Neither

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  I think he's going to protest that he shouldn't intrude, but he doesn't.

  “Thanks.”

  Aj beams, happy to have someone to cook for.

  “So how's Claire?” Aj asks. I give her the update as she fills a plate with mac and cheese, green beans and corn for Jamie.

  They try to look upbeat, but they know as well as I do that pneumonia isn't good. Her immune system is so compromised that her body just doesn't have the will to fight. But I'm not thinking about that at this particular moment.

  “So, Jamie, is there a special lady in your life? I thought I saw a twinkle in your eye.” Aj prods him with her finger, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

  “Yeah, there is. But she's away right now.”

  “Oh no. When is she coming back?” Aj asks.

  “I'm not sure if she is.” He puts his fork down and absentmindedly rubs the gauze on his hand.

  “What happened there?”

  “Her mom keeps moving them around.”

  “I'm sorry, that sucks.”

  Jamie meets my eyes and I give him a sad smile. I go over and rest my head on his shoulder.

  “Whatever will be, will be,” I say, altering Rasha's quote a little.

  “Isn't that from a song?” Jamie says.

  “It sounds like it, doesn't it?” I say. Maybe it is.

  Jamie stays a little bit longer, talking about everything at school I've missed. It's nice to talk about stupid teenage things for a few minutes. Normally I don’t want to hear about how everyone else's lives are normal and mine isn’t, but I need it now.

  “So then Macey walked up to Sarah and threw a bottle of Gatorade right in her face.”

  “Seriously? What color was it?”

  “Red. So she looked like she was covered in blood.” At the word blood, he flinches involuntarily.

  “Jamie, I don't know if it's best that she comes back,” I say, glancing back at Aj to make sure she can't hear. She's busy in the kitchen with her iPod in her ears, jamming out to Mumford and Sons, probably.

  “I know what she did was wrong, but can you say Peter's never done the same thing?”

  No, I can't. I'm a hypocrite. The reasons he should stay away from Brooke are the same reasons I should stay away from Peter, but I don't. So I don't have a leg to stand on.

  “Well, he never chewed on my hand, but he did leave me with this,” I say, showing my neck. There is the tiniest red mark. “And this,” I say, sliding off the wide bracelet I wear to cover up my wrist wound. “It's the price you pay for hanging out with a bloodsucker. It's like being in love with a giant mosquito.”

  “Nice, Ave.”

  I shrug one shoulder. “It's true.”

  “I'm not mad at her. I've tried to tell her a million times that I don't care. It's not her fault that she can't control it. She is what she is, and I can't change that and neither can she. Did I tell you what she did to my dad?”

  “No.” This is the first I'm hearing about it.

  He shakes his head and tells me how his Dad got drunk one afternoon and Brooke beat him up. Well, she didn't exactly beat him up, but she gave him a good scare. I guess it worked. Jamie says he's been going to work every day and helping around the house. He even went out and bought a brand new crib for Cassie's baby.

  “Brooke said he needed a wake-up call. I guess he did. I just hope it lasts.” He's been disappointed so many times in the past. “But at least he's still with me.” He doesn't say alive, but that's what he means. At least he still has a father. Even if he's an ass.

  “Is there anything I can do? I'm not sure what that would be, but I'm here. All you have to do is ask,” he says.

  “I don't know, Jamie. I just want it to go away. I just want it to stop. I want to go back in time, or to change my life, or something.”

  “I'm so sorry for you, Ave. If I could change it, I would.”

  “I know.” He rubs my hand with his. “I love you.”

  “I love you. I'm only a phone call away. I can get in my truck at 3 a.m. if I have to. Anytime. Anywhere.”

  “Thanks.” I give him a hug, and he picks me up off my feet, spinning me around. It's been so long since he did that.

  “We need a Miller's date soon.”

  “Absolutely. As soon as possible.”

  He gives me a kiss on the cheek and then leaves, his truck sputtering down the road.

