For Ever (32 page)

He will be here for
ever
.

At lunch, I have to make a decision, which
turns out to be harder than I thought. Do I turn my back on my
friends, who invited me to eat with them when I arrived in Oregon
not knowing a single person? Or do I pretend Ever doesn’t exist and
join my friends? My last option is to force these two worlds
together, which makes me more than a little bit anxious.

Once we’ve gone through the line, Ever
releases my hand, giving me the choice. I take back his hand and
squash the rush of fear and dread as we begin walking toward my
friends’ table. I stop when we get there.

“Hey.” I wave, grinning to the point of
absurdity. “Guys, this is Ever.”

It’s not like they don’t already know this,
but what else am I supposed to say? Ever smiles serenely.

“Hello.”

This one word silences everyone. Several
seconds pass before I start getting really nervous.

“So, you
can
talk!” Lindsay exclaims.
“
Awesome
!”

Ever smiles again, and the tension begins to
ebb. We sit down. Slowly, everyone starts talking again. I smile
when Taylor, who’s sitting on Ever’s other side, quietly asks him
how he likes Portland. Leave it to the shiest person to be the
bravest, I think dryly. When I see Josh glaring at Ever, I have the
urge to kick him under the table. Not that long ago, Josh had been
totally blind to Taylor’s adoration, and now he’s feeling
defensive? I could strangle him. Ever reaches down and takes my
hand, which is clenched into the fist I want to punch Josh with.
Twining our fingers together, he sets our hands on the table.

From this small amount of contact, a sudden
craving races through me, strong enough to make me wish with all my
being that Ever and I were alone right now. Blushing, I try to
ignore the heat that’s spreading out from his touch. As I recover
my self-control, I’m tempted to stick out my tongue at Josh for
being such a dope. Ultimately his girlfriend may have been the only
girl at Springview High School who didn’t have a crush on Ever—she
was too preoccupied by Josh.

“So, Ever,” Lindsay says coyly, leaning
forward, “are you going to convince Wren to go to the dance next
month, or what?”

She turns to me and sticks out her
tongue.

“If she agrees to go with me, we’ll be
there.”

I squeeze his hand in warning. In return,
Ever turns to me and smiles artlessly.

***

In the same way I have always hated Sundays,
Fridays have always been a welcome beginning to the coming
weekend.

This Friday is different. And it arrived
faster than I was prepared for. While I’ve been looking forward to
my first real date with Ever, the thought of meeting his “family”
is making me sick to my stomach. Seated in the passenger seat of
Ever’s car, I’ve been concentrating so fiercely on not having a
meltdown that the moment Ever reaches over and touches my hand, I
almost fly out of my seat. It’s a good thing that the seatbelt
restrains me, because the car is still moving toward the
inescapable. As we pull off onto the nearly invisible road hidden
in the trees, I know that the house—
his
house—is going to
appear in a matter of moments.

From a curve in the road, I get a glimpse of
the glass paneling, like a wall of silver under the cloud cover. It
reminds me of the glassy waters along Pacific Coast Highway during
the drive to Pali. Parked in front of the house, there’s a familiar
mortar-proof black SUV, as well as a silver sports car, and another
sedan, this one in British racing green.

“Do you all play the lottery compulsively or
something?” I mutter.

“Wealth is easy to accumulate given enough
time,” Ever says evenly.

“It can’t hurt to read minds and never
sleep,” I point out with a sly grin.

He laughs as we pull up beside the other
vehicles and stop. Suddenly my brain is on fire from fear and
stress again. It had never occurred to me once that Ever might have
been anxious in the least about meeting my mom. For one, he seemed
so calm. And, two, why would he be nervous meeting mere mortals?
Me, I feel like I’m about to climb Mount Olympus to meet the gods.
Ever looks down at me, his expression uneasy for the first time
since we left my house.

“No one is going to harm you,” he says,
taking my hand.

I remember when he told me that fear and
other strong emotions tend to disrupt his ability to read people’s
thoughts, but this proves it. I’m not afraid the others are going
to hurt me—not now while I’m with Ever, anyway.

I sigh and shake my head.

“I just know I’m not about to win a
popularity contest,” I whisper.

“I like you well enough, for a human.”

