Immortal Mine (32 page)

“Are you saying most immortals don’t get
along?”

He smiles, his thumb lightly caressing the
side of my hand. “I’m saying most immortals are suspicious of one
another. Remember the bad ones I was telling you about before?”

I sigh, and turn my hand over, wrapping my
fingers around his hand. His eyes come to mine in question.

“I’m still not sure how to feel about all of
this, Sam. And even though I can kind of understand why you did
what you did, it doesn’t change the fact of what I had to go
through during the time I thought you were... I mean, couldn’t you
have given me some kind of warning? I don’t know if I’ve ever been
so terrified in my life—and that’s saying a lot since I’ve slept in
jungles with lions and other predators.”

He squeezes my hand lightly, the heat
between our hands intense.

“I will never forgive myself for what I made
you go through, Niahm, so if you can’t ever forgive me, I can’t
blame you. I should have tried to explain at least, though it would
only have made you believe I was crazy, and you still would have
thought I’d killed myself.”

I go back to when we first arrived at the
motel, and try to imagine how I would have reacted had he told me
he was immortal and then shot himself to prove it. He’s right; I
would not have believed him.

“It’s going to be hard to trust you again,”
I say.

“I know. And I understand. I hope you can
believe me when I tell you that I won’t ever lie to you again. I
can’t
lie to you, but even if I could, I wouldn’t. Not
now.”

I can feel that he’s being utterly honest,
and feel the tiniest portion of my anger slip away.

“I should get back,” I say. To my surprise,
he doesn’t argue. He stands and pulls me up by my hand that had
been resting on his arm, which he hasn’t released.

“Niahm, can I please...” he stutters, unsure
of himself. “I know it doesn’t mean anything to you, that it’s not
saying... but, please, can I please just hold you for a
minute?”

I consider refusing, just to see if I can,
but then I step forward and wrap my arms around his waist. His arms
close tightly around me, sheltering and safe, and for a few minutes
as we stand that way, swaying slightly, I pretend that all is right
with my world.

Sam rides back to the house with me, and
after brushing down the horses he leaves. I’ve been avoiding Jean
all morning. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do or say when I
see her.

Stacy came last night, and held me while I
cried. I knew she was frustrated by my refusal to tell her what was
wrong, but really, what could I say?
Hey, guess what, my
boyfriend shot himself today to prove he’s immortal. And, oh yeah,
my grandma is immortal also.
She left this morning when I told
her I needed to be alone. I’m feeling amazingly guilty over how
good a friend she is, and how much I’ve neglected her.

I walk into the house with a dejected Bob
trailing me. I don’t feel too sorry for him though. If the two or
three feathers hanging from his belly are any indication, he had
plenty of fun while I was away.

“Hi.”

I jump as Jean’s voice comes from the
backside of the kitchen table where she sits. I guess she’s trying
to be unobtrusive.

“Hi,” I say, unsure of how I feel about her.
Then, deciding I may as well get it over with, I pull out a chair
and sit down opposite her. I can’t miss the overflowing plate of
homemade cinnamon rolls sitting in the middle of the table,
especially as my growling stomach reminds me I haven’t eaten yet
today. I consider refusing them just on principal, but decide it
won’t help my pride if my stomach continues to protest loudly. I
drag a napkin from the holder, plopping a large roll on top after
taking a big bite.

“Are you okay?”

I glance up at her. There isn’t an easy
answer to her question, so I just shrug.

“Did Sam find you?”

I nod.

“Do you want to talk? Ask me some
questions?”

After swallowing another large bite, I say,
“I don’t know what questions to ask, because I’m not sure what all
I want to know.” A thought strikes me. “Can you lie to me?”

She smiles grimly. “He told you about that,
huh?” At my nod, she continues, “I’m still pretty new at this, so I
don’t really know exactly how it all works, but I believe the only
thing that prevents one from lying is being bound to another. I’m
assuming he told you about that, as well?”

There’s a slight edge to her voice, as if
she’s trying hard not to be angry at Sam herself.

“Yeah, he did. So, you’ve never been...
bound, I guess?” I grunt at the strangeness of this conversation.
That surreal feeling comes over me again.

“No.” She takes a cinnamon roll and bites it
before placing it on the napkin in front of her. “From what I
understand, it’s rare.”

That was what Sam had said. Or something
like that.

“How rare?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “I really don’t know,
Niahm. Sam or Shane might be able to answer you better than me.”
She pauses as she takes another bite. “You know, I’m furious with
him for telling you.”

“Really? Why?” I’m genuinely curious. Is she
just angry that I know about
her
?

“Because he has put you in danger.” Her
words surprise me.

“The Sentinels?” I guess. Her face changes
at my question, as she shoves away from the table, standing in the
same motion.

“He
told
you about them?” she
demands.

“Well, yeah,” I say. She stares at me for a
minute, jaw clenched before she sinks back down into her chair.

“He would,” she mutters.

“Shouldn’t you have?” I ask. “I mean, you’re
my grandma, you’re supposed to be watching out for me, right?”

Tears swim in her eyes, but never fall as
she answers me. “I wouldn’t have come back if I hadn’t found Beth’s
letter.” I raise my brows at her comment. “I would never have put
you in danger that way.”

“But you’re here now. You put me in danger
by coming here, right?” I’m mostly guessing but her guilty look
tells me I hit it right on the head.

“I couldn’t ignore her final plea. It was
hard enough ignoring her pleas while she was alive.”

“Yeah, but you managed to ignore them,” I
spit out. “What’s different now?”

She takes another bite of her roll before
answering.

“She included a picture of you once, when
you were maybe five or so.” She glances up at me, holds my look. “I
saw your eyes.”

