by Jessie Olson
Oliver warmed his smile and covered the look of frustration. “I’ll pick you up at 7.”
“Yes,” she grabbed her bag and went to her car filled with belongings from Ben’s apartment.
*****
Lizzie bought a new dress for the fundraiser. She only had two that fit her. One was the red dress she wore to her reunion, the night she met Ben – the vampire. She couldn’t bring herself to wear it again or throw it away. Her other dress wouldn’t conceal the marks on her neck or her recently returned flaws. The new dress wasn’t ideal, but it had a high collar and impressed Meg when Lizzie opened her bedroom door. “You look nice.”
“I’m going out.”
“The brother?”
Lizzie nodded, afraid anything else would inspire the guilt she pushed from her mind.
“So you are going to date him?”
“I don’t know.”
“You look like you are pretty serious about dating him right now.”
Lizzie’s cheeks burned. She didn’t make up her mind if there would be anything after this night. She had more questions to ask him. Things she felt she should know before she could decide what she wanted… what she felt. If she should love him. Did she? Or if she should feel guilty for hurting Ben. She did. In every quiet moment of the day.
Meg paused in silence for a few minutes. She breathed out and straightened her expression. “Um, listen, Ben stopped by today.”
“What?” Lizzie felt her knees weaken.
“I didn’t have class until two. This morning he brought over a box of things he said you left behind. I didn’t know what to do with it. I put it in my room. He said it’s just clothes and books.”
“Books?”
“I’ll go get it.”
Lizzie pulled in a deep breath to swallow the urge to cry. She held the door to stop from losing balance while Meg went around the corner into her room. She came back within a minute and put the box on top of Lizzie’s bed. Lizzie opened it without hesitation. She saw a couple sweaters and several of the leather bound books. On top was Byron. She lifted it and dared to look at the blurred blue sonnet. Why did he give that to her? What was the point of that?
“You probably want to finish getting ready,” Meg looked at Lizzie carefully and left the room. Lizzie kept staring at the book, hoping the image of the water and grass would come back to her. She knew there was something more to that, something Ben wanted her to remember. She closed her eyes and only saw blackness.
The doorbell rang and disturbed her focus. She scurried through the chaos of her bedroom and down the staircase. She opened the door and saw him dressed in a long black coat, erasing all the images of the outdoorsy Oliver.
“I need my shoes and a coat,” she shuddered as the air blew across her bare forearms.
“So this is where you live.”
“Yeah,” Lizzie stopped at the top of the stairs. She turned to say she was going to run upstairs, but he used the opportunity to kiss her passionately on the lips. She wrapped her arms around him and quickly lost awareness until she heard a door open at the top of the stairs.
Lizzie stepped back and quickly checked the mirror for smudged lipstick. She faced Meg as she landed on the bottom step. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Meg’s eyes moved beyond Lizzie to Oliver. “You must be the brother.”
He offered the charming smile that must have endeared so many young students to Professor Ol. Lizzie wondered if Meg was in any way susceptible. “I’m Oliver.”
“Meg,” she accepted his hand. “Where are you taking Lizzie?”
“A fundraiser for an environmental coalition.”
“Lizzie knows all about fundraisers.”
“There’s a baseball star hosting.”
“Lizzie doesn’t like sports.”
“I like the environment,” Lizzie was surprised by Meg’s bitterness. Apparently she determined to channel Nora that evening. “I need shoes.”
When she returned down the stairs, Meg still looked at Oliver without saying a word. “It’s supposed to snow, you know,” Meg muttered as Lizzie put on her coat. “You shouldn’t stay out too late.”
“I’ll take care of her,” Oliver was undeterred by Meg’s smarminess. Lizzie didn’t say goodbye as they went down the stairs.
“You do want to go to this thing?” Oliver broke the silence as he opened the door of his Jeep for her.
“Yeah,” Lizzie sat in the car as he walked to his door.
“We could just skip it and go to the hotel room.”