My eyes dart to the front of the house where
Chasen is standing at the door, his arms crossed, looking like a
sentry. He wasn’t there a moment ago; I know that. He’s dressed
casually in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. With my mental wall
firmly in place, I meet his stare head on.

“You could have fooled me.”

“Hmm, well, I like you more now,” he says
with a broad grin. “Ever, she’s either brave or exceptionally—”

Ever shoots him a sharp look, and Chasen
stops short with a laugh. A familiar female voice interrupts his
amusement.

“I, too, have to give you more credit for
sustaining Ever’s attention.”

I shake my head in surprise when I see Audra
is now beside Chasen. Looking up at Ever, I notice that he seems
far from happy about her instantaneous materialization. If
possible, I now feel even tinier and less significant with Audra in
sight. Her hair-raisingly sky-high black peep-toed heels accentuate
her Amazonian stature. And with her long golden hair swept back
from her face and a pale blue silk dress setting off the bright
cerulean of her eyes, she is awe-inspiring. She looks like she just
stepped from a magazine cover. I feel underdressed and plain, even
wearing my nicest outfit, a black dress that swishes above my
knees. I also borrowed my mom’s wool coat. For our “date,” Ever
said I could dress any way I liked, but knowing he would look
perfect whether he tried to or not, I decided to branch out beyond
denim for once. And Audra still makes me look like a peasant
girl.

“Relax, brother,” she says cheerfully to
Ever. “We haven’t scared her too terribly.”

Had she intimidated me out of my mind,
though? Definitely. I smile at Ever to show him that I’m a big
girl, despite the distinct feeling that I just drank from the same
size-reducing potion that Alice found when she fell down the rabbit
hole into Wonderland. Walking up the stone steps leading to the
house, I see water streaming down marble aqueducts running along
the sides of the staircase. The front door, like the rest of the
house, is mostly glass, but in contrast to the last time I was
here, there’s warm light shining through from the interior.
Glancing behind us, I see Audra and Chasen silently bring up the
rear. I feel only the slightest trepidation having them at my
heels, but my relative lack of fear hinges heavily upon Ever’s
earlier assurances, and the fact that he hasn’t let go of my
hand.

Until I have a better idea of their true
intentions toward me—in the absence of Ever’s caveat that they’re
not allowed to squash me like a bug—I’m going to treat them the
same way I would a bear or large cat at the zoo. With the utmost
caution and deference. The fact that I got into a vehicle alone
with Chasen—and then teased him—makes me feel like a world-class
idiot. Unconsciously, I reach up and touch the pendant Ever gave
me. During his brief absence it became my talisman. It still
is.

Passing through the foyer, I see that the
house is even larger than I imagined at first. The interior walls
are cream colored, offset by the dark, highly glossed wood floors
and abstract paintings everywhere. I recognize the style
immediately. I stop and stare, feeling like I’m wandering through a
museum after hours.

“Beautiful,” I whisper.

Ever gently tugs me down the wide hallway
until it branches off into a large living room. The sight of a man
standing at the fireplace—and a woman on the couch—jars me. The
man, whose wavy black hair is short and neat, has warm, chocolate
brown eyes with a familiar glow. Like the others, he’s taller than
average, though not nearly as tall as Ever. He’s dressed the way I
would imagine a high-level executive dresses on the weekends. I’m
shocked to realize that he doesn’t appear that much older, if at
all, than the others. Somehow, I had been expecting to meet Ever’s
father. The woman, who’s about the same age as the man, is slightly
paler than the others. Her wide silvery blue eyes complement her
flowing mane of fiery red hair.

My prosaic concept of their family unit was
way off. These people can’t be Ever’s parents. The man walks toward
us, smiling widely.

“It is wonderful to finally meet you, Wren,”
he says, reaching out to take my hand. He holds it in his for
several moments. His skin, like Ever’s, is coursing with heat, but
I don’t feel the same shock at his touch. “My name is Alistair. And
this is Persephone.”

Once I recover from the shock of his
introduction, it comforts me in a weird way that all of them have
unusual names. It’s a miniscule thing we have in common, but I’ll
take what I can get. I smile back at him.

“It’s nice to meet you both.”

