Brave (Healer) (18 page)

             
Rose laughs, ‘I don’t know exactly. He called me and I turned the car around. You’ll need to ask him that.’

             
I feel nervous at the thought of seeing him again and I’m not sure if he’ll want things to work out after the way I’ve treated him. I’ve messed him around since the day I met him. Kissing him and teasing him then sobbing in his arms and going on and on about Gabe. Yet he was there for me no matter what. He held me even if I wasn’t ready to hold him back.

             
‘And what’s the deal with Oliver? With June?’ I am fishing for information about why Oliver hates being a wolf. It’s the only thing I haven’t figured out about him.

             
‘My Aunty June is a witch too but she married a werewolf, my Uncle James, and gave up her powers when she was about my age to live a normal life with them. Their best friends were Oliver’s parents. They were a close knit group but Oliver’s mum died a few years after he was born and his dad and my Uncle James got involved in this wolf gang stuff. Eventually it got them both killed so June was left to look after Oliver. She always wanted kids but my Uncle James and Oliver’s dad were so stupid fooling around with gangs... I guess that’s why Oliver is so down on himself about being a werewolf because at the end of the day it killed his dad and my Uncle James.’

             
The fact that Oliver can still stay strong and happy and, well, like Oliver always is through all that pain and suffering is incredible. Rose and Oliver are inspirations. They have experienced the worst possible pain; they lost their family and ultimately they were left alone to fend for themselves but they made it work. They were brave and they fought to become the amazing people that they are. I hope that I can be half as inspirational as they are.

             
I should be weighed down with all this new information but by the time we reach Oliver’s house again I have never felt lighter.

FIFTEEN

              It’s midnight, it’s freezing cold and Oliver is still out doing whatever werewolves do when we arrive. Rose and I go to the cabin where I’ve slept every for the past month. It feels strange and unfamiliar to me now although I was here only just this morning watching Oliver get dressed maybe it’s because he’s not here with me.

             
‘You should get some sleep, Cass,’ Rose strokes my hair and kisses my forehead. I loved Rose before but after learning about her past, about her truths, I can’t help but feel the bond between us grow even stronger. I know what it’s like to lose a parent, to feel like an outcast and to hate what you are because it has destroyed everyone you love. Oliver, Rose and I all have that in common but at the end of the day our differences might have made our lives worse in some ways but we have been able to help the people we love too. If I wasn’t a Healer, who knows what would happen to Shannon? I might have saved her and if Rose and Oliver didn’t have their unique powers then I definitely wouldn’t be standing here right now. Our differences might seem like flaws at times but they have the power to be wonderful too.

             
‘I’m not tired,’ I say which translates as I want to wait for Oliver to come back. I’m desperate to see him. I think about how hurt his eyes had looked when I saw him as a wolf. I hope I can convince him that what I feel is real. I want to kiss him and be with him without him worrying that I will leave him in a heartbeat.

             
Rose sighs, ‘Well, I am. Will you be okay in here?’

             
The truth is I’m not so sure if I will be okay alone now that I know there could be hundreds of vampires lusting after my blood. I know the protection spell must be good enough to keep me safe or Oliver and Rose wouldn’t leave me alone here but I’m human enough to still feel scared but I do what I think is the right thing and tell her I am fine and she should go to bed. After such a long, tiresome day the last thing she needs to hear is that I am terrified about what might happen next. I don’t want her to worry about me too.

             
She leaves and I try to fall asleep but it’s pointless. This day has been mentally exhausting. So much new knowledge has fallen upon me and there a fresh emotions bubbling on the surface that I’m not quite sure what to do with. I am waiting for Oliver to come back from being a werewolf and wondering what I will say to him when he does.

             
I see the sun come up and Oliver still isn’t here. I start to think that he has already came home but didn’t want to see me. I had assumed that when he got back he would come straight to talk to me but maybe after the way I acted this morning he won’t want to see me. I was pretty horrible to Rose, not to mention I treated him like shit. Maybe he’s had enough of consoling me every night and waiting for me to be ready to let him in fully. He has been amazing with me so far but maybe even Oliver has his flaws and maybe patience isn’t one of his virtues.

             
After a lot of thinking I am about to give up hope on Oliver, not just on him coming in this morning but on the idea of him and I altogether, then he waltzes in in a pair of low rise jeans and no top. His ripped body is magnificent but it’s his sweet face that catches my eye. He doesn’t look angry at me and for that I’m relieved but there is sadness in his eyes. ‘Hi,’ he says and I can’t say anything, I run into his arms and nuzzle my face into his rain speckled bare skin. It’s cold and hard against my face but it feels amazing.

             
‘Don’t be scared. Rose and I are going to kick these vampires butts,’ he smiles down at me. I am still at a loss for words and I am in such adoration of that face that I can’t do anything but kiss him. I push my lips against his wet, bare chest and then kiss his stubbled neck and then I make my way to his lips and he doesn’t stop me like he usually does. He gives in and we kiss for a lifetime and our kisses say all of the things our words cannot. I kiss him hard to tell him that it’s him and it will always be him. He drags me onto the bed and softly kisses my neck to tell me he’ll never leave me like Gabe did.

             
‘This is... great, Oliver, but maybe we should discuss a few things,’ I say as he runs his tongue and his lips down my neck.

             
He looks up and cups my face in his large hands. How could I have ever doubted this? How could I ever have envisioned a life without him? Oliver has given me a hundred more reasons to love him than Gabe ever did. ‘What do you want to talk about?’ he asks.

