A Promised Fate

by Cat Mann

  Chapter 24

  Gone

  My lips pressed a series of kisses on the top of Ava’s sleeping head. We had spent our afternoon reconnecting and talking through what felt like a world of issues. Ava talked openly with me about her newest anxiety. The trigger for her most recent panic attacks, she said, was hearing the family talk of the baby and the fears she had of creating life. I understood her completely, having felt the exact same worry myself.

  Her nightmare, the one that made her sad, she could not fully explain.

  “It’s just a feeling, a sadness that fills all the little spaces of my mind. The darkness is complete and blocks my vision so that I can focus only on the nucleus of sadness at the center. There is nothing there for me but tears and the dream keeps coming back.” Ava spent hours talking with Dr. Phillips about the sadness that visited her at night. She expressed her anxiety about becoming the mother of a new baby and her concern Max might be thrown off base by the presence of another child, and a helpless infant at that, into our home. She told him she thought balancing the care of two children with the demands of our somewhat unusual marriage, while still dealing with the post-traumatic stress from her kidnapping only a year prior, might be a more difficult task than she could handle. Her doctor is concerned about her feelings of sadness and plans to keep a close eye on her emotions through the rest of her pregnancy and after the baby comes. I asked her if she worried about post-partum depression. “The sadness is only in the dream,” she assured me. “I am happy in the waking seconds of my life.”

  “I want you tell me how you feel every day. You don’t need to try to battle anything alone.”

  “I will.”

  We talked more and made love again. I made her giggle and my now-lighter heart doubled over with happiness. Ava began to forgive me for keeping my secret. She understood the fear I had of telling her who I am. Ava was still upset, though, with the idea of Persephone. She hated the possibility someone might be able to lay claim to me.

  “There will always be a what if in the back of my mind, Ari,” she said and her eyes were tired, worried. “What if she comes … what if there's a 'spark' and Persephone is reborn? What if her claim is upheld by the nature of the descendency of the Greek deities?

  And my fear? My fear was that the power and danger of Ava’s doubt might prevail. I tried to convince her again...

  “It’s not like that. I won’t bind myself to promises made for me in my name by someone else. That rule does not govern me and it never will, Ava. My life is bound to you. You are where I have made my promises.”

  We fell asleep in the late afternoon with the warm sun cascading down on us from the bedroom window. It was our first random nap since Max had been welcomed with loving arms into our home nearly nine months before.

  My nightmare spread across my dream world moments after we drifted off. Images of waves crashing far below, of rocks tumbling without restraint and of a sky lowering with malice brought me my feeling of terror and sorrow. And again, Julia was there. I could feel her. I felt a bubble of anger burst in my head at the thought of her.

  Dimly I heard our backdoor open, followed by three quick bleeps from the alarm system. The words “Oh crap!” floated up the stairway and fast footsteps rushed to the side hall. The number pad chirped with each digit pressed and the alarm gave one final sound, a deeper beep telling me the alarm had been disengaged.

  Leaving one final kiss on the top of Ava’s clean hair, I eased out from under her. Slipping on jeans, I closed the bedroom door tightly behind me and walked to the top floor banister.

  Rory looked up at me from the living room. “I’m sorry.”

  “Nah, you’re ok.” I eyed him. Something was terribly wrong.

  “Ah, God.” He looked down at his sand-covered flip-flops with an embarrassed grimace, yanked them off and then stood barefoot and awkward in a pile of grainy sand on our floor. “Christ, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here. Your Ma said I shouldn’t come… She was right. I’m an idiot.”

  “Dude, it’s fine. Take a breath.” I walked down the stairs toward him. “Ava's asleep … I was just sitting there anyway…”

  “Yeah?”

  “I swear. Come on in. You want a drink or something?” He followed me to the kitchen and eased on a stool.

  “Nah.”

  Rory’s eyes were tight, his face looked pinched. His eyes avoided mine and I saw him fight the tremble of his bottom lip. He popped his knuckles to distract himself from the shaking in his fingers.

  “She’s gone… Jules. She, um, she finally realized I'm a freakin’ idiot and left me.”

  “What do you mean she left you? What did she say?”

  He sat quiet, his face twisted harder. Rory shoved his palms into his eyes and rubbed hard. “She didn’t say anything. She just left, sometime last night. She packed up her clothes, she took her stuff and she left.”

  Rory dug in his pocket and removed a folded and already tattered note. He tossed it onto the countertop in front of me. From the looks of the worn creases, he had opened and refolded this small sheet hundreds of times in the few hours that he had had it.

  “Roar, I love you, but I can’t keep doing this anymore. Please don’t call. I won’t answer.” I read her nervous scribbles to myself. And noted a watermark in the ink from where one of them – Julia or Rory -- had dropped a tear.

  “I don’t know what to say, Rory. “I’m sorry” doesn’t feel right in this situation. It’s not strong enough …”

  “Has she called you yet? Has she been here?” He was bitter. Rory knows, just like the rest of us, that I am the first person that Julia runs to for help.

  “Uh, no.” I raked a hand through my hair. “I mean, if she came by the house, we didn’t hear her. I haven’t checked my cell all day. Let me grab it and I’ll look.”