  “He is a good friend. I am glad you have good humans in your life.”

  “I'm glad I have good immortals, too.”

  Twenty-Five

  Brooke

  “So who are we trying to find?”

  “Di. She was the one who found me and brought me to the man that changed me. I need to convince her to stop being a bitch, basically.” She'd told me about binds and how they worked. Ivan hadn't, and I didn't understand why. He'd made two binds with me, and if I hadn't followed them, I would have died. Or re-died. I wasn't sure how that worked exactly. Since I didn't have a beating heart, I wasn't alive. But I could walk and talk, so what did that make me? When I thought of 'undead,' I thought of zombies. I definitely didn't lurch around and hunger for brains. Blood, hell yes.

  “And what will we do once we find her?” I said, sitting down on a rock.

  The desert stretched out in front of us, endless and red, like it was on fire. It had nothing on New Hampshire. I should have been more excited, but I didn't really get excited anymore. Although, the world was both a more beautiful and ugly place since I'd become immortal, I was still trying to make sense of it all.

  “Try and convince her to stop being insane,” she said.

  I was frustrated with Helena because she didn't tell me anything. When she asked if I wanted to come, I thought the trip would be a distraction from Jamie. In reality, nothing would have distracted me from Jamie. He existed in my mind, as if he'd colonized part of it and wouldn't give it up. I thought about his hair, his voice, his blood, his smile, his arms, and everything else. I wanted to go back, but I couldn't. I had to stay away. He was just too much of a temptation. His blood was too much of a temptation. If only I could change him, and then we could be together, but I didn't think he'd want that. I couldn't take his mortality from him, no matter how much I wanted to spend my immortality with him.

  “How do you intend to do that?”

  “I'm not really sure yet. I've had how many years to think about it?”

  Helena told me about the saga between her and Di. In my opinion, Di was a lost cause. Clearly, she had been going down a crooked path for so long she probably couldn't find her way back, even if she wanted to. I didn't tell Helena that. Who was I to judge?

  Helena stopped and stared at the sky. “I can't believe I'm nervous. I don't remember the last time I was nervous.”

  “I don't remember being nervous,” I said. Except for when I thought about hurting Jamie, maybe. That was more panic than nervous.

  “It feels like my life is going to end,” she said, breaking a tree limb and crushing it in her hands. I knew what she meant.

  “Did you make a binding promise?”

  “Yeah. No, I won't tell you what it is.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because. That's why.”

  That wasn't a reason, but I wasn't going to push it. The truth was I didn't care that much. Once I was done with her and all this, I was going to move on. Go somewhere else. Anywhere else.

  “Whatever,” I said. “How do you know where she is?” I decided a subject change was in order.

  “I don't know. I'm just following a hunch.”

  “And where does your hunch lead you?”

  Helena scented the air, considering. “I'm not sure yet.

  Twenty-Six

  Peter

  That night I finish Ava's coursework for her. Most of what she has is done. At least I didn't have to write her English essays, because I'm not sure I could get her voice quite right, but I did her math, finished her history paper and put the finishing touches on her French project.<
br />
  Her father doesn’t get home until well after nine, and both he and Ava are restless. Her aunt is also asleep in the guest room, and she apparently has the habit of talking in her sleep. Sam doesn’t sleep at all, instead staying up and typing on his computer. I hear him talking to himself. Ava has the nightmare again, and I try to send good dreams to her, just to see if I can. It works for a moment, but then the anxiety takes over. It is harder in her sleep to keep her mind positive.

  Claire is dying. She knows it and I know it. Sam and Ava know it, too, but they are still holding out hope. I had a moment with Claire in the hospital. She looked at me and smiled, as if we shared something. I guess we do. I died and she is about to. Except her soul is still intact, while mine was given away and couldn't be taken back.

  I picture Claire's soul like a butterfly, floating away on a breeze. Effortless and beautiful. I send the image to Ava, but it's wiped away by the image of Claire and I burning in green fire.

