Lightning Kissed (24 page)

No, that wasn’t right at all.

Because I would choose to run.

Cowards run.

Collin and Theo walked the grounds during
the day. Ari joked about them having a bromance. But I was grateful
for it. Collin seemed to be the only person Theo would talk to
about it all.

He certainly wouldn’t talk to me.

THE
EIDOLON, SHOULD ANOTHER BE BORN, SHALL ANSWER TO THE SYNOD.

Sitting outside the window of the bedroom, I
let all the information settle deep down in my chest. Everyone
wanted something from me—everyone. The Synod or the Resin, they
were one in the same, wanted me as their own living key to carry
around, attached to a blood red string around their necks. They’d
stick me into their noxious smelling chests, rotting from the
inside out not from disease but because of their dung pile of sins
against their own people. They’d pull me out and unlock the door,
take what they need from heaven and then come back out, more
powerful and more rotten than ever before.

The stained glass window was open behind me.
Through it, I could hear her wrestling around in her sleep.

I regretted showing her my gifts.

If I was any kind of decent person—any kind
of decent man, I would’ve kept my mouth shut. I would’ve let her be
separated from me. She would’ve been safer that way. If I could
take it all back, I thought maybe I would.

As I watched her, I took inventory of her
marked changed appearance in just the past couple of days. Her skin
was pale and the crescents that hung below her eyes shone like
glittery blue moons as the beginnings of the sunrise settled on
them. Colby was usually pale, but this was the pale of someone on
the edge of sickly.

She hadn’t been sleeping. I’d woken at all
times of the night, the voices becoming too overbearing to sleep
through, even with her touch and when I did, she was always awake.
On the rare occasion that she was asleep, she remained in a sitting
position.

She was stuck here, taking care of me.

Already I was robbing her of her life.

Aside from Colby’s deteriorating outer
shell, she’d lost her fire.

That’s what scared me the most. Her voice
had evolved into something timid. She no longer argued with me at
every turn. She was the first to give in.

Something about this short but trying
journey had stripped her of her vitality.

Pema had informed me with a solemn tone that
the only way to seal the door between Heaven and the Earth was from
the inside—and I was the key. Apparently, it was an easy process.
All I had to do was travel to Heaven and wish for the door to be
closed—more mind over matter bullcrap.

Our souls would still be able to transcend
to
Paraíso
, but the Synod would not be able to access it
through anyone, anymore, even if there was another Eidolon. My
action would be finite.

So would every future I’d dreamed of for
Colby and me.

It all seemed like an easy choice from
another perspective. I could see it. Anyone could. What’s his
problem? All he has to do is give up his life, close the portal and
be a hero etched in time and the histories for generations to come.
He’d give up one life to save thousands.

The Synod would be glorified hall monitors
without their bigger plans of world domination.

But in my own eyes, I was saving thousands
and giving up the only other life that was more precious to me than
my own.

I found myself asking the Almighty why so
many times. Finally, I’d gotten Colby back and I was being forced
to give her up. That’s what I had to do. I had to give her up.

It was like she was already gone.

My chest already felt the void.

The rest of the morning was spent soaking
her up. The way she slept with her hands pressed together in prayer
on the side of her face.

She owned me. From the time she said she
hated checkers, her heart wrapped a chain around mine that would
never be broken. I would be happily chained to her regardless of
the constraints of time or place. I would love her in Heaven or in
Hell and everywhere between and beyond.

She stirred as my mind finally deferred to
the only decision that carried any honor. Her lithe arms breezed
over the space next to her, seeking me. It would be a while after I
disappeared before she slept well, I knew that about her. She’d
wrack her brain, trying to find a way to get me out.

But finally she would relent to a life
without me and then move on.

“You’re up,” she said with her raspy morning
voice.

“I am. You slept.”

She confirmed with a nod, tousling her
matted hair. A piece had plastered itself to the side of her face.
She swung her legs over the bed and I panicked. Her getting out of
the bed meant the real beginning of the day—the beginning of our
last day.

“No, not yet.” I halted her with my hand
extended. “Just stay here for a while.”

She smiled and scooted back against the
headboard. “You’re too far away.”

I could do this. I could go back if just for
this blip in time and be the person I used to be. I could be the
Theo that made her moan my name and create hues of love in her
wake. That’s what she would be from now on. She would live in the
wake of what I was until she died—until she joined me in the
beyond. She’d always been my lightning, the light in my storm and
now she’d be the lightning in my wake.

“I found you those, outside the house. I
hope Pema doesn’t mind too much,” I gestured toward a vase on her
bedside table filled with every color rose I could find. She looked
over at them and smiled, a still sleepy smile that would rival the
sun.

“They’re beautiful, thank you.”

I found my way to the bed and slunk in
beside her. She wasted no time in laying her head on my chest. We
stayed like that for a while. I closed my eyes and branded my
memory with the feel of her like this.

“Can I ask you something?” I prompted the
conversation I wanted to have.

“Duh,” she answered and it made me happy to
hear her nearer to her former self.

“If all this hadn’t happened, would we still
be apart?”

She froze next to me. “I’d love to say yes.
I really would. I—I never stopped loving you, Theo. I thought if I
got too close, when you eventually realized how much of a foul up I
was, that I would be the one left hurting. And then after you left
I’d be left without you.”

“You think I’d leave you?”

“I don’t think there would be a choice.
Listen Theo, there are some things I need to say.”