             
‘Well, how about how horrible I was this morning? To Rose, to you...’

             
‘You were upset,’ he runs the back of his fingers up and down my arm which is lulling me away from the serious matter at hand. I wish he wasn’t being so nice to me after the way I treated them.

             
I press one of my cheeks against his cool skin and he continues to stroke my arm lovingly, ‘I was just awful, Oliver, and you are so lovely to me. I don’t deserve how amazing you’ve been to me and I don’t just mean today. I mean always. No matter how crap I am to you you stay... you.’

             
Oliver sighs, ‘Cassie, stop beating yourself up. Since you’ve came here all you’ve done is blame yourself for all the bad things that have happened in your life but you know what? Sometimes bad stuff just happens to good people.’

             
‘You’re right so why do you do it?’

             
‘What?’

             
‘You blame yourself for your dad dying and...’

             
His body turns frigid and he pulls away from me. ‘I don’t want to talk about that, Cassie, this isn’t about that.’

             
I reach out to him and run my fingers across his shoulders. He’s right. This isn’t the right time to bring up his past when our present is so difficult to deal with but at some point we are going to have to talk about the fact that he hates himself. He needs to stop blaming himself for what happened to his dad and Rose’s Uncle James and I need to stop blaming myself for everything: my mum dying, my dad’s unhappiness, Gabe’s troubles, Maurice being after everyone I love. Sometimes bad things happen to people who don’t deserve it and it isn’t anybody’s fault. We just have to pick up the pieces and look at what we have left.

             
‘Don’t be mad at me please,’ I kiss his cheek softly. I always think about how much I need him to comfort me and get me through the hurt but I forget that love is a two-way street and sometimes Oliver will need me to console him and heal his pain.

             
‘I’m not mad, Cassie, just I don’t think now is a good time to be talking about my fucked up past,’ he says quietly and I nod in reply.

             
I decide to change the topic quickly, ‘How did you know? How did you know how to find me?’

             
‘When you left yesterday, I was a mess. I haven’t been that upset for a long, long time. I’ve learned to cope with all the shit, my parents dying, being stuck up here alone turning into a bloody dog once a month but today... Hearing you say you hate me, watching you get so cut up about Gabe and knowing there was no way I could make the pain go away, God, it killed me. All I ever want to do is make you feel happy, Cassie, and seeing you drive away in such a mess was the worst. I came in here and I just cried like a baby then I saw this...’

             
Oliver pulls the magic bracelet out of his jeans and holds it up to my face. It’s Rose’s magical bracelet that would keep me safe. The one that I stared at hopefully when the vampires were beckoning at my door. ‘I found this and I picked it up and I cried some more because I thought I lost you forever. I thought you’d never be over Gabe and never fall in love with me,’ he puts it back down and looks at me with his sad eyes. He wipes a tear off my cheek and smiles weakly at me.

             
‘And I realised that’s all I wanted. Looking at this stupid bracelet I realised that I fell in love with all our stupid games, your killer body, your sparkly blue eyes, your amazing kisses... I fell in love with waking up with you in my arms every morning and feeling your breath against me. I fell in love with how brave you are even though you’ve had the hardest year ever. I have completely fallen in love you and I just want you to love me back so I put this in my pocket and I got in my car and I started to drive to your house.’

             
‘Oliver...’ I want to tell him that I love him too and that I fell in love with waking up in his arms too and playing our silly childish games and our kisses but he places his finger against my lips to stop me from speaking.

             
‘I started driving then I felt it,’ he holds up the bracelet again. ‘I felt you were in trouble so I called Rose and as soon as there was a glimpse of the full moon I abandoned my car and I turned into my wolf form and I ran to your house as fast as I could.’

             
How do you thank somebody who risks their life to say yours? I open my mouth to speak but shut it again as there are no words to describe how grateful I am that this charming man walked into my life. Rose did a good job of picking my babysitter. I don’t know what kind of state I would be in if Oliver wasn’t around to help.

             
‘So here I am and I’m telling you what I wanted to tell you before those leeches attacked you today. I love you, Cassie Mueller. I love how reckless you are in life and love and I know it’s difficult for you to trust anybody after getting hurt by Gabe but you have to understand that I will
never
hurt you. I will be there for you every morning and every night and I will wipe away your tears and I will try to make you laugh and I will love you if you don’t love me and I will you if you do. I’m not like him,’ he kisses my forehead lightly then kisses away a tear of joy that has rolled down my face. It seems foreign to me that I am capable of crying from happiness anymore.

             
I take a deep breath and I think about a heartfelt speech to give him but decide to keep it simple. I always complicated things with Gabe. I always wanted the situation to be more than what it was and intensified it to a dangerous extent so with Oliver I want things to be exactly how they are. No complications, no frills and add ons. I just say, ‘I love you.’ That’s enough.

             
We kiss and kiss but neither of us have slept so we are exhausted and fall asleep in each other’s arms. The last thing I remember before drifting off to sleep is Oliver whispering that he loves me one more time and kissing my forehead and I feel like this exactly how my life should be.

             
We wake up in the afternoon and Oliver can’t stop smiling. It feels amazing to know that it is me that is putting that boyish grin on his face. I wish things could always be this simple but there are major problems to talk about like even if we get rid of Maurice there are now hundreds of vampires after me and my blood. Once Maurice is gone I am going to have to spend my whole life hiding from the vampires. I can never return to a normal life with my family; they will never be safe from the fanged monsters. I thought Maurice was the beginning and the end of my problems.