The Pace

by Shelena Shorts

  “Weston,” I replied.

  “Really?” she asked, in record time.

  “Um yeah,” I said, as I turned around to head straight for the stairs.

  “Where did that come from?”

  “I went to his house today to talk.”

  “And?” she asked.

  “And we talked.” I knew my mother well enough to know that she wasn’t going to give up easily. She was nosy, and I couldn’t blame her this time. We’d moved to a new city, and the only friend I’d had for six months was a boy who had the power to dictate my mood from day to day. After he broke things off with me, she never knew whether I was going to lie in bed all day or bury myself in my homework. Now she finds out I’m talking to him again. This wasn’t going to go over well.

  “Why don’t you come in here and talk to me? I’m cleaning the dishes. I made spaghetti.” I wanted to make a mad dash to my room and evaluate what I had learned today, but something in me felt sorry for her. I’d gotten a glance of her looking like she was lonely, and that triggered a whole new realization.

  If I was going to die in a year or two, then she would be left alone. She had only me, and all of a sudden, I felt this feeling of guilt for trying, purposely, to stay off her radar. I didn’t have it in me to turn my back on her, or put the barrier of my bedroom door between us. Instead, I turned around and told her that sounded like a good idea.

  “Perfect,” she said, as she turned to heat a plate she had already prepared for me in the microwave. I sat at the kitchen table while the microwave hummed. “So what did you guys talk about?” she asked, while she was working on the dishes again. Privacy 101 said that I should lie, but I had this strange longing to have someone else help me with this. I had to figure out how to get advice. He certainly wasn’t objective, and I didn’t have any close friends here. I suppose I could’ve called Kerry, but she really didn’t know how much I loved him. She wouldn’t have understood if I sprung it all on her at once. Plus, I was dealing with the fact that I couldn’t very well tell her I had fallen madly in love with an immortal science experiment, could I? And I definitely couldn’t tell her I was a living ghost, so she was out. That left my mother. At least she knew I really liked him. So, I decided to test the water. Right about then, the microwave beeped, and I jumped up to get it.

  “Um, we talked about why he freaked out last month and wanted to stop seeing me.” I grabbed a fork from the drawer and returned to the table while she continued transferring dishes to the dishwasher. She didn’t comment on what I’d said, and I took that as a good thing. She was listening before making any premature suggestions. “Then we talked about why he’s been acting so strange, like following me around and stuff.” I took the first bite.

  “He was following you around?”

  Oops. I forgot she didn’t know that. “Well, sort of. He just seemed to pop up in places I was. I thought he was following me,” I added. The spaghetti was really good. It’s one of my favorites. I was glad I’d decided to eat instead of sequestering myself in my room. I had plenty of time for that later. Besides, it felt good to get some of the weight off of my chest.

  “Anyway,” I continued. “I drove out to his house today to ask him why he was going back and forth all of time. I wanted him to make up his mind. Either be nice to me or leave me alone. No back and forth stuff.”

  “That makes sense. What did he say?” she asked, working on the pots now. Her back was to me, and that could’ve been why I felt so comfortable having my first real boy talk with her. Only I had to be careful about how to word this. I didn’t want to just make something up completely. I really did want to get some advice. The problem was, I couldn’t very well tell her that my dilemma revolved around the fact that I was going to die in a year or so, and he didn’t want to have to hang around for the third time. I had to come up with something else.

  “He said he liked me a lot, but since he’s had a lot of loss in his life, it made him think he shouldn’t get attached, in case something happened to me.” That was perfect. I smiled as soon as I said it.

  “That’s right. He lost both of his parents. That is so sad,” she said. “Poor boy.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So does he want to be friends or not?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. I think so.” This wasn’t working. She was being nice, but I needed some advice I could use. I needed to figure out how to make this a little more clear without her thinking I was nuts.

  “Mom, I think he’s closed himself off, so he doesn’t ever have to deal with death again.”

  “Well honey, you can’t live your life thinking death is going to come all the time. You have to live life, and if it comes, then we can only hope we were able to do all the things we wanted. He has to want to do something. Everyone does.”

  “So what should I do?”

  “Well, what did he say he wanted?”

  I stopped eating at this point, because I didn’t seem to have the same appetite. I looked down at my plate. “He said he didn’t think he could handle losing someone he loved again.”

  “Did he actually say the word loved?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Well, I had no idea you guys were that serious. I’m not sure what to say about that.” She turned around and leaned her back against the sink. “All of this talk about death is making me gloomy. You guys are too young to think about these things.”

  “So what do I do?” I was almost desperate for an answer. I had no idea how to handle this situation. I loved him. That much I knew, but I also didn’t want to be the cause of his everlasting pain. And that is exactly what it was. Gosh, I was starting to feel sick.

  “Honey, you guys can’t think about that. You have to think about things you want to do. Not things that you fear. Everyone is going to die. You can’t change it. You just have to make the best with what time you have. If you don’t do things that make you happy while you’re living, then what’s the point of what time you have at all?”

