The Heart's Ashes

by A. M. Hudson

  “What do you mean confused?”

  “You just said you’d be empty if you didn’t know I existed, but you’re empty because I exist and can’t be with you, and when I could be with you, you said it would be empty without Mike.”

  “Well, I’m only eighteen. Give me time. Confusion’s kind of a part of growing up, right? It’s a teen thing.”

  “Try being an eternal nineteen-year-old.”

  “You don’t seem confused—about anything.”

  “Really?” he mused. “Well, you should take a walk inside my head, then.”

  “What are you confused about?”

  “Many things, sweetheart.”

  “Let me guess—you can tell me, but not today.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Maybe you’re more switched on than I thought you were.”

  “Or maybe you just always say the same things.”

  David took a breath, looking at his watch. “So—lunch at your dad’s today, huh?”

  “Oh my God.” I slapped my own head. “I totally forgot.”

  “It’s okay, you still have an hour.” David pulled me back down as I stood, his strong, almost cool arms heavily pinning me to his chest. “Let’s enjoy this time before Emily and Mike come home.”

  “I wonder where they are. It’s not like him to leave it so long without contact, you know, a message or something.”

  “My love, they’ve been gone for one night.”

  “I know. I’m just worried.”

  “Well, we’ll text him after you’ve been to your dad’s today.”

  “He’ll be happy to see you,” I noted in a soft voice. “My dad, that is.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea, Ara? I’m not staying. It might raise questions if I go with you today.”

  “Then we won’t tell him you’re not staying.”

  “Ara.” He glared down at me. “Your dad will rip my arm off if I don’t promise to stay with you.”

  “Then promise.” I shrugged.

  “Stop it.”

  “Why? Why won’t you just stay?”

  “You know why.”

  “I don’t care why.”

  “No. I know you don’t, which is why you always seem to be in some kind of trouble, or conflicted by something,” David said, his tone short, abrupt. “Start caring about cause and effect and you might start to get some resolution.”

  “I don’t want it. Going over reasons, David, has only ever caused me heartache. I just have to keep wishing for the unattainable and trying to believe there’s magic in the world.”

  “My Ara, so full of hopes and dreams.” He kissed my hand and placed it back down on his chest. “It’s one of the other things I really love about you.”

  “Well, I have to hope.” I pushed up from the bed and moved away quickly. “If I don’t, I’ll die inside—stop feeling, stop dreaming—like you.”

  Parked at the centre of the drive, wedged between the daisy-lined path to the porch, and my dad’s old Buick, David shut the engine off and we just sat there, silence filling the empty space around us. “What is it, my love?”

  “It’s just...I haven’t been back here since I moved out, David. I’ve been dreading this lunch for weeks, knowing I couldn’t bear to look over there, at the school, and see that place—knowing that you’re no longer there.”

  “I’m here for now.” He smiled, melting my tension.

  “I know. It’s just kind of bizarre—how it all turned out. I mean, I wasn’t supposed to be here. I should be in Perth, at school, married. Don’t get me wrong, I like this better.” I grinned, touching his arm. “But I get sad thinking how good it could’ve been if you were just a normal guy.”

  “Well, what would it have been like?” He took my hand, turning in the chair to face me. “If I were just a guy, what would’ve happened between us?”

  “Well.” I smiled widely, imagining everything in my head as I spoke. “We would’ve spent every waking minute together; my dad and Vicki would’ve started complaining, setting up scheduled visitations so my grades wouldn’t drop. But we would’ve snuck out to see each other, anyway. Then, one day, probably sooner than later, we’d have got married. Maybe started a family and complained about how we get no sleep, and how the mortgage is killing us. You would’ve found a job working at a place you hate, and I would’ve whinged about getting fat from having kids.” David squeezed my hand; I took a deep breath. “Then, when we went to our high school reunion, everyone would’ve made snide remarks about how old we look and how we were once the couple of the century—the headline gossip, and now, we’re nothing more than completely normal, old, and nearing the end of our meagre existence.”