She sat up, but pressed her hand to my chest
when I attempted to mimic her action. Her chest rose and fell
several times—whatever she was about to tell me would be profound.
It wasn’t often that Colby prepped herself for anything.

In fact, she often goaded me for thinking
too long before I spoke.

“Theo, do you remember when you kissed me
under the boardwalk?”

I nodded. She looked so serious, and it was
all I could do to abstain from grabbing her back down to me and
kissing her senseless.

“That day, I told my mom everything. She
said, ‘Don’t pass those lips around to everyone, Colby.’ She was
joking mostly. I answered her, ‘Mom, it’s Theo. I’m never gonna
kiss anyone else anyway. I might as well get started.’”

She floored me in the best way possible. Her
words were spoken so fast, like she was trying to get them out in a
hurry before she lost her nerve.

“I didn’t know that. Tell me something
else.”

I shouldn’t have demanded it from her, but I
needed it—craved whatever she had to give me.

It would have to last a long time.

The apples of her cheeks emblazoned and she
picked at the corner of the pillow nearest her. “Last year, I made
a delivery to a place in Milan. I ended up staying about a week
because Ari loves to shop there. We walked into this obscure little
dress shop. There was a table right smack in the middle of the
place, and dresses were hung on every wall. Five older ladies sat
around the table, laughing and talking in Italian. You know what
they were doing?”

“What.” I sat up and pulled her closer. I
felt like she was on the cusp of telling me something really
intimate. Our legs intertwined, but it felt like every cell in my
body meshed with hers.

“They were all hand-sewing wedding dresses.
It took them eight months to get one done. Eight months. They were
finishing up the one they were working on then. We were just
gawking at them, like idiots, when they looked up and before I knew
it I was in the back, stripped down, with five measuring tapes
practically molesting me.”

She danced around it. Anyone could figure
out what she was talking about, but it wasn’t enough. I had to take
advantage of her, and I knew just how to do it.

“There’s no one else here,
Querida
.
It’s just me. Say what you need to say.
Eu te amo
.” I calmed
her with a soothing tone and a matching touch.

“I had my wedding dress commissioned that
day.”

My heart flat lined at her confession. “Why
would you do that?”

That remark sparked something in her.
“Because I knew. I didn’t know when and I didn’t know how, but
there was just so long I could stay away from you, Theo. I’ve never
been able to escape you completely.”

A swift knock at the door interrupted the
cloud she had me in.

“Come in,” she called out, but never broke
our gaze.

Ari floated into the doorway and struck a
Shakespearian damsel in distress pose.

“Collin says he knows something. He’s all
weird and broody. He’s really hot when he gets like that. Anyway,
he’s been pacing the floors for a couple of hours. It woke me up at
the ass crack of dawn. And also, Pema has called your phone about
as many times as Collin has thrown his hands in the air—which is
like every five seconds. I didn’t even know Robes knew how to use a
phone. So, speed along the make-out fest before I nut-punch the hot
Viking—please.”

Ari had never been one to handle things
smoothly.

“We’ll be there in a second.”

Ari shut the door with a knowing grin.
Before I lost my chance, I grabbed Colby to me and squeezed her as
hard as I could without breaking her. I inhaled the cinnamon
lavender scent of her hair. She gasped when I walked my fingers up
the back of her leg to the place I knew she liked best and kneaded
the muscles there. Her hands grabbed mine and guided them to her
face. Her eyes told me there was something lingering that she
needed to tell me.

“Theo, I love you. I don’t want anything
else to happen to us without you knowing that. No holding me down,
no forcing it out of me. I love you.”

I leaned forward to kiss her temple, the
part of her where I acknowledged my utmost honor and respect for
her and everything that she was.

“I love you Colby—more than time and
space.”

We heard something break in the other room
and it smashed any hope I had of continuing what Ari called our
make-out fest.

“Let’s get dressed before they break each
other,” Colby sighed. We threw on clothes quickly and bounded
downstairs.

Pema was in the living room, pleading about
something with Collin—who had one hand cupped around Ari’s head
like it was a basketball. Ari’s arms were flailing about and
clawing at Collin’s arm, trying to break free. If I hadn’t been so
concerned, it would’ve been comical.

“What’s going on?” I asked firmly. I meant
for it to come out loud and demanding, but instead it sounded
more—pitiful.

“Pema says she’s gotten someone to help us.
But she says it’s going to hurt you and now I’m gonna hurt
her!”

Ari began a new, more furious version of her
previous rampage and even Collin couldn’t resist laughing.

“Wait, Ari. Pema, what did you do?”

“He should be here soon. I didn’t know what
else to do. I can’t watch you give up everything—all your life and
your love just because Eivan—my ancestor—was too much of a coward
to do what needed to be done. There’s another way. It’s a little
more—sinister—but it’s a way out. It’s a way out of leaving
her.”

As she darted her eyes in the direction of
Colby, my stomach somersaulted in a bit of relief.

“What did you do, make a deal with the
devil?” Ari had calmed some, but was still under the umbrella of
Collin’s palm.

All color trickled from Pema’s face. Ari had
tapped into something close to the truth.

“What did you do?” I asked her
pointedly.

“I…I…” she stuttered. A flash of lightning
struck outside of the window behind Pema. The morning sky blackened
and even the lightning strike seemed to be computer generated,
carrying a dark purple hue instead of the light we were used to.
Previously non-existent clouds rolled in and around the house
causing the room to darken. If there was such a thing as the end of
time, that was what it would’ve looked like.