“Hotel room?” she felt his eyes looking over her.
“No, that’s a bit presumptive,” he turned on the ignition.
“I like dancing,” Lizzie shrugged. “No one has ever taken me out to dance before.”
“Excellent,” Oliver smiled as they pulled away. Lizzie watched the blur of Christmas tree lights they passed. Ben didn’t take her out to dance. But they danced at the reunion and there was… there was another time she couldn’t remember…
*****
“Your honest opinion?” Oliver shut the closet door where he hung their coats.
“I told you,” Lizzie gazed down onto the lights of Boylston Street. The blanket of snow made the Christmas decorations of downtown Boston look more festive. “I thought it was a good event. Better than anything we could do at the hospital.”
“I doubt that,” he rested his chin on the top of her head.
Lizzie thought about turning from the window into him. She wasn’t ready to kiss him. Not yet. There wasn’t much conversation over the loud band or polite talk with Oliver’s colleagues. “Where do you stay when you come east?”
“A friend’s apartment.”
“Another vampire?”
“A source.” Oliver removed his sports coat and loosened his tie. She didn’t realize she was so blatantly watching until he smiled after unclasping the third button of his shirt. She still wasn’t ready and found a chair and finally removed her heels.
“I thought the band was excellent,” Oliver stopped at the third button and settled into the chair opposite. “I had fun dancing.”
“That was the best part.”
“It was,” Oliver didn’t attempt to shield the lust in his eyes. She already noted there was no burn there and felt comfortable he fed recently. Except that Oliver wasn’t… he wasn’t Ben. Did that mean he did something else recently?
Lizzie looked at Oliver. He was so handsome. So very, very handsome. And charming. Like Will. Like Meg. How long before his attention would be diverted from her? “Why did you fall in love with Charlotte?”
Oliver expressed a knowing smile and exhaled a deep breath.
“Why,” Lizzie continued, “if you loved Lily so much, would you fall in love with the monster who interfered in your happiness?”
“I asked myself that question many times,” he avoided her eyes. “Especially when it ended. In the beginning, she was the only vampire I knew. Benjamin went back to France. Charlotte brought me with her to New York. It was a volatile friendship. There was physical attraction. There was a lot of hate that made that attraction even more… strangely enough… exciting.”
“Is that why you let Charlotte change you?”
“Charlotte was waiting for me. I thought Lily would be there. I knew someone in that house was using her, the way Horace did. I knew it made her unhappy. I didn’t know it was a … I didn’t believe that she loved him. She wanted to leave. She was going to marry me.”
“Charlotte convinced you that wasn’t true.”
“She showed me a book he bought her. There were things scribbled inside, but I couldn’t read them. I was never educated enough to impress Lily. I knew she was intelligent, something those Fultons refused to appreciate. The fact another man bought her books and appealed to her mind… Charlotte knew my weakness. She convinced me Lily was lost. I let her seduce me and take my blood. I don’t remember that night clearly. It’s a horrible, thrilling dream.”
Lizzie saw sadnes
s creep across his face, as if Charlotte’s revelations were a recent conversation. She tried to think of the book under the water and the kiss in the marshy grass. No detail surfaced. She couldn’t think of anything to prove or disprove what Charlotte told him.
“She manipulated the truth,” Oliver’s expression changed from sad to something both uninterested and intensely angry. It was as though he could distance himself from the reality of Charlotte, but not her trickery. “Lily was telling Benjamin that she was leaving him.”
“What?”
“He didn’t tell you?” Oliver had no sense of alarm.
“No.”
“He told me after Charlotte died,” Oliver looked at her briefly. “I didn’t know that when I saw Lily. I… didn’t know.”
Lizzie knew the next part of the story, but didn’t want the detail. “What did the Fultons do when Lily died?”
“The Fultons never knew. Charlotte had her buried in a common grave. She told Margaret and John she ran off with me to Kentucky. It was one of Charlotte’s cruel jokes. The world thought we were together, when I was the one who…”
“She had the last laugh.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Because you killed her?” Lizzie asked lightly, even though the thought terrified her.
