by S. L. Naeole
He looked free, and happy.
He’d never looked better than he did then. Not divine, not angelic, not perfect. Everything that made him so attractive to everyone else was nothing compared to the fading worry that caused tiny creases around his eyes and mouth and the slouch in his shoulders.
I moved closer to him and, one by one, undid the buttons on his shirt, kissing his chin for each one. He eased his body so that I could push the remnant of his shirt off, my breath catching in my throat at what I saw beneath the fabric. His shoulder was bruised.
The color brought the tears back to my eyes and I looked up at him and in the haze he smiled, bringing one of my hands to his mouth to kiss the pads of my fingertips. I smiled back and kissed the dark purple section of his skin before pressing my cheek against it, feeling the slight coolness to it.
Unspoken thoughts traveled between us as we both stood and, slowly, we undressed each other, the soft lamplight working with us to hide the other bruises we found on each other. Hands had never been more necessarily slow or gentle. It was like every reveal was communion, and every brush of air against our skin a blessing.
We were generous in our attention to each other, each nuance of softness and hardness, each curve and angle that existed only because the other did. Finding the weaknesses of each other became a game and we both cheered the other on to win. On our feet, we were each other’s strength but what we needed was more than physical strength. We collapsed, tumbling onto the bed.
I leaned back into the soft pillow and cover, feeling the weight of him and the heaviness of his gaze. The bed was small, but we didn’t need much space. This wasn’t about trying to conquer each other or consume each other.
This was about becoming each other. I wanted his cold heart to beat again, and so it did when pressed against mine, the echo of each beat filling his chest and giving it life. We didn’t let anything come between us for those careful, quiet moments between us. Even breathing seemed to cease.
Skin to skin, thought to thought, we were together. We shared every dream we’d ever had for the future, every wish ever asked and never granted, vowing to make it come true somehow for the other. We laughed about the silliest things, and we sighed at the most pleasurable.
There were tears, but not the kind shed out of sadness. We let sorrow stay behind this time. Our hands fit against each other, his heart line never ending, mine never reaching the end of my palm, but together it didn’t matter. My pulse proved that to the both of us, and the heat that bubbled up when he kissed that line, traced it with his tongue, told the world that nothing that was said by anyone else about us mattered.
We were more than what we’d been told.
We knew it by the way a simple look turned sweat into steam. We knew it by the way a graze of hair against skin turned solid steel to liquid mercury. We knew it by the way life and death joined together in every way possible, the connections being made from head to toe and beyond.
We became weightless, boneless, guiltless, and lost to everyone and no one who’d ever tried to find us. I could feel myself lose who I was, only to find myself again in a rush of scent, sight, touch, and sound. Every part of who I was felt him with me, around me, inside me. Every thought that dared to be formed had no real ending or beginning that didn’t include him.
And I was right. There was no need to breathe, because he was every breath. I couldn’t feel the need for anything anymore. Blood didn’t exist, hunger didn’t exist, need didn’t exist. This went beyond desire and passion. This was the moment of everything. This was everything.
I shouted. I shouted at the beauty of it, the oneness of it, the peace of it. I felt no need to remain quiet; I felt no fear that the world would hear me because every emotion that lived and died in that shout would only be heard by Robert. We were shouting together, hearing together.
Existing together.
Robert N’Uriel Bellegarde and Grace Anne Bellegarde weren’t two people lost in a moment. We weren’t angel and human, destined to fail in our attempts to combine our two worlds into one. We weren’t even two souls destined to be together who’d found each other.
We were the same person.
We were the same soul, the same angel, the same human.
I was him, he was me, forged together like the stones in my ring, his ring, bound in an endless circle that started at each other and knew no end.
Together we were the fire that burned skin and scorched hair and scarred memories. Together we were the sun that gave life. Together we were the moon that gave birth to dreams. Together we were stars that welcomed wishes.
We weren’t in heaven. We were heaven.
As the human sun rose in the sky, filling up the room with its light, we forced it back out with our own. There was no room for it here, no need for it. Not yet, anyway.
Not until we’d both shattered into a million pieces of each other, too scattered and too lost to do anything but leave enough of me in him and him in me to never fully be apart again. This was what completion really was. Coming apart and still being together.
“I want to tell you I love you. I want to tell you that I feel for you something unending and more powerful than anything divine. But I can’t, because what I feel is so much more,” he whispered against my mouth, his breath hot, smoky.
I kissed his pursed lips and smiled. “Then don’t tell me anything. I already know everything that you think, everything that you feel. For the first time, there’s nothing hidden between us.”
He looked into my eyes and smiled. “Nothing hidden between us at all.”
We kissed, our mouths fusing in the physical way that was different from what we’d just experienced, but just as fulfilling and rich. This was the moment when I felt the acceptance that I’d always longed for but never really achieved.
Because I’d always been searching for it from everyone else when all I really needed was to accept myself for who I was. Only I hadn’t known who I was until right then. Who I was had never been more clear, more obvious, more blatant. It was as if it had been written down the whole time and I’d just never realized it, even when it was right in front of my face.