  “And you would have wanted that?”

  “Wouldn’t you?” I looked into his intense, emerald-green eyes.

  “More than you know. I just—I never thought it’d be something you dream about.”

  “It’s normal.” I pressed my cheek to my shoulder. “I always liked normal.”

  “What if,” he started, shuffling a little closer, then leaned in to lift my face, “what if the doors that never opened for us, Ara, are hiding the paths we only thought we wanted? Maybe our destiny is down the road of something more magnificent. Maybe we will get our happy ending and realise that normal was never going to be enough for us.”

  “Now who’s the dreamer?” I smiled through a teary gaze.

  “Everyone has a dream, my love, it’s just whether or not we’re willing to fight for that.”

  “You’re not,” I said.

  “I am.” He squeezed my hand, making me look at him again. “Sweetheart, I’m fighting for us every day. You just don’t know it—you don’t know what I’m risking by being here.” He swallowed hard. “I’m the worst friend in the world.”

  “Why…what are you risking?”

  “Your life!”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t you get it? Your life is at risk because I can’t stay away from you, Ara. Do you understand how much you mean to me? That I’m willing to risk your life to be with you.” He laughed then. “It’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

  “No. It’s not.” I shook my head. “It’s the most romantic.”

  His lips turned up on the corners. “Come on, let’s go see your family. I can’t wait to get my arm ripped off by your dad.”

  “He’ll be happy to see you, David. He won’t rip off your arm.”

  He smiled his secret smile, and opened the car door. “We’ll see.”

  Hand in hand, we walked the once creaky porch step and heard Vicki’s voice float through the house before we even knocked. “Ara’s here.”

  My nerves increased. What if David was right about my dad ripping his arm off?

  David squeezed my hand. “It’ll be okay.”

  “No, it won’t,” I said as the door unlocked. “You’ll be gone soon.”

  “Ara.”

  “Hi, Dad.” I hugged him tight, standing on my toes to wrap my arms around his neck.

  “Long time no see, honey.” He looked at David and extended his hand. “David? Good to see you again.”

  “You too, Mr. Thompson.” David smiled politely.

  “Oh, come now.” He waved a hand. “We’re not in school, anymore. I told you before, call me Greg.”

  David smiled at me and we walked inside behind my dad.

  “David?” Vicki squealed, almost running toward him. “What are you doing back? I thought you left?”

  “I did.” David patted Vicki’s back as she hugged him. “I uh—I’m here on holiday.”

  “Holiday?” Dad looked at David with a raised brow. “So, you’re leaving again?”

  “Uh—” David rocked back on his heels, then looked at me, a warm smile flashing across his face as he reached for my hand. “I uh, I’m not so sure about that, now.”

  Dad nodded, his face full of thought, and sat down at the dining table. “You broke my daughter’s heart, David, when you left.”

  “I know
.” David swallowed and sat across from Dad in the seat that used to be mine. I sat in his lap. “I’m not here to break her heart, Greg. I only came back to make sure she was all right.”

  Dad looked at me for a second. “Is she?”

  “No.” David squeezed me tighter.

  Dad just nodded.

  “David?” Sam cried from the doorway.

  “Hey, Sam.” David linked hands with Sam, giving a one-shoulder hug.

  “What’re you doing here?” Sam sat next to David, leaning eagerly forward.

  “Just visiting,” he said.

  “Ha!” Sam scoffed and leaned back. “You better not be. If you break my sister’s heart again, David, I’ll hunt you down.”

  “Sam!” Dad scolded.

  “No. It’s all right, Mr. Thompson.” David held up a flat palm, smiling. “It’s fine. I get it, Sam. Okay? I won’t hurt her. I promise you that.”

  But he will. When he leaves me again, I’ll die. Maybe I’ll have to make my sudden death look like an accident so they don’t blame David.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re back.” Vicki placed a bowl of pasta on the table. “Even if it is just for a while.”