  He nodded and watched me as I walked away, back up the steps and into our room. Ava had burrowed down under the blankets. She was one snuggled blob with a big belly. My phone was on the nightstand, turned to silent and hooked to a charger. I didn’t want to look. I couldn’t decide what would be worse, Julia calling me or Julia not calling me. If she had called, I would have to tell Rory and he would be upset with me, heartbroken that Julia had run to me. If she had not called, I would be worried.

  “Nothing.”

  I slid my phone across the countertop to him and he investigated my call log and texts. His shoulders fell, either in disappointment or in relief, maybe both.

  “I couldn’t decide what I wanted to see on your phone. If she had called you, I’d be pissed, but at the same time, at least I would know she was okay. You know?”

  “Yeah, I know…”

  “She'll call you. You know she will, Ari.”

  He was right. She would call me.

  Uncomfortable, I was in need of Ava's skill of having just the right thing to say. I needed her to swoop in and tell Rory whatever it is he needed to hear. I glanced through the house, up the steps to where I could just see the edge of our bedroom doorway.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

  “No, don’t go, Rory. I mean … do whatever you want, but seriously, I want you to stay. You aren’t bothering us. You never bother us. I kept Ava up all night; she’ll be asleep until dawn.”

  “Pfft.” He sneered.

  “What I meant was that we have been fighting … a lot. Last night was bad.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s been a rough couple of days … a bad week. I feel as though I haven’t even spoken to Ava, like had real conversation with her, in ages. I miss her.”

  “At least you still have her.”

  “What are you going to do, Rory?”

  “What can I do? I can’t hit her over the head with a club and drag her back to my cave, although the thought is tempting. I don’t even know where the hell she is. I don’t even know who she's friends with anymore. She doesn’t talk to people from our old school. She doesn’t hang out with anyone a
t UCLA, she doesn’t really work besides helping Andy with the center. As far as I know, her friends are Ava, Lauren, August and Collin…and you.”

  “She helps my dad at House to Home?” This was news to me.

  “She’s been helping him – at least that's what she said. She sorts his mail and takes some of his calls – nothing serious.”

  “Huh. Did August or Collin see her leave last night? Did she talk to either of them?”

  “No. They didn’t come home after the show. Collin said they crashed at Rachel and Nigel’s place in L.A. Julia and I rode home together in the limo alone and I could tell that something was up, you know? Something was bothering her all night but she still had a good time with me, I thought. We made love,” he rubbed at the back of his neck. “I fell asleep and then in the morning she was gone. I thought, oh, here she goes again – just up and disappearing for a few hours … but then I found the note.” He let me see his tears.

  “Have you tried calling her?”

  He nodded sadly up and down.

  “Has Julia ever mentioned Cameron Gallo before?”

  “Cameron Gallo?” he snorted. “You mean that dude in the tabloids your sister's been crushing on?”

  “Uh, yeah, him. Julia has never said anything to you before about him?”

  “No, should she have?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. I met him last night. He was weird but he made it sound like he knew her maybe. He knew who I was…you know?”

  “Oh God.” He put his head in his hand. “Call her…please…call her now and talk to her. I have to know she's okay. I know she’ll answer for you.”

  “Right.” Unlocking my phone, I tapped Julia’s name, the line rang twice and then I was forwarded to her voicemail. “Hi, this is Julia. I’ll call you back later. Bye!” Her voice sounded so happy.

  “Uh, Julie...um...hey. It’s me. Call me back just so I know you’re okay…alright?” I hung up and Rory stared at me with glassy eyes. If Ava were awake, she would know what to say.

  “Hey, Are.”

  I turned around at the sound of the door and my sister's voice.

  “Hey, Roar.” She gave him a sad smile. “Ari, special delivery, I am bringing home your little monster. He got distracted by that cat on your porch.”

  “Dangit, I need to buy cat food,” I mumbled.

  “Gotcha covered!” Lauren held up a couple of cans of meaty kitten food with a yellow tabby on the label.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “Mom. She bought it for you this morning and forgot to send it home when you two left. She said you can thank her later.”

  “Mmmm. I'm sure she did. How was Max today?”

  “Quiet.”

  “Quiet how?”

  “Just quiet. He hasn’t said too much. He asked for Ava a couple of times. He ate all his supper…”

  “That’s something.”

  “Yeah, well, hey, I’m going.”

  “Where you goin’?” Rory grunted.

  “I’m going to take a walk up the beach. Do you want to come with me?”

  Rory pushed off his stool without answering her. “See ya, Ari.”

  “See ya. Hey!” I hollered at both of them before they could close the door. “I am going to change the code to our alarm so no more just walking in…at least for a while. Call before you come, or maybe knock and I’ll need everyone’s spare key to our house.”

  “Why?” Lauren asked with a snotty attitude.

  “Whoever broke into the house, they knew our code, so I have to change it.”

  “Well, just give us the new one.”

  “I can’t, Rory.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “That’s not it, I just don’t want any doubt. I can’t take any chances – not with Ava and Max in the house alone…”

  “Whatever. I knew I shouldn't have come here.” He tossed his spare key at me. “Just … Ari, when she calls you, tell her I really love her. Tell her to come home. She’ll listen to you.”

  “I will.”