about the film and the nail polish. Eventually I fall asleep on the couch and when I wake up momentarily I see that she has gone to bed
. I find myself smiling at being alone in front of a crackling log fire with a fur throw draped over my body. I could get used to this.
ELEVEN
I wake up for a second time in the middle of the night feeling less satisfied. The fire has burned out and now the darkness seems cruel instead of comforting and my solitude doesn’t appease me anymore. Where I was glad to be rid of the awkwardness between Rose and I before, I am now just left with emptiness. What is worse than the awkwardness between friends is no friends, nothing, at all.
I have made it little over a day without crying but I feel the familiar tears bite back again and their teeth are dripping with poison. I know June, Rose and Oliver are asleep in nearby rooms so I try to keep my sobs to a minimum. Stifling my breath is difficult though and as if he can hear my silent cries or sense my unease through the thick walls of his manor, Oliver enters the room.
Quickly rubbing away my tears, I compose myself and show Oliver a smile. He won’t understand what it’s like. I have been lonely since the day I was born. I was a Healer and nobody else was. I was different and no matter how many times people like Dave, the charming researcher, told me my uniqueness was wonderful I felt completely and utterly alone. My dad’s unconditional love couldn’t fill the void, the affection of my siblings and stepmother couldn’t and the ‘friends’ I had at home only made me feel more alone. Then I met people I believed could silence the lonely cries inside of me and for a while they did. For a while I felt normal because they were wrapped up and involved in a world as crazy as mine but even that has dissipated, even Rose can’t make me feel like I belong. How can he understand that?
Oliver stares at me, gaging my emotions and what the right thing to say is. I am relieved when he doesn’t ask me if I’m okay - it’s obvious I’m not. Instead he says nothing. He sits on the couch and lifts the cover off of me and readjusts it so it covers us both. He lifts me slightly to slide his arm underneath me and I snuggle into his chest. He kisses my forehead and I don’t even think about what this means for our relationship or whether the innocent and passionate are going to overlap. I take it for what it is.
‘I’ve missed you,’ I blurt out as I listen to his heartbeat with my head pressed against his bare chest.
‘I’ve not gone anywhere,’ he says; I like hearing the gravelly tone of his voice coming from his chest. It’s true. I was with him at breakfast yesterday morning and if I’d needed to see him he had been a few doors away. Do I need to be with twenty-four hours a day to feel satisfied now? It’s like a few days spent with Oliver has given me an addiction but, wow, being with him gives me an incredible high.
‘I know,’ I sigh. I thought being with Rose would remind me of Gabe, remind me why it is important to be loyal to him, but if anything it has pushed me further away from him. My distance from Rose even though she is here and the knowledge that Gabe can remember everything in his life until he met me, well, it has only thrown me against Oliver and into his tender eyes and even more tender kisses.
Oliver relights the log fire and we lie together in silence while it crackles and pops. There is nothing seedy about this embrace. He gently strokes my arm and my hair and I trace the lines of his collarbone and the contours of the muscles on his arms and torso with my newly manicured fingertips.
He grazes my powdered cheek with the back of his hand, ‘I like all this make up and stuff but I think you look prettier without it.’ He licks his thumb and smears his saliva across my face making me squirm and squeal.
‘That’s disgusting,’ I say but I feel like I am floating from his compliment. Gabe never made me feel pretty. Most of the time he just made me feel like shit. Jonathan always told me I was beautiful and so did my family, of course, but it felt forced and insincere. I look in the mirror everyday and I have to come to terms with who I am because that girl in the reflection isn’t going anywhere fast. I have learned to let the things that I like about myself outweigh the things that I hate - and there are a lot of those things - but even then I never feel beautiful. Bearable, yes, beautiful, no but somehow Oliver makes the idea of me being attractive seem quite plausible and not something to say to fill the awkward silence.
We lie there for a while longer and I listen to the steady sound of Oliver breathing and it makes me happy. The complete loss of Gabe and the less obvious loss of Rose has overwhelmed me but Oliver makes me feel like I can cope like I am brave enough to face this horrible world.
Daylight is beginning to show itself. Oliver rolls me over swiftly and clasps his arms around me so I am facing him. Looking into his big, brown eyes I forget what I was crying about before and the loneliness disappears. He is like Maurice in a way. Erasing the pain and replacing it with a feeling much more pleasurable but with Oliver it’s real. It’s not an evil manipulation of my feelings. I kiss the corner of his mouth and I don’t care if it’s a dangerous move. Kissing him is easy; it’s not touching him feels foreign.
