by S. J. West
“Are you all right?”
I looked at Brand sitting beside me and shook my head slowly. I wasn’t going to sit there and lie to him. I was most definitely not all right.
Brand stood and took my hand making me stand beside him.
“If you will all excuse us, Lilly and I need to talk privately.”
It wasn’t really a request so he didn’t feel any need to wait for them to give us their permission to leave. He phased us to the lake shore at the back of his house. The sun was just setting in the background. Any other day I would have thought it romantic, but today I couldn’t shake the doomed feeling I had that it might be the last sunset I ever saw.
“Lilly,” Brand put his hand underneath my chin making me look into his eyes. I could tell he was worried, but I also knew he understood what I was going through and wanted to help me in some way. He didn’t want me to give up.
“Don’t lose hope,” he begged. “You have to believe we’ll find a way to have the life we want together.”
“The more we learn, the harder it is for me to keep hoping everything will work out,” I admitted, not intending to hold anything back from him, not now. Not when I might not have a lot of time left to share all of me with him. “You heard him. Whether or not whoever is trying to kill me succeeds doesn’t really matter. Whatever Lucifer has planned for me isn’t going to be any better.”
“Neither of them is going to win.” The fierce determination on Brand’s face made me want to hope.
“How can you be so sure?” I whispered.
“Because I stand by what I’ve always told you. I refuse to believe we met by chance. We were meant to find one another, and I was meant to help you. There’s no other explanation for me. I have to have faith that together we can make things right, but I need for you to trust me and believe in us and what we have together. If you don’t trust in us, we might fail.”
“I trust you,” I said.
“Are you willing to prove that?”
“Do you really need me to prove it to you?”
“No, but I think you need to prove it to yourself,” he said gently. “To erase you’re your doubts. I get the feeling you’re still not completely sure you believe what I just said even though you want to.”
“How am I supposed to prove it?”
Brand held my hand tighter and pulled me after him toward his boat moored to the dock a few yards away.
“What are we doing?” I asked, not completely understanding what his intentions were.
“It might be easier if you didn’t think about it too much,” he said. “Just trust me.”
Brand settled me in the seat beside the wheel of his sail boat before untying the rope which held it anchored to the platform. He jumped into the boat and started the engines. Before I knew it we were heading toward the middle of the lake. I tried to steady my nerves by keeping my eyes and attention focused on my hands in my lap.
What was he thinking? He knew I hated the water. Ever since almost drowning in the lake back home when I was eight, I had avoided any activity which would put me too close to deep water. Lake Serenity wasn’t a large lake, probably only a mile long and half again as wide, but it was big enough to make the muscles of my stomach knot into a tense ball and make me feel like I couldn’t breathe.
I think we were in the middle of the lake, its deepest point, by the time Brand shut off the engines. He knelt down in front of me.
“Are you ok?” He asked.
I nodded my head but didn’t look at him. I just kept focusing on my hands in my lap. As long as I did that, I could handle being suspended on top of something which could kill me and almost did ten years ago.
“Take my hand,” he said holding out his left hand palm up.
“Why?” I asked, not seeing the point. I didn’t see the point to any of this. Why was he inflicting this torture on me?
“Trust me, Lilly. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
He held his hand steady, waiting for me to take it. It took me a good minute to even look at him. He was watching me like he wasn’t sure what I was going to do but hoping I would put my faith and trust in him.
Was this supposed to be my way of proving I trusted him? Well, we were on a boat. It wasn’t like I was in the water exactly, I tried to reason. The force it would take to capsize us would have to be more like winds you would face on the open sea. There probably wasn’t any real danger on such a small lake, just my fear. I took a deep breath and put my hand in his. When I stood, I didn’t feel the boat shift. That had to be a good sign that it was big enough to move around on without worrying about falling over board, right?
“Come with me,” he said waiting for me to take a step closer to him.
I took a small shuffling step forward, unable to make my feet move too far from each other. We slowly made our way to the side of the boat.
“Do you trust me?” He asked staring down at me.
“Yes,” I replied. “Why do you keep asking me that?”
Brand let go of my hand. I immediately grabbed the steel rail on the side to steady myself. The wind picked up making the boat move slightly but not enough to make me lose my balance. I watched Brand as he quickly shed his shoes, shirt and pants. He stood in front of me in just his underwear. In any other situation, the sight of him almost naked would have riveted my attention but as it was, all I could think about was keeping my balance and not falling over board.
“Trying to distract me?” I tried to joke.
“No,” he grinned. “You need to prove to yourself that you really do trust me. That you believe in us.”
He dove into the water bobbing up to the surface a few feet away.
“Jump, Lilly, I’ll catch you. Trust me.”
“Have you lost your mind?” I yelled at him, trying to control my growing hysterics. “Isn’t it enough I came out here with you?”
I hadn’t stepped foot in water higher than my knees in ten years and now he wanted me to jump in water that was probably a mile deep? There wasn’t any other explanation; Brand had most definitely lost his mind.