  “Thank you, Vicki,” I said, glad someone could see the bright side. “That’s exactly how I feel.”

  She smiled. Girls unite. “Anyway, I’m sure it will be long enough for our Ara to convince you to stay.”

  “She’s already working her magic.” David grinned as I pushed Sam over to take the chair beside him and flipped a napkin in my lap.

  Working my magic? My closed lips twitched with my thought, as if trying to speak the words. Magic, like when we shared blood the other night?

  He kicked my foot under the table.

  Oh, I’m sorry, is that not something you want to think about around my mum and dad?

  He reached under the table, took my hand and squeezed it.

  Should I tell them we can only share blood because you won’t have sex with me?

  Dad looked up, his eyes narrowed in confusion, when David suddenly coughed. I could actually feel the vampire’s mortification in the heat of his hands. If he could blush, he would be bright red.

  Oh boy, old-fashioned guys are hilarious. I wish I’d had more of a sense of humour when we were together before. I could’ve had so much more fun torturing him with this.

  My ears washed back to the conversation when I heard my name. “Huh?” I looked over at Sam.

  “You see?” He laughed, pointing at my face. “She still does it.”

  “Does what?” I looked at David; he just smiled.

  “You still faze out,” David said. “We were just talking about Mike and Emily being together now, and Sam asked how you felt about it.”

  “Oh.” I sat taller and leaned on my hand. “Um. I think it’s great.” Not. I feel betrayed, unwanted, rejected and second best—but that’s just the selfish, spoiled girl inside me talking.

  David nodded, continuing the conversation, taking my verbal response as if it were fact—almost as if he ignored the truth I just offered him privately. A part of me wondered if that’s what he wanted to believe, if maybe he ignored those thoughts so he didn’t have to face them.

  I looked away from my dad, who hadn’t taken his eyes off me. He may not be able to read minds, but he isn’t fooled by my self-sacrificing façade. He knows I’m hurt about Mike and Emily.

  Nothing in my life is truly okay, and David can pretend all he likes, but nothing has changed; he’s still leaving, Mike still loves Emily, not me, and I’m still going to be alone when he’s gone.

  Truth is, though, I am fine with Emily and Mike being together, right now—as long as David’s here. When he leaves, it’ll all fall apart again.

  Emily and Mike are great, but only while David and I are, too.

  I let my body drift with the flow of the notes, my fingers scaling easily over the keys, filling the room with melancholy. As the song came to an end, I smiled to myself, shifting over slightly to make room for my vampire.

  “No student today?”

  “No,” I said softly, rubbing the tops of my thighs. “I cancelled them. I need time to think.”

  “Time to think? About what?”

  “You should know—you’re always in my head.”

  “No, Ara. I’m not.” He closed the cover on the piano and took my hands. “Sweetheart, I haven’t been hearing you lately.”

  “What? What’d you mean?”

  “I mean, I—” He nodded, looking down for a second. “I keep missing things. Thoughts you direct at me are clear, but—at first I thought you just had a quiet mind. But this is different. It’s...empty.”

  “My head is empty?”

  “No. I mean, yes. It’s...I don’t know. All I know is that, when I woke this morning, I thought you were dead for a second. There was nothing.”

  “Not even dreams?”

  “Nothing. I never really pay much attention to peoples’ thoughts. I hear them so often they become like wind or distant traffic, but the absence of them is like suddenly becoming deaf. And I just thought maybe I’d not been paying enough attention, but when I stopped to listen to you thinking, there was nothing. I got worried.”

  “Worried?” I said, unconvinced. “Worried people don’t smile.”

  “Well, I’m not worried anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s not me, it’s you.”

  “Okay, that makes me feel better.” Not.

  He laughed. “You’ve mastered it, don’t you see? Ever since we met, Ara, you’ve been trying to shield or control your thoughts. You’ve just finally found a way.”

  “I have?”