Oliver takes my kiss and runs with it. He presses his lips against mine and we kiss ferociously for a few minutes before he pulls away and looks at me with sad eyes. He sighs, ‘I said I didn’t want to do anything until I could be sure it wouldn’t hurt you, Cassie.’
‘Hurt me?’ I squeak and lean in for another kiss but he turns his face so I can’t reach his lips.
The only thing hurting me right now is not kissing him. The only thing that is making me sad is the thought of spending another day where I don’t get to see him. However I realise he’s not budging on this topic so get up from the couch and move to the other chair where I want be tempted by those lips. ‘Don’t go in a huff with me, Cassie,’ he dips his head pityingly.
I am more confused than ever. How can I untangled this huge mess I have managed to make for myself? Gabe? Oliver? Rose? My family? I could scream and, my freaking God, Oliver isn’t helping this by being so damn unpredictable. One minute he looks at me as if I am a slice of June’s chocolate cake that he can’t wait to devour, the next he looks like the sight of me could make him cry although I’m not too sure those two emotions don’t walk hand in hand. How does he feel? How do I feel?
‘I’m going for a run, Cassie, would you like to join me?’ he asks nonchalantly, dismissing our sweet kiss, but I can’t help but jump at the chance to run again. When I was at home running through the cool Scottish air kept me from losing my mind completely. The wind whipping past my ears taught me to be at peace with nature, that I’m not the centre of the universe. It makes me feel like a tiny spec in the grand scheme of things and to some people that’s scary but to me it is the most comforting thoughts. I can lose my inhibitions.
I shower and Oliver is in his running gear by the time I hop out of the steamy hot water. He looks nice in the thick grey cotton tracksuit, an outfit that most men could not pull off. I like athletic I like relaxed, I guess I just like him. He takes me to the cabin so I can change; thankfully we packed my workout clothes. They are tatty but comfortable and lend themselves well to the wild weather that Scotland throws at us.
I have never had the chance to take in how beautiful the surroundings of Oliver’s house are. The Northern Scottish countryside is breathtaking especially in winter time. The green meadows tinged with frost, the mountains dipped in white snow, and the endless crystal blue sky. It is bitterly cold but there isn’t a cloud in the sky today. I feel blessed to be alive.
We run together in unison mostly. Oliver is a lot fitter than me so sometimes he overtakes but drops back when he loses sight of me. My diet isn’t forgiving and I am out of my daily exercise routine so I’m stiff around the joints and find myself losing my breath a little quicker than I’d like but it feels amazing nonetheless. I love how I begin to pant and my cheeks glow and radiate from the exertion. I feel alive.
Oliver takes me a trail through trees and meadows and sludgy mud which covers me up to my knees. We run so fast and so far that any normal girl of my size should be dying from the pain. I wish I could feel the agony in my arms and my knees but being a Healer
means I never feel the ache of a good workout. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel the high though. By the time we come back full circle I am grinning. All the tension of the past week has been released from my body - whether it’s sexual tension or just plain old frustration at this unjust world.
‘Rose will be up by now,’ Oliver says. ‘She told me you said we haven’t been getting along so unless you want her to know about our... friendship... then I suggest you get changed quickly.’ He says this with gritted teeth. Is he annoyed that I’m denying our closeness to Rose? It’s purely practical that Rose believes I don’t like Oliver. I don’t want her to give up on helping me be with Gabe again. If she thought I had feelings for Oliver then maybe she would loosen up and stop fighting for me. Am I crazy? I’ve already lost that battle but I can’t stop fighting. I won’t.
He waits for me to change then we walk back into the house. Rose and June are in their usual position in the kitchen - the hub of the house - and Oliver explains that he walked me back to the cabin this morning after finding me asleep on the couch then he went for a run.
‘A run? You should join him, Cassie,’ Rose says, clutching a cup of coffee. ‘Cassie loves to run.’
Oliver smiles at Rose and their private moment makes my heart lurch.
‘Oh really?’ And then he gives me a fleeting, knowing grin and I feel safe again. I have told myself Oliver and I shouldn’t get romantically involved and I definitely don’t want Rose to know about my growing friendship with him so why shouldn’t they get together? They are both incredibly attractive, sexual beings and they are my friends. Shouldn’t I want them to be happy? Am I jealous?
‘Why don’t you go tomorrow?’ Rose says and takes a genteel sip of her coffee. I wonder if Rose will push this thing with Oliver again. She seems determined that he and I become friends, is so fond of telling me how funny and sweet he is as if I’m not completely aware of it.