“I can’t,” I murmured, not sure if he could hear me. I could feel my body start to tremble at the thought of flinging myself overboard. Just imagining the pressure of the water against my chest pushing out the last bit of air from my lungs made me spasm involuntarily. Even if my mind wanted to, I didn’t think my body would let me put myself in such mortal danger.
The sun was almost completely set now. Darkness was quickly falling around us. In a few more minutes I probably wouldn’t be able to see Brand bobbing in the water in front of me.
“Jump, Lilly,” he implored.
Why was he doing this to me? Why did this have to be his test of my trust? He picked the one thing I feared as much as I did the mystery I found myself involved in. But I guess that was the point. If I didn’t trust him to not let me drown in this water, something he could definitely control, how could I trust him to save me from something he couldn’t control so deftly?
I closed my eyes, unable to look at him watching me anymore. I couldn’t stand to see his face filled with so much uncertainty and longing for me to put my full trust in him, in us. There was only one thing I knew without a shadow of a doubt. Brand loved me and I loved him. Did I really believe what he said about his faith in our being brought together for a purpose and that purpose being to find a way to escape my doomed fate? Did I dare to hope he was right and put my trust in his belief that everything would turn out in our favor?
I’m not sure how long I stood there with my eyes closed trying to decide what it was I believed. When I opened them again, all I could see of Brand was a dark shadow in the water still watching me. I couldn’t make out his face anymore, but I didn’t have to see it to know what his expression would be. He would be losing hope that I did indeed trust him. It was that more than anything else which made up my mind for me.
I slowly let go of the rail, relinquishing my hold on the known and trusting my fat
e to the one person in the world who held my heart completely. I took off my shoes not wanting their added weight making what I was about to do anymore difficult or cumbersome. It would be my luck to trip on a shoe lace, hit my head on something and sink like a rock.
I looked to the outline of Brand still treading water in the near darkness.
“I trust you,” I whispered unable to make myself speak much louder. I closed my eyes unwilling to watch what I was about to do as I put one foot over the side of the boat letting gravity pull me the rest of the way forward. I felt a slight breeze lift my hair off my shoulders in my moment of freefall. My body tensed involuntarily preparing to feel the water envelop me, but that moment never came.
I felt Brand’s arms around me almost as soon as my feet left the safety of the boat’s deck.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered, holding me tight against his cold, wet chest.
I wrapped my arms around him and started to cry. It was the first time I felt in my heart like we actually could do anything we set our minds to as long as we had each other. Brand had been right. Until the moment I put my fate into his hands, I hadn’t completely believed in us. I hadn’t completely trusted in our ability to conqueror the obstacles which lay in our way trying to prevent us from sharing a life together. It was a freeing moment and one which ignited a determination inside me that I had never felt before. We would figure out what was happening and find a way to live out my life with each other. There was no other option for me now.
I stopped crying and looked up at Brand. I couldn’t see his face clearly but I could feel how hopeful he was.
“Can we go home now?” I asked. “I still don’t like the water.”
I heard him chuckle and before I knew it he phased us, boat and all, back home.
Chapter 12
Not long after we got back home and settled in for the night, Brand got a call from Malik.
“Lilly,” Brand called to me with the phone still to his ear.
I was sitting at the kitchen table working on a jigsaw puzzle Brand had stored in a closet full of them. He said he picked them up along his travels but never seemed to find the time to sit down and do any of them.
“Malik wants to know if we would like to come to his apartment tomorrow night for supper.”
“Sure, that would be nice.”
“What time do you want us there?” I heard Brand ask.
Once the arrangements were made, Brand joined me at the table and started helping me with the puzzle.
“Malik said we could invite Tara over if we thought she would like to come too.”
“Yeah,” I said not really knowing if that was such a good idea.
“What’s wrong? You think she doesn’t like him?” Brand asked, taking my reserved response as a negative.
“I’m more worried about Malik liking Tara too much. It’s just not the right time for her to get tangled up with someone else. She’s still trying to get over what Simon did to her. Since Malik will be in my life for a while and Tara will always be a part of my life, I would hate for him to try to start something with her now. Odds are it wouldn’t work out.”
“Why not?”
“Tara’s emotions are just too raw. She might end up using Malik as someone to get over Simon. I’d rather see him wait a little while before he tries to start a relationship with her.”
“Well, why don’t we invite her anyway? You never know, Malik may just want a friend.”
I raised a quizzical eyebrow in Brand’s direction. “Fairy godfather or not, he’s still a man. How many men just want to be friends with a woman they find attractive?”
Brand grinned. “You’re right. He probably does want more than just friendship, but why don’t we let Tara make that decision for herself? She’s not exactly timid. If she doesn’t want him to make any moves on her, she’ll let him know in her own special way, I’m sure.”
I didn’t see Tara again until the next morning when I returned home to get ready for school. When I asked her if she wanted to go to Malik’s with us, she told me she already had a date that night.
“You do?” I asked. This was the first I had heard of someone new.
“Yeah, he’s in the same class Simon and I have. I guess he figured out we weren’t going out anymore after I threw my book at Simon when the fool tried talk to me. Leroy picked my book up and asked me out right there in front of Simon.”
“What do you know about him?” I was surprised Tara wasn’t eagerly giving me the 411 on this Leroy character. She didn’t seem very enthusiastic about going out with him.