  “Yes.” He kissed my nose. “It’s not perfect, I still hear you if I try really hard or if you’re reading a book or have song stuck in your head, but most of the time, there’s just—” he tapped his temple, “—nothing.”

  “Hm.” I thought for a second. “I’m not sure what to think about that.”

  “And I’d have no idea, even if you did.”

  “So, can you hear me now?” I thought about the colour blue.

  “No.”

  “Now?”

  “Not a word.” Keeping his eyes on our hands, he said, “What is it you do—when you block me out, what are you doing then?”

  “I—” I thought about it. “It’s a blanket—a dark blue one, like shaking the rug out by the lake. I imagine it covering my thoughts.”

  “And that’s it? That’s all you’ve been doing?”

  I nodded. “Even when I met Eric, I was practicing then. I always felt like he could read my mind—like he was in my head.”

  “You could feel him in there?”

  “I don’t know. I used to think I could feel you in there. Around Eric, in fact, even not around him, I sometimes had that same feeling.”

  “So, you’ve been practicing all this time? Even with me here to protect you from him?”

  “Especially with you here.”

  “Why especially?”

  “Because.” I stood up. “I have thoughts I don’t want you to hear.”

  David stayed seated, smiling at the piano. “Like the thoughts you have about Mike.”

  I hesitated. “Yes.”

  “It’s no different to when we were in high school, Ara.” He turned to me then. “I’ve always had to share your heart with him, even before you knew you loved me, and nothing changed after that.”

  “Except that now I admit how I feel to myself.”

  “Yes, then there’s that.” He tapped his foot, chewing the inside of his lip. “I’d rather to read your thoughts, even if I don’t like them. This—” He motioned between the two of us. “This disconnection, this inability to be a part of your every path to conclusions, it makes me feel uneasy.”

  I laughed internally. I bet it does. He looked up and grinned. “What?” I said.

  “I heard that.”

  “Oh.”

  He moved closer, sliding his hands
along my waist. “See? Not perfect yet.”

  “Yet.”

  “Do you have any idea how infuriating that is?” he said.

  “What?”

  “That—” He pointed to my face. “You have this look in your eye, and I know you’re thinking cheeky thoughts—thoughts you’re not sharing with me.”

  “You’ll just have to get used to it.” I hugged him, resting my face to his chest. “Am I the only human to ever block you out?”

  “No. All humans are capable, just, without the need, they don’t know they have the strength—like a lot of things. And you’re not really blocking me out, by the way.” Something in his tone said he didn’t like the idea of not holding the reigns. “I can get in if I want to.”

  “Go on then,” I challenged. “Try to read what I’m thinking now.”

  He leaned back a little. “Are you thinking now?”

  “I’m always thinking.”

  “Okay, strengthen your blanket and think of a colour.”

  The cover on my thoughts became black, instead of dark blue, and I imagined it thickening, from paper to cardboard—hiding blue, no red, wait, blue.

  David laughed. “Pick a colour, Ara.”

  “I did.”

  “You can’t choose two.”

  Fine. Blue.

  He opened one eye and smiled at me.

  “You know which colour it was, don’t you?”

  “Grey.”

  “Liar. You’re just saying that so I’ll drop my guard around you.”

  “If I want you to drop your guard, Ara, my dear girl, I don’t need to lie to you.” He grabbed my hand and drew me into him, his lips to my brow, his gentle breath on my face with the promise of a kiss. But he hesitated, softly tracing my skin with his lips. “If I want you to drop your guard, I can just do this.” He finally kissed me. “And I can see all the colours I want to see.”

  I let out a shaky breath. “Blue. It was blue.”

  He kissed me again and said, “I know.”

  “David!” We both looked up as the front door slammed, Mike’s voice, hoarse with distress, searched every corner of the room. “David!”

  David, about to groan, suddenly looked up, then evaporated. That’s when I felt a quiver of worry. I rushed to the front entrance and stood frozen, unable to draw a breath, unable to cover my own gaping mouth.