“So you came back to see if I am... like
you?”

“Yes,” she says, and at my dropped jaw,
adds, “and no.”

“Do I want to know what that means?” I
mutter.

“Of course I was curious, but I could have
easily waited until I heard of your death before coming back to
see.”

“But?” I ask when she pauses, her words
hanging on an unfinished thought.

“But mostly I wanted to meet my
granddaughter. I knew that you wouldn’t know me, that I could come
and look the way I do, and not have you question it.”

“Look young, you mean,” I say.

“Yes.”

“I noticed your dark roots before. But I
couldn’t find any rational explanation, so I convinced myself I was
crazy.”

Jean smiled. “I don’t know if I just got
lazy at keeping up the scheme, or if I subconsciously wanted you to
figure it out,” she says.

“I doubt I would have figured it out,” I
argue. “Who could possibly imagine such an explanation?”

She shrugs, taking another bite of her roll,
which I mirror.

“How did you, uh, die, I guess?” I ask.

A pained look crosses her face, and she sets
the roll that she had just lifted to her mouth back down without
taking a bite.

“That’s a long story,” she says quietly.

“I’ve got time,” I say, leaning back in my
chair as if to prove it.

“Stubborn like your mother,” she says.
“Alright, I’ll tell you.”

I lean forward again, surprised. I really
didn’t think she’d capitulate.

“You have to understand that there were a
lot of things that your mother wasn’t aware of,” she began. “My
husband wasn’t who she thought he was. He was a great father, I’ll
give him that. But he wasn’t a great husband.”

She clears her throat, stands and crosses to
the fridge, where she pulls out two bottles of water which she
brings back to the table, setting one in front of me. “He tried, he
really did. But he just couldn’t love me in the way I wanted to be
loved. When he was a boy, he’d been... ” She glances up at me,
looking as if she’s debating how much to tell me. When I don’t say
anything, she sighs and continues. “He’d been molested by an adult
relative.”

I gasp at her words. She couldn’t have
surprised me more had she confessed her secondary ability to
fly.

“It went on for quite some time, and it
really messed with his head.”

“Well, duh,” is my brilliant response.

“He could be a great father, and love his
daughter to no end, because it was an entirely platonic
relationship. With me, it was different of course.” She grimaces at
the painful memories. “For the first year of our marriage, he
really made an attempt to have a normal relationship. But I could
always feel the hesitancy, the wall that he put up whenever I came
near. Eventually, he quit trying. I found out shortly after that I
was pregnant. We only had one child because after I became a
mother, he told me that he couldn’t be my husband any longer. When
he told me why, I thought that maybe if I loved him enough, I could
change him.”

She shifts uncomfortably in her chair. “I
convinced him to stay. And he did, because he loved his daughter,
and I think he even loved me a little—just not as a husband should
love his wife. Weeks of waiting for him turned into months, and
then years. I was lonely. I felt like a failure, as if I were
undesirable and unwanted. I became depressed.”

She glances up at me again, then stands and
walks to the sink, where she picks up a lone plate and begins to
wash it. She rubs the soapy cloth against the porcelain for far
longer than necessary, her back to me.

“I knew that if I left him, he wouldn’t
blame me. But because I had let so much time go by without seeking
help, the depression was deeply rooted. So I got into the tub one
day, slit my wrists, and waited to die.”

A shudder of shock runs through me at her
nonchalant narrative. She was
suicidal
? When I say nothing,
unable to speak as my mind tries to make sense of her actions, she
turns my way.

“When I woke up, I was lying in a deep pool
of blood, weak from the loss, but alive.”

“What if my mom had come in and found you?”
I demand.

“She wouldn’t have,” Jean says. “She was
gone away to camp for the week. I wanted
him
to find me, to
know what he’d driven me to.” She shakes her head. “I was not in a
good frame of mind, Niahm. It’s hard to understand unless you’ve
been there.”

I swallow over the lump in my throat, trying
to push back the feelings of betrayal on behalf of my young mother
who would have been left motherless.

“So what made you think you were immortal?”
I ask, not exactly kindly.

“I didn’t. Not then. I thought God had
spared me for some reason. I didn’t want to be spared, though, so I
took several bottles of pills a few days later. All that resulted
in was a lot of vomiting and horrible stomach cramps. So I walked
down to the cliff—the same one that the car went over—and jumped.
When I woke from that, I was sore everywhere, covered with bruises,
but still not dead.”

I shake my head, wanting to stop her words.
I’ve heard enough. I lift my hand as she says, “A few days after
that, I took his gun—”

“Stop!” I yell, coming to my feet. Her words
immediately bring remembrance of Sam and his own gun, and I
definitely
don’t want to hear this part. “No more,” I
whisper, sympathy for her plight cutting me. “I get it. You kept
trying to commit suicide, but couldn’t. I don’t need any more
details.
Please
.”

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes. “I didn’t mean
to upset you.”

“Really?” I scoff. “You didn’t think it
would upset me to know that my grandmother was suicidal? In the
extreme
?”

“I ... I didn’t think that part through, I
suppose,” she stutters.

“Must be some kind of immortal shortcoming,
not thinking things through,” I mutter. “I just don’t know why I
have to be the one who pays for it.”

“Did Sam—”

“No,” I interrupt her abruptly again. “No,
you don’t get to bring Sam into this side of it,” I say, feeling
nauseated.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, and she actually
sounds sincere. “I just wanted you to see that it wasn’t a fluke
that I figured it out so quickly. I mean, relatively quickly
compared to most immortals from the stories I’ve heard. I should
have figured it out much sooner.”