“Because you are here with me,” he lifted her from her chair. “Let’s stop talking about the past, Lizzie. Let us focus on the here and now.”
Lizzie took in a deep breath as he lifted her chin gently and pulled her towards his mouth. She moved her lips against his and forced the questions from her mind. He didn’t want to talk any longer. She knew the answers to her questions still hurt him. His hurt more than anything tugged at her heart. She didn’t want to hurt him again. She chose Ben and broke his heart. She chose him again without even giving Oliver a chance to tell her the truth, the truth of his sadness. Ben denied Oliver the opportunity to tell her. Ben hurt him. Ben hurt her. So she didn’t let herself think about how she was hurting Ben as Oliver’s hands reached around for the back of her dress.
*****
Lizzie loosened herself from Oliver’s arms and slipped into the bathroom. She let the steam of the luxurious shower fill the room. She knew she dreamt something in those few hours, but nothing remained after she opened her eyes. Nothing except a feeling of loss. She hoped the sound of water would refresh her memory – just to let her know if it was something of Lizzie or of Lily.
She knew there was a reason she didn’t remember. Maybe it was a bad dream. If she woke with such a depressed feeling, how could it have been happy? She was happy… wasn’t she? She was with a man who was in love with her. He didn’t say it – but Lizzie was quite certain he was - and had been for centuries. It was different from Ben’s emotion. There was something more human about Oliver’s love for Lily. It was almost as if his attraction to Lizzie was an attempt to be his old self again.
Was it Lizzie? Or was it Lily that made Oliver enclose his arms around her in a contented, sleeping embrace? Lizzie convinced herself that Ben only wanted Lily… but was Oliver any different? Was he at all aware of Elizabeth Watson? Were they separate? Or were they really the same? Whose thoughts were floating through her mind? Who agreed to go out with Oliver and follow him back to a hotel room? If she was Lily, did she have the right to hurt Ben for what he did to her? Isn’t that why she was upset with him? Why she no longer felt she could be with him? Did Lily just realize what he did to Oliver? Was it Lily telling her to stay away from Ben and go back to… go back… she wasn’t going back to Oliver. Elizabeth was never with Oliver. Elizabeth didn’t love Oliver. Did Lily?
She was attracted to him. It wasn’t difficult to leave her mind when he kissed her. Was that Lily taking over… or just a baser instinct reacting to his good looks and seduction? Lizzie was attracted to his vampire. Her heart bled for the broken soul within him, but her desire to be close to him made her forget her conscious and go to some other place in her thoughts. Where her shame and fear couldn’t stop her. She didn’t fear him, in spite of Ben’s repetitive warnings. How legitimate could they be? He just wanted to keep him from her, to keep her from knowing the truth. To keep her from knowing the monster Ben really was.
Lizzie’s thoughts halted as she rinsed the shampoo from her hair. Was he a monster? She loved Ben. He never hurt her. He promised to never hurt her… physically. He kept the truth from her. But how much did she want this truth? Did she want to know all this? Wasn’t it easier, wasn’t she happier when she didn’t know Lily? She always knew Lily. Lily was always a part of her. But not… not the part that chose Oliver.
The tears mingled with soapy water that ran from her hair. She loved Ben. She missed him. She missed his arms. She missed the freckles under his eyes. His gray green eyes that were always full of … what did Meg say once? Something about love and insatiable desire. If he was looking at her, he saw Elizabeth. Not Lily. He didn’t tell her about Lily because he loved Elizabeth. She didn’t let herself believe that. She let the doubt register in her mind when he went to Chicago. She let it be her excuse to hurt him.