Tara shrugged. “He seems ok.”
I didn’t push the issue. Maybe this was what Tara needed, a distraction to get over Simon quickly, at least that was what I hoped.
That evening when Brand and I went to Malik’s apartment I kept having this creepy feeling that someone was watching me. But every time I looked behind me, there wasn’t anyone there. Brand noticed my nervous behavior so I had to tell him what was putting me on edge. After that, he kept a more watchful eye on our surroundings.
Malik’s apartment complex was much swankier than the one Tara and I could afford to live in. They were more like duplex condominiums than apartments. The complex was divided up into ten two story buildings with only two apartments to each building. When Brand pushed the doorbell, Malik opened the door within in few seconds wearing a white apron that said ‘Kiss the Cook’ in black script on the front.
“Welcome to Casa Malik,” he said sweeping a hand inviting us to enter his home. “Tara couldn’t make it?” He asked, closing the door behind us.
“No, she already had a date planned for tonight,” I told him watching for his reaction.
“Oh,” he said, clearly disappointed but quickly recovering. “Well, I hope you guys came hungry. I think I made enough to feed the whole complex.”
Malik’s statement wasn’t an exaggeration. It felt like we were sitting down to a Thanksgiving dinner. I was sure Tara would be disappointed she didn’t come with us. Malik had made a feast of food she would have enjoyed, including beef tongue with caramelized onions, her favorite dish.
“So,” I said while eating some of the best chicken and dumplings I’d ever tasted. They rivaled Utha Mae’s and that was a compliment in itself. “Brand didn’t really tell me the reason why saving my life makes you feel obligated to watch over me.”
“I think it’s just something programmed into our DNA,” Malik said with a slight shrug of his shoulders, cutting up a piece of ham on his plate. “It’s just the way we are. My mom saved this woman’s life once while we were on vacation and we ended up moving from California to Washington, D.C. We found a house right next door to Netty. They’re still best friend to this day. I asked my mom why she felt like she needed to be so close to Netty, and she said it was similar to the way she felt about me, like she always wanted to be close by to keep me out of harms way. Now I understand what she meant. It’s not like it’s something I can control. I just feel this overwhelming need to be close to you and protect you as much as I can. I think the more time we spend together the more you’ll feel our connection too.”
“You do know what’s going on with me right?” I asked, hoping Malik understood the danger he might be putting himself into by getting involved in my life.
“Brand told me about it before I helped save you,” Malik said. “So don’t worry about me. I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself just fine.”
At least that was one less thing I had to worry about.
After supper, I felt like doing something fun. It had been a while since I did something that was silly and more appropriate to my age. It didn’t take me long before I had the boys talked into checking out the new miniature golf course they opened in town just that summer. Tara and I had planned to check it out when we first moved to Lakewood, but considering everything which happened since we moved, we just never found the time.
Malik drove us in his silver Lexus RX hybrid. On the way, he su
ggested to Brand and I that we might want to think about switching to hybrid vehicles because of how much better it was for the environment in the long run. I didn’t mention my mustang was over forty years old and probably one of the worst offenders of exhaust emissions in the world.
Since it was Friday night, the miniature golf place was packed with families and students. We ended up having to wait about fifteen minutes before we were allowed onto the course. Initially, I felt bad for dragging the boys out with me. Miniature golf isn’t really a manly sport after all. But after we started playing, my guilt quickly faded. You would have thought we were playing in a PGA championship game the way Brand and Malik transitioned into competition mode as soon as we stepped onto the Astroturf. The golf course was called Fantasy Land and featured creatures ranging from dragons to gnomes. At the end of the course on the eighteenth hole was a large castle similar in design to Cinderella’s castle at Disneyworld.
With my coordination, I wasn’t planning to win or even come close to winning. I just wanted to have fun and forget about our problems for a night. I tried not to laugh at how seriously Brand and Malik were taking the game, but when Malik got on all fours to line up his shot on the tenth hole into the gaping jaws of a fierce looking red dragon, I lost it. I giggled so hard I started to cry.
“Hey Lilly!”
I looked a couple of holes ahead of us and saw Tara for the first time. My laughter must have traveled far enough for her to hear. She waved at me and I waved back. I assumed the boy standing next to her was her date, Leroy. He definitely wasn’t what I expected.
Leroy looked like the type of guy I hoped Tara would never go out with again. Although Simon turned out to be a total jerk even though he dressed appropriately and showed a maturity I thought was real, I had hoped Tara’s taste in men was changing for the better.
Unfortunately, Leroy looked like one of those guys who would be stuck in teenager mode for the rest of his life. He was wearing clothes which were at least three times too large for his frame, a baseball cap which sat backwards on his head and there were at least five different sized gold chains around his neck. I think the style is called hip-hop, but since I wasn’t that hip on the latest styles, I couldn’t be sure. One of the necklaces had a large gold ‘L’ dangling from it hitting Leroy in the stomach every time he moved. Another word which started with an ‘L’ immediately came to my mind at the sight of him. I was definitely going to have a talk with Tara when she got home.