“You must have many questions, Wren,”
Persephone says taking my hand in hers briefly.

“So many I can’t really keep track.”

I blink. The fact that this just came out of
my mouth startles me. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

“Don’t sweat it, Wren. Not even we can hold
our tongues around Effie.”

I jump at the sound of Chasen’s voice, having
forgotten he and Audra were hovering behind us.

“Do all of you have superhero powers like
Ever?”

Chasen snorts.

Superhero powers
? Really? Did I just
say that?

“Wren, we’re being rude.” Persephone casts a
glance behind me. “Why don’t you come sit?”

She gestures gracefully toward the enormous
sofas to our right, and I take a seat beside Ever as the others
settle across from us. Watching them, I have an almost irresistible
urge to take a photograph. If I had a camera, I would. Seated
together, the four of them look like a work of art. Then it dawns
on me that they’ve probably been together as a—clan, platoon, unit,
family?—longer than I can imagine. It is more than likely that Ever
has already painted this scene before.

“To answer your question, Wren: yes. Like
Ever—and you—each of us has strengths that go beyond normal human
capacity,” Alistair says.

Audra’s eyes narrow, and Chasen abruptly sits
forward from his relaxed position. I blanch as Alistair looks over
at them. This is bad.

“Ever was right to keep it from you,” he says
evenly.

“What
right
does he have?” Audra
snaps, her cool façade evaporating. “
We
are family. She is
nothing to us.”

Before I can perceive his movement, Ever is
standing, his entire frame vibrating with tension. A snarl rises
from his throat, and I feel a shock of true dread that I had never
experienced, even when my parents were yelling at each other.

“Speak that way of her again, and you are
nothing to me,” Ever says.

His voice is too quiet, deadly. I watch
catatonically as Audra’s face ripples with astonishment, then
unease, and finally hurt. Chasen places a large hand on her
shoulder, but she shakes him off. Rising, she glides fluidly toward
us. Ever shadows her movement, blocking her clear path to me. I’m
too frightened to move.

“After all this time, can you not trust me?”
Audra says quietly.

Ever slowly moves aside, but rests a hand on
my shoulder as she kneels in front of me.

“Wren, forgive me. These four in this room
are my existence. Without them, I am alone. You are the first
change to visit us in longer than you can imagine. Still, if Ever
welcomes you, then I must as well.”

She stands and then evaporates into thin
air.

“Your girl is still breathing. That’s a good
thing,” Chasen says, breaking some of the icy chill that’s frozen
the air. “Wren, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got damage control to
do.”

He smiles wryly, and then he, too,
evaporates.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble.

Ever laughs, but the sound is not amused.

“Wren, you have nothing to apologize for,”
Alistair says. “I should have offered them some forewarning. It was
my error in waiting until now.”

Then I remember Ever saying that he was
still
hiding me.

“But if they didn’t know about me, then how
did you?” I ask uncertainly.

Alistair smiles.

“I couldn’t be sure until I held your hand in
mine.” He looks at Ever. “Ever had done an excellent job in
concealing you.”

“But why?” I ask, turning to Ever, who is
sitting next to me on the sofa like nothing happened.

“There was too great a risk of Audra or
Chasen committing an impulsive act before I had a chance to
explain.”

I swallow. He means before they could kill
me. Alistair says my name, and I look up.

“Would you like to know more about us? It
might help to dispel some uncertainty.”

I nod. Ready or not, I am going all the way
down the rabbit hole.

Most of Alistair’s explanations involving
black holes, infinitely tiny loops of vibrating string, and
different dimensions are way too complicated for me to absorb in
one sitting, or more likely even in one lifetime. What I do
understand is this: the universe is made up of more than the three
dimensions of space—and time—that traditional science has
identified.

There are more than eleven dimensions, all of
which humankind has yet to produce proof of, Alistair said. And
things that I had been pretty sure were fictional—ghosts,
apparitions, spirits—are real. They simply exist in a space beyond
human perception, with the exception of disembodied voices and
ghostly forms—things that go bump in the night. These are the
echoes of those trapped in other dimensions. Ever and the others,
he explained, straddle the dimensional gap, as hybrids of human
traits and those that fall outside the realm of reality as I
understood it before tonight.