But Oliver… he was still there. He wanted her. He wanted Lily. He fell in love easily. He could fall out of love just as easily. Could he with Lily? Or was Lily his soul mate? If that was the case, why didn’t Lizzie feel that? Why didn’t she ache for the embrace of his arms and leap out of the shower to seek them for comfort? Why did Lily choose Oliver if it wasn’t for love? Was it really just an escape? How could an escape to Kentucky be preferable to Europe? Why did Lily hurt Ben so that he made sure Charlotte took out her wrath on Oliver… on Thomas? Tom. Her Tom. There was something else, something missing. A detail that was in the corner of her memory, but hidden in the shadows of a lost dream. What was it? To whom would it lead? Oliver? Ben? Or back to herself? Maybe… maybe that was what Lily wanted all along. Lizzie liked her solitude. She liked having time to herself. She liked her room at Jefferson Park. She liked her runs in the quiet of the morning. Maybe that was all Lily ever craved. Maybe Lily realized the monsters that both men were and wanted no more of it. That was why she chose to die.
Lizzie washed away the tears by the time left she bathroom and was back in her clothes. Oliver waited in the hotel robe looking out at the view of Boylston Street. “We got a lot of snow last night,” he turned to her and smiled.
“Oh?” Lizzie noticed a room service cart in the corner of the room.
“I ordered a couple options for breakfast. I didn’t know what you…”
“That’s very sweet,” Lizzie poured a mug of coffee and looked over the assortment of fruit and muffins.
“I think we’re trapped here,” Oliver looked at her dress, not shielding the disappointment in his eyes. “They haven’t cleared the roads very well yet. Do you have to be at the Fulton House?”
“Not today,” Lizzie shook her head over the mug and sat in the chair she found the night before. She knew why he was asking. She couldn’t think of any real reason she had to go anywhere. She was only half certain she wanted to stay.
“Do you like the snow? We could build a snowman on the Common.”
Lizzie smiled without thinking. “That would be… I dressed for dancing. Not for snow.”
“Right…” Oliver looked at his scattered suit. “My students would laugh at this situation. Professor Ol too dressed up for the outdoors.”
“You are fond of your students,” she mulled over her coffee. “Would you really give them up to come back to Boston?”
Oliver sat in the chair near her. “It would be a pretty big choice, Lizzie. But if… I would consider it, yes.”
“Why?”
“Because life is too short to listen to doubt.”
“Life isn’t too short for you.”
“No. But my time with people is.”
“Is that why you’ve changed the women you fell in love with? This sense of urgency?”
“I never thought about it that way.”
“Then when you have forever
, you realize you don’t want it.”
He looked away from her. “With some… but not with all.”
“How many have there been, Oliver?” Lizzie knew the answer would be different than Ben’s.
Oliver shook his head and laughed with another mischievous glance at Lizzie. “I really couldn’t say.”
“How many did you love?”
“Most of them.”
“How many did you kill?”
Oliver straightened his spine and stood up from the chair. “Did you ask Ben these questions?”
“Yes.”
He walked towards the giant mirror by the closet. “Charlotte was a bad influence on me, Lizzie.”
“I don’t care about Charlotte. I want to know about you.”
“Too many.”
Lizzie saw the saddened expression in his reflection. “Did that change after you… after Charlotte died?”
“Yes,” he looked at her.
“I never see her. Not once in my memories or dreams.”
“You are lucky.”
Lizzie wanted him to finish his thought. What was so painful about that vampire that he couldn’t tell her? What did it have to do with Lily? What did she do to make him eliminate her from this earth? What did it have to do with Lily’s final choice?
She saw the pain on his face and in the sag of his shoulders. She felt her own cruelty for pressing the issue, for diverting him from his happiness. Happiness that he waited two centuries to find again. Happiness she was about to take away.
“Charlotte told me you would come back,” Oliver was looking at her, but his mind was somewhere else.
“What?” Lizzie felt a chill on her shoulders.
“She told me about reincarnation. She was obsessed with it. She always believed Lily would come back to me. “
“To you? Not to her?”
“She told me Lily would come back to kill me because I killed her.”
“No,” she shook her head fervently. “I am not a killer.”