  I'm not sure if I believe in heaven. Maybe a place where souls go. A garden where they all gather like bubbles, different colors dancing and playing with one another. Maybe it's true, maybe it isn't. I will never know. If Ava has her way, she will never know. She won't get a heaven, but I'll get mine. My heaven is her. Nothing could be greater than spending the rest of my earthly time with Ava. Nothing.

  Ava

  In the morning when I wake, Dad is already at the hospital and Aj is attempting pancakes.

  “I don't know why they're falling apart,” she moans, as she tries to flip the pancake soup she's somehow made. “I made it just like the package says.” She points the spatula at the box in frustration.

  “You have to add less water. I don't know why they say that on the package, but it's total crap.” I find the bowl of mix and toss in some more of the powdered mix. I stir it a few times, making sure not to do it too much so the pancakes won’t be tough.

  “I'm going to go pick up Peter. I'll be right back,” I say. I wish I could just tell her that Peter spent the night and be done with it, but I know she'll tell Dad and then that will open a whole can of worms I don’t need to open at the moment.

  “Doesn't he have a life?”

  “He does. He just puts things on hold for me. He loves me.” I swallow past the lump that forms in my throat when I say it.

  “Well, clearly. Any guy who will spend the entire day in the hospital with you and eat crappy hospital food is a keeper. Even if he's a little strange. You're aware that he's strange, right?”

  “It's part of what I love about him,” I say, tossing my keys in the air and catching them.

  I go down the driveway and wait ten minutes. Normally this would be make-out time for me and Peter, but we don't do that today. It feels wrong. I just climb over the console and lie in his lap in the passenger seat.

  “We haven't done everything on the list.”

  “That wasn't the point of it.”

  “But we were going to take her to the island, and she was going to see Paris and Europe. She had a million things, and we haven't done them all. We should have done more. I should have been more careful with the stupid house. If I'd kept it cleaner, or not let all those people in —”

  Peter puts his finger to my lips, silencing me.

  “You cannot play this game. You will go crazy with thinking about what could have been. I spent a whole week outside my parents’ house in New York, watching my mother and sisters and imagining that I was with them. If I had gotten in the lifeboat, if I hadn't met Di. You cannot do it; it serves no purpose but to make you doubt the things that have already happened.”

  “I know,” I say around his fingers, but I can’t stop thinking about the things that should have been. We thought we had so much time. The tulips are just about ready to bloom. I close my eyes and wish that she'd be able to see them. Even if it is the last time. She has to see them.

  Mom is about the same when we get there after eating Aj's watery pancakes. Well, she and I eat and Peter watches. She came with us, but takes her own car so she can go back to the house and take care of things there. She and Mom exchange hugs, and one of the nurses brings in more chairs.

  “We've got quite a group going on here,” she says. I'm pretty sure it's in the nurse job description to be painfully nice and call everyone 'sweetie,' even the adults that are probably older than they are.

  “How you doing?” Aj says, flopping into the chair. She'll be out of it in a few seconds. Aj hates sitting around.

  “I'm doing okay. I just really want to go home. I haven't been able to get much sleep.”

  “I bet.”

  They go on to talk about the tests Dr. Young ordered and how her lungs are looking and all that. I just sit in Peter's lap and try not to listen to it. The words are meaningless. All they add up to is the fact that she's not getting better. That's she's probably not going to get better.

  “Knock, knock,” someone says. They keep doing that. Obviously, the only thing separating us from the hallway is that ugly curtain that anyone can pull back when they feel like it. Hospital rooms are very exposed. Privacy is not a consideration.

  The woman that comes around the curtain isn't a nurse and she's not a doctor.

  “Well, don't you have a lot of fans,” she says with that patented 'I care about you' smile. I swear, they must test them on this, because they're all good at it.

  “I'm Lisa. I'm the hospital social worker. Do you mind if I talk with you a little bit?”

  “Sure. Ava, baby, could you go and see if I can get some more ice?” This is a clear ploy to get me out of the room so the grown-ups can talk. I don't like it, but I'm not going to throw a fit.