“Are you sure about this?” Robert asked, concern and pride mixing to change the tone of his voice.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” I answered firmly.
“When do you want to tell your dad? Graham? Lark?”
I closed my eyes, the first time I’d done in what was probably hours. “Later. The time isn’t right.”
“Okay.”
“Are they here?” I asked, opening my eyes and seeing his bemused expression.
“Oh yes, and already complaining that we’re spending too much time together.”
I giggled and caressed his face. “There’s no such thing.”
“No, no there isn’t.”
“Do you want to go downstairs now? Spend that time with them that you wanted?”
I had to think about that for a minute, and then shook my head. “Not yet. I want to stay here with you a little while longer. I don’t know when we’ll have this kind of peace again.”
He rested his head against my chest, his ear pressed against my heart. He was quiet, in both ways, and I stroked his hair, enjoying the silence between us. I inhaled, the smell of everything that had happened between us a strange perfume that I never wanted to forget. It was the scent of us, the scent of letting go, the scent of change.
I laid my hand flat against his back, covering a small bruise I found there and ignored what it meant.
We’d spoken of three-hundred years together and I was going to believe in it. I was going to hold onto that number until the very end, because I knew that covering that bruise, in my palm, lay another bruise, one that was darker than any I’d had before, one that had just appeared, and one that I could never show him.
Three-hundred years.
But first, I had to fight for the next three-hundred minutes.
FAMILY
Ambrose and Vanessa Mayhew sat beside each other, their shoulders touching, their body language telling everyone in the room that they were in love, and had been for a very long time. Even though they couldn’t share their thoughts the way that Robert and I could, they still found a way to speak to each other without anyone knowing what they were saying. They had their own language, one that they spoke with looks and touches.
Graham sat next to Mrs. Mayhew with Lark seated in his lap. She had an arm draped around his neck while the other hand raised a glass to me, her smile more genuine than I’d ever seen before. I was surprised at how easily Lark laughed, the things that she would have normally criticized for being too human, too simple were now amusing to her, pleasing.
Beside them, Stacy sat with Matthew in her lap; his face crunched up in frustration at the constant jiggling his bottle was going through. He was growing so quickly, his cheeks puffed up with a healthy pink, while his legs were so long they dangled over her arm. He didn’t care that she was cold and hard like rock. All he wanted was his bottle.
Stacy seemed content, more content than I’d seen in days. She smiled and laughed, and even gave Graham a compliment, which no one took to be shocking. She kissed Matthew’s head, cooing and singing a lullaby that sounded both foreign and familiar to me.
“Your mom used to sing that to you when you were a baby,” Dad said to me softly when she’d begun. He sat between Stacy and me, his hand clasped tightly over mine, his eyes watering as he laughed at something Graham said. I hadn’t noticed it at the hospital but his hair was graying at the sides, which should have made him look older but to me, it didn’t change a thing. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes made his smile appear warmer, and the lines around his mouth looked like a hug, one that I never wanted more than right then.
Robert sat on the other side of me, his right arm resting at my back while his left hand held a glass in the air, the contents spilling onto the table as he, too, laughed at Graham’s comment. To see him like that and compare him to the angel I’d met almost a year ago was like comparing an empty garden to one filled with flowers. He looked full, happy. And it did something to me, knowing that it was partly because of me.
There were no empty chairs at the table, even though the presence of the two people who should have been there hung heavily over our heads, but we said nothing about it, even though we all felt it. Janice was hidden away, in a hospital out of state under a name that even I did not know. Her condition hadn’t improved, but it hadn’t grown worse either; that was enough for us.
As for Ameila…she remained in her false coma, though her thoughts were shared by Lark, who did so quietly and to the annoyance of her brother whenever something was said that amused her. To anyone else, talking the way we were with her probably sounded unnatural and weird, but after a while it was no different than having someone on the phone, listening in. This was
But despite the absences, despite the uncertainty of the future that lay just outside the front door, things inside were perfect. Dad, after finally hearing the full story of what happened to me after Lem had kidnapped me, had made me egg-in-a-hole for breakfast. I even managed to eat a whole one before Graham devoured the rest.
Lark still refused to show me what was on the real ring that had belonged to Isis, but she did tell me that Lem had been telling me the truth about not being Sam’s partner. Of course, this didn’t make up for the kidnapping or trying to keep me and Robert apart, but I found myself feeling less hateful towards him; maybe even a little forgiving.
Robert didn’t feel the same way.
“Now who’s’ being uncharitable,” I kidded when he made it clear that the moment he saw Lem, he’d tear him in two like he did his son.
“I always knew you were the real angel,” he replied with no sarcasm.
It was easy to believe that now, and I didn’t contradict him like I normally would have. I didn’t need to anymore, which only made him happier. This was how it always should have been, I told myself. It was easier, and it felt more right than holding on to my insecurity did.