  I was actually beginning to see what she was getting at, and it made sense. At least it did for now. “Thanks, Mom. I appreciate it.” I stood up to rinse my plate and put it in the dishwasher. “I have a lot of homework to do.”

  “All right sweetheart,” she said. “I’ll be in my room if you need anything.”

  By the time I reached my room, I felt better. My mom had actually given me a lot of things to consider, and I was glad we’d talked. I looked at the clock and realized it was getting late enough for me to take a shower and get into bed. I knew Wes was coming back tonight, so I wanted time to curl up in my bed and think about all of it first.

  Chapter 15

  1916

  Anyone wondering how an eighteen-year-old handles the news that they’re going to die young? It’s very simple. They numb themselves up to the actual reality of it and then, when they force themselves to acknowledge the possibility, they cry. At least that’s what I did.

  As soon as I got in my bed that evening, I started thinking. Is this true? Is Wes crazy? Am I really insane for considering this? How could he know? All of these things passed through my mind, and the only answer that came out on top was that I believed it. I knew, somewhere deep within me, that what he was saying was true. I felt it. It was almost as if I’d never been able to plan too far ahead, because I knew there was no future for me.

  Whatever was going to happen was unknown, but I did know that whether or not I was going to die in one year or in fifty years, I didn’t want to live it without Wes. My mother was right. People shouldn’t live their lives being afraid of something. They should do what they want while they can, and with that, I made my decision. Selfish or not, that’s what I wanted. If he wanted to use fear of losing me as an excuse to stay away from me, then that was his choice, but I’d made mine. If it was too difficult for him to handle, then I wouldn’t blame him, but I would at least have an explanation for his decision.

  By the time he came back to my house, I was ready to has
h things out. When he entered my room, he immediately sensed my distress.

  “You’ve been crying,” he said.

  “Yes,” I admitted, moving aside to let him in.

  He sighed. “It’s because of me.”

  Yeah it was, I thought, but I didn’t reply because I wasn’t sure how to.

  “Sophie, I’m sorry that I only seem to cause you—”

  That’s when I cut him off, hoping to come to a resolution quickly.

  “Listen Wes, you’re going to have to stop with the sorry stuff and decide what you want to do. I can accept if you don’t want to be with me, but you can’t have it both ways.”

  He looked at me, perplexed. I was even surprised by my abrasiveness, but there was no way to get around it. I wasn’t about to take the high road and sacrifice what I wanted in order to spare him pain or hell, as he put it. It was like my mother said: I can’t live fearing death, so I wasn’t going to. I’d made my decision, and now he needed to make his. So, I gave him the choice.

  “I love you, but the point is, you have to decide whether you’re going to be with me all of the time or not. No staying away and then coming around.” I could tell my offensive attack was unexpected.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I already told you what I want. This is about what you want,” I replied.

  He moved over to the bed and sat, pondering the choice. “Can we talk about this first, let you hear everything, and then decide?”

  “No we can’t,” I countered. “You decide before we go any further. You either want to be with me or you don’t.”

  He turned away and dropped his head. “How can you say what you want when you don’t even know the whole story?”

  I repositioned myself. “I know Sophie and Wes’ story. I don’t know or remember Weston the first or second, so I can’t base what I want on that. I can only base it on how I feel now, when I’m with you.”

  “Sophie and Wes’ story,” he whispered back. He looked at me again. “What happens when Weston can’t save Sophie?”

  “You’ve already saved me,” I said, patting my hand over my heart. His face softened at the line I’d stolen. “I love you, Wes. But I need to know what you want to do.”

  He moved so he was sitting beside me on the bed. He shook his head slowly, with his eyes closed, and I was waiting anxiously for his answer.

  “I want you,” he murmured.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  He nodded, and I let out a soft sigh of relief. It felt right to be close to him again. That made me feel so good, but I also knew that we couldn’t get past all of the doubt without being fully open with each other from that point on. “I need to hear it all. I want to know what you know.”

  “Where do you want me to begin?”

  “At the beginning, where it all started. Tell me everything.” I scooted over to make room for him to lie down. He situated himself so he was turned toward me, and I was lying on my back, staring at the darkness of the ceiling, preparing myself for my forgotten past.

  “Are you sure you want to hear it?” he asked.

  “I’m positive.” There was no way I could turn back now.

  He took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts. “I was sixteen years old, about to be seventeen, but to all accounts, I was a child. I had lived a very sheltered life to say the least. Rarely did my mother allow me to go outside and do what normal boys my age did, and when she did, she was with me, making sure I didn’t hurt myself.

  “Finally, when I was sixteen, she allowed me to go to the bookstore once a week by myself. I was old enough to have my own interests, and the books she brought home no longer held my attention. So, once a week, I would venture out to the store to pick up a few I liked.

  “On that particular day, I saw a girl who stopped my entire world. She was walking toward me on the sidewalk, and she had this demeanor like she was headed somewhere important, so I watched her curiously as she neared. The closer she got, the more I could see of her. She had the most transparent green eyes, contrasted by remarkably dark hair. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her as she passed. I was so intrigued that I actually turned and followed her. I could tell she was a few years older than I was, but I didn’t care. I was mesmerized. I followed her for a long time. It was difficult to keep up with her because she was walking quickly, and my knees were achy.”