  “Sure.” I get up and Peter follows me to the kitchen down the hall. As Peter is filling a plastic pitcher with ice, I lean against the counter.

  “What are they talking about?”

  “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “What kind of a question is that?”

  “I thought so. I just wanted to make sure.” He closes the freezer and sets the pitcher on the counter. “They are making arrangements.”

  “I don't like the sound of that.”

  “It's just in case. They still don't have anything final.” He stops and listens. “Your mother is asking to be sent home.”

  “Sent home? Why would she...” Oh. Oh. “She wants to?”

  “Yes. She has had enough.”

  “But she's only been her for two days! How can she give up now?”

  “She has been fighting for so long. She knows it is time,” Peter says in that eerily calm voice of his.

  “She can't; she just can't.” All the air leaves my body and my knees decide they don't want to support me anymore, but before I can hit the floor, Peter is there. Always there to catch me. “She can't, she can't.” I say it over and over. Maybe if I say it enough, it will be true. Maybe if I...

  “There is nothing you can do, baby.” He pulls me up and crushes me into his chest, as if protecting me in the cage of his arms.

  “She can't, she can't.” I shake and he tries to hold me still. This can't be it.

  As much as I know it is going to happen, hearing that this really is the end seals the deal. In the very back of my mind, I held out one little ray of hope that she could get better and that there would be some miracle to save her. Because if anyone deserves a miracle, it's her.

  I want her to be the one to beat the odds. I want her to be special. Not like every other terminal cancer patient. Because she isn't. She's my mother and Dad's wife and a sister-in-law and a friend and a teacher and so many other things. She is the sunshine in our house. How can anyone take that away?

  “Shh,” Peter says. I'm not really crying. There aren't tears. There is just a gasping, wrenching sound coming from my body as if part of me is being ripped away. In a way, part of me is.

  “They're going to want to talk to you. To see how you are dealing. There will be grief counseling. You're going to have to go. I don't think they will l
et me come with you.”

  “Fuck them. Fuck everything. Fuck God.” I hate the entire world. I just want everything to burst into flames.

  “Say whatever you want. I don't mind. Put your face in my chest and scream all you want.”

  I do, but all it does is make my throat hurt. I start banging my head against him, which turns into me punching him. He just stands and takes it. His face is still, which only makes me hit harder. My knuckles crack open and start to bleed, but he doesn't stop me. He just lets me go. I only stop when I can't breathe anymore.

  “Anytime you need to do that, you let me know. I will be your punching bag. I will be whatever you want me to be.”

  “I want you to love me. I want you to somehow make this better. But you can't. Nothing will ever work out. Nothing, nothing, nothing.”

  “We need to go back.”

  “I can't. I can’t.” My legs won't move.

  “Ava, look at me.”

  I do, and he does that thing where he pulls me in, making my brain go blank. All I see are his eyes: one green, one blue. My body stops shaking, stops freaking, just stops. I hear my heart and my blood and that's it besides the hum of the refrigerator.

  “There,” he says, letting me go.

  He takes my hands and gives me a zap of happy. It fizzles out quickly, but at least I'm not going to destroy anything or kill anyone. Although, if that social worker smiles at me like she's on happy pills, I might smash her face into the floor. Or maybe whack her with a bedpan. I imagine it with satisfaction.

  “Okay, I'm ready.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Brooke

  Once again, I had to hide. Helena left me in a cave in the middle of the desert while she went to find Di. She hadn't made me promise to stay, and I had no intention of doing so. She couldn't tell me what to do.

  We'd left the road far behind us. No human could live out here. Helena ran quickly, but I was able to fly and catch up with her. I'd seen her mermaid tail and was convinced my wings were more useful.

  Di was waiting for her under a lone tree. She looked like she was on fire, with red hair and a bright red dress that hugged her like the fabric had been wrapped around her body and then sewed to her skin.