The afternoon was spent watching Rocky Horror, and I laughed when Dad began singing the songs, forgoing his usual meows and actually reciting the lyrics.
“Well, I’ve heard them enough; I think it’s only time,” he said with a shrug.
We ate sandwiches and drank lemonade, played board games and sang along to the oldies station that was Dr. Bro’s favorite. Mrs. Mayhew started on the chili and Graham and I went into the kitchen with her to help, while Robert and Dad sat at the kitchen table talking, strangely enough, about football. Stacy and Dr. Bro were talking on the sofa, while Matthew slept soundly in his stroller.
It was as normal a scene as anyone could imagine. No one looking into the window would have guessed at who we all really were, or what we really were. And that was how we wanted it. Hiding in plain sight, Robert had called it. I called it living.
Dinner was a loud and raucous affair, and I’d never remembered feeling so content and so fortunate. Everyone passed Matthew around, and when Mrs. Mayhew took him into her arms, I saw that the sadness that had possessed her the evening before was gone, replaced with a sort of gratefulness that I knew only came with time.
It was nearly midnight when Dad went upstairs to the other guest bedroom with Matthew. He made me promise to still be here when he woke up, and I nodded, kissing his cheek and then kissing Matthew’s head before watching them leave.
Stacy stretched out on one of the sofas in the family room, and Graham stretched out on the other one, Lark squeezing in beside him, half-floating off the side since he took up most of the room. They weren’t going to sleep; Stacy didn’t sleep anymore and Graham didn’t want his dreams to progress into something more real, a concern that made me spit out the water in my mouth the minute he voiced it.
I helped Dr. Bro clean the kitchen while Mrs. Mayhew took a shower, and Robert patrolled the house, always keeping in contact with me through his thoughts, some that made me sputter mid-answer to one of the doctor’s questions.
“Was ‘Nessa’s chili too spicy?” the doctor asked as he saw my red face.
“No, no, it wasn’t spicy at all,” I answered truthfully while silently cursing Robert and his suddenly lewd mind.
I dried the last dish and he put it into the cupboard, and then he turned around to face me with inquisitive eyes. “You haven’t asked how my wife and I met. Stacy asked me almost as soon as she arrived; it was Graham’s first question. But you…you don’t seem interested. Why?”
I hung the towel over the side of the sink and let the right side of my mouth curl up into a smirk. “Because I think you’ve been asked that question more times than you like, and that the answer shouldn’t be one that you dread telling, which it’s probably starting to become.”
He perked up at my response and smiled, his teeth glistening in the bright florescent light. “It’s funny you said that, because I was just telling ‘Nessa the other day that I didn’t really like having to explain over and over again why someone like her is with someone like me.”
“I think the two of you are cute together, and I don’t really care how you met. You’re happy and that’s what’s important, right?”
His head bobbed up and down in agreement. “We are happy. It wasn’t always that way, but we made it work.”
“I don’t think anyone can always be happy. I think we need those moments when everything is screwed up just so we remember why being happy is important and we learn to appreciate every single moment we have. It’s even more important when you don’t have the guarantee of living forever.”
“And you think that applies especially to you.”
My eyebrows lifted and my mouth went slack at my lack of an answer. Instead I looked into the
family room at the bodies of my friends. Lark and Graham had forever. They were going to have many rough times, I knew that for a fact, but they were going to have much more time spent loving each other and being grateful for each other and they knew it.
Stacy…if Dr. Bro could find love and happiness, then there was no reason to doubt Stacy’s chance at finding that, too. Especially now that she knew that she wasn’t going to die. She had infinity to find the one person who would make everything in her life make sense.
The sliding door off to the side of the family room opened, and Robert walked in, his face brightening as he saw my face and my own reaction. I knew I had an answer then for Dr. Bro, and I gave it to him without saying a word.
I walked into Robert’s outstretched arms and pressed my forehead to his, sharing our thoughts, the good and the bad. This was bliss, and everyone knew that bliss never lasted forever.
Robert looked up suddenly, Lark appearing by our side almost instantaneously, with Dr. Bro and Stacy arriving less than a second later.
Mrs. Mayhew was at the foot of the stairs, her face ashen, her eyes wide.
“So many…so many new ones,” she whispered.
Robert and Lark exchanged glances before she was back at Graham’s side, shaking him awake—he’d decided to fall asleep after all.
“So many new what?” I asked, unable to hear a single thought even though I knew that a conversation heavy with information was being held right in front of me.
“Monsters, creatures, the un-turned,” Mrs. Mayhew said faintly. “Almost two hundred of them all made within the hour. Oh dear, this isn’t good. This isn’t good, Robert. They’re not the harmless kind.”
Dr. Bro took his wife’s arm and led her to one of the oversized ottomans. “Sit, ‘Nessa. Sit and catch your breath.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need to catch my breath, Ambrose. I need to get moving. We need to stop him. They’re all being made here, just a dozen or so miles from away. They’re coming here, Robert.”