  “Was that from the hemophilia?”

  “Yes, the blood would often gather in my joints, and if I overexerted myself, they got very sore and painful. Today, they compare it to arthritis.” I nodded in understanding, and he continued. “I was able to follow her long enough to notice she was wearing a nursing uniform and was headed into a brownstone in the medical district.

  “I thought about her every day after that. Over the next two weeks, I took it upon myself to walk around that street as often as I could in hopes of running into her again, but I had no luck. My knees got worse every day, but to me, the ache was worth it, just to have been able to see her again. She was that beautiful.

  “By the week of Christmas, I hadn’t seen her and had given up. My joints ached tremendously, and I wanted to lie in bed all day, but it occurred to me that I hadn’t gotten my mother a gift yet. So, I decided to venture out one more time.

  “My mother hadn’t received a nice present since my father died, so I wanted to get her something special.” He paused in thought. “That’s when I bought the bracelet you’re wearing now.”

  I pulled my arm up to see my Christmas present. “This? This is the exact bracelet?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yes, I bought that in a London shop for her and was on my way home when I saw the girl again. She was across the street, headed in the opposite direction. My eyes were locked on her with every step she took. Looking so content and driven, she walked like no one else was around her. That’s what made her so intriguing.

  “The next thing I remember was my feet being tripped up by an alley cat. It happened so quickly I don’t think I could’ve prevented it, even if I had been paying attention. When I realized I was losing my footing, I tried to untangle my feet, and I might have been able to if it weren’t for the force of an Irish Wolfhound colliding into me in pursuit of the cat. The sheer size and strength of the dog forced me backward. All I remember, about the fall, was my feet completely coming out from under me and a hard hit to my back and head on the cobblestone.

  “I knew it was bad. I felt the back of my rib cage thrust into the ground, followed by a cracking sound from the back of my head. To make matters worse, the hound fell on top of me and scratched my neck and face with his claws trying to get up.

  “I heard people scream at the commotion as the hound ran between the crowd. I just lay there, motionless. I hadn’t suffered anything like that before. I was shocked. I tried to roll over to pull myself up, and that’s when the ringing in my head started. I immediately lay back down. I tried to focus, but my concentration was broken by a pain filling in my abdomen and the flow of blood coming from my deep scratches.

  “At some point, I felt a warm hand touch my forehead. My vision was starting to go, but I could see clearly enough to know it was the nurse I’d been watching. All I remember her saying is, ‘I’m going to help you. You’ll be okay. You hit your head, and I need to get you some help.’ She tried her best to lift me, but she couldn’t. I heard her ask bystanders to help her, but no one would. At the time, there was a malaria outbreak, and no one wanted to risk getting sick themselves. The sight of blood literally sent people walking in the opposite direction.”

  I snorted. It made me angry to hear about people not helping. I refocused, still irritated. He continued. “By then, blood was flowing freely from the stinging scratches on my neck and face. I can only imagine the awful sight. It didn’t bother me that no one wanted to help me, but it made me angry that no one helped her. It gave me enough strength to stand myself up.

  “She wrapped my arm around her, not caring that my blood was smear
ing on her and her coat. She just kept promising to get me help. The next thing I knew, she walked me into Dr. Thomas’ office, where I collapsed.”

  “Amelia.” I remembered from the journal in his study. “It was Amelia who took you in.” He surveyed my expression, and then I realized. “It was me. I took you to Dr. Thomas, didn’t I?”

  His nod confirmed my assessment. I let out a long, deep sigh. I felt the closeness of her, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I was her, or if it was because I liked what she had done for Wes. Either way, it made me very curious. “What happened next?” I asked.

  “I woke up in extreme pain. I was bleeding internally in my chest and abdomen, and my head was pounding like you couldn’t imagine. You had given me some of your blood, but it wasn’t enough to help mine clot. My case of hemophilia was severe. I was in and out of consciousness, but I heard your voice. You kept asking me for my name and where I lived. I remembered mumbling Weston and bookstore and then I blacked out again.”

  I could see that he would’ve preferred to stop talking about it, but he continued. I closed the space between us and rested my head on his chest to offer comfort to both him and me. With his arm around me, he began to tell me what happened next.

  “Once I blacked out for the second time,” he continued, “Dr. Thomas told you the news wasn’t good. You had offered to give me more of your blood to help, but Dr. Thomas insisted that it wasn’t going to work and that you needed to find my family right away.

  “You ended up returning to the street where the incident happened and began walking around. You found a small bookstore with a closed sign in the window. It should’ve been open, so you asked the shops nearby when the owner would be back. They told you she was searching for her son. You obtained her address and immediately headed to her home.”

  Listening to Wes tell the story made me sympathize with what Amelia had to do, and once I pictured her in my head, I started to see the story unfold. The images were so vivid, I could see them. I could see Wes’ frantic mother, just as if I were there. Amelia’s story was my story. I closed my eyes and listened as I saw more detailed images in my head.