The Heart's Ashes (42 page)

The countdown
on the screen started. I leaned forward a little. There was no way
he could beat me. I’d spent years working on my skills while I sat
next to Mike for hours, with nothing better to do than play video
games.

David and Mike
observed my victories with roaring protest—of different
sentiments—while I smiled, displaying my rapture modestly. In the
end, I took the final kill.

Game over.

David dropped
his controller on the table and sat back against the lounge,
wearing a playful punch in the arm from Mike. “Beaten by a girl,”
Mike said.

“
I resent that sexist comment.” I stood up, handing the
controller back to Mike.

“
Sorry. Beaten by a human.” He looked up at me.
“Better?”

“
Better.” I nodded and stepped over their feet, leaving David
and the last remains of his pride to fester in my
victory.

Emily didn’t
even look up to give me a ‘Girl Power’ smile as I sat back down,
knocking her foot with my own. “Oh, come on—tell me you didn’t miss
all that?”

She gave me
half a glance. “I might have caught it. I was rooting for the
vampire, though.”

“
Guess nothing’s changed then.” I sat back, delivering as much
spite as she just had.

She shook her
head, obviously seething. But, instead of bursting into flames or
enraged fits of yelling, she exploded into tears, covering her
face. Guilt washed through me.

“
Em?”

Only a deep
but high-pitched sob responded.

“
Oh, Emily.” I landed on the couch, wrapping my arms all the
way around her; she willing laid against my chest, making my shirt
wet with sadness. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“
I don’t want to be fighting with you, Ara. You’re my only
friend. But I—” she looked up at me, wiping her face. “I’m so
goddamn mad at you.”

I swallowed.
“I know. Em, I know. And I’m so sorry that happened with Mike,
I—”

“
That’s not why I’m mad.” She stopped crying.

“
It’s not?”

She looked
toward the front of the house. “No.”

“
Then—” I sat across from her on the ottoman, leaning close to
whisper. “Why are you mad?”

“
Because I don’t get it. Do you have, like, magic pheromones
that those guys can’t resist, or something? You’re not even that
pretty!” She doubled back. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean
that.”

It felt like a
flower had been opened out, upside down in my chest, spilling dread
onto the floor.

“
I didn’t mean that,” she said. “It’s just—what have you got
that I don’t? Why does he love you
so
much?”

“
We’re soul mates,” I said, wanting to cry.
Is it so hard to believe he could love
me
?

“
I thought
David
was your soul mate?”

“
That’s what I just said.”

“
Well,
I
was
talking about Mike, dummy!” She looked at me with severe eyes,
slapping my knee.

“
Oh.
Mike
?
You’re sulking over Mike?” I almost couldn’t believe it.

“
Who else?”

“
I—sorry. Um, okay, this is weird.”

She sat back a
little, huffing quietly. “I don’t like David that way, Ara.”

I nodded;
doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you. “But, how can you still care what
Mike wants? I thought you’d lose that with all your compassion for
humans.”

She covered
her face, her voice breaking, “Not if you love one of them.”

I shuffled forward a little more, peeling her hand from her
face. “So, you really love him? Like,
love
-him-love-him?”

Her glassy
eyes sparkled. “Is that so hard to believe? Ara, he’s wonderful.
You know that.”

“
I do.” I glanced back at the archway to the front door.
“And...for what it’s worth, I also know he loved you.”

“
Yeah—the girl, the human.”

“
Right. So there’s no reason he can’t love the vampire. I
mean, you’re so much prettier now,” I said, raising my brows over a
smirk.

She smiled.
“I’m sorry I said that about you—that you’re not pretty. I didn’t
mean it to come out the way it sounded.”

“
It’s okay. You’re right. There’s no reason for both those
guys to be chasing after me. I’m not even that nice.”

“
Mike can’t help it,” she said. “He’s talked to me about
it—about you and how he feels. Says one’s first love will always be
in their heart. Hard to move past, apparently.”

“
I know what he means.” I thought of David, but Jason’s face
popped up in there for a second, startling me.

“
He was my first love,” she said.

“
Who? Jason?”

“
No.” She scowled. “Mike. Why would you think I meant
Jason?”

Because I thought you were reading my mind
. “Oh, um, just...because you said you loved him—you know,
that summer by the lake and all.”

She shook her
head. “Now that I’ve fallen for Mike, I know the difference between
love and childhood lust.”

We sat quiet
for a while before I said softly, “He just needs time, Emily.”

“
No.” She sniffled, wiping her nose and chin. “He just
needs
you
.”

My face
dropped against my fingertips. She’s half right; he does want me,
but he did love her, when she was human—he admitted that. Why not
now? If he’d even look at her, he might see her for the girl he
fell for—the girl he thinks he lost.

I’ve got it!
“Come on.” I grabbed
her hand.

“
Where are we going?”

“
To remind Mike why he fell in love with you.”

As the evening
sky darkened and the house grew quiet, Emily and I put our plan
into action.

David, in his
suit, stood by the hip-height wall in the music room, his hands
clasped in front of him, waiting for Emily. He watched her glide
across the room toward him, as effortlessly delicate as she was
when she was human.

Ryan and
Alana, who had received their formal invitation via text late this
afternoon, gently circled the space where the couch had been
shifted away to make room for a dance floor.

In my red
dress, I sat by the piano, reciting the music from the masquerade
last year, and looked away when Emily took David’s waiting hand. I
knew he’d kiss her, softly brushing his lips across her knuckles,
but I didn’t need to see that.

“
Emily,” he said, “you are a picture of beauty.”

“
Merci.” I imagined she even went as far as to
curtsy.

“
May I have this dance?”

“
It would be my pleasure.”

And it would
be my pleasure to throw up on your shoes. This plan better work,
that’s all I can say.

“
Sure you don’t want me to play, Ara?” Ryan asked; I smiled up
at him.

“
I’m fine. It’s been a while since I played. I think I could
use the distraction.”

“
Well, let me know.” He waltzed away with the beautiful
Alana.

I watched them
carefully. It was so good to see them again. Even though they’d
come here to have drinks shortly after we moved in, it felt like
months since I’d seen either of them.

My eyes
strayed across the room to Emily and David, sashaying over the
floor with the grace of a gentle breeze. He stood so tall, his
shoulders straight and his head held so high I almost believed we’d
gone back to the eighteen-hundreds, when his mother and father
would have danced just like this, at a dinner party or some other
gathering. And Emily looked so effortlessly lovely in his arms,
like she belonged there; her hair being the colour of his mother’s,
her slight frame so glamorous and so feminine against him. She
glowed, and with the blood of the immortal flowing through her
veins, she belonged in his life.

They were two
petals from the same stem.

Each time they
swept past the piano, the sweet scent of Emily’s rose perfume and
the deliciously irresistible flavour of David followed, making it
hard to play. I’d smelled her scent mixed with those I loved
before, and thinking how it would be if it had been David I walked
in on with her that night, I...

I looked up
when he whispered something in her ear; whatever sweet nothing it
was making her tilt her head back, laughing with the gentle ring of
tiny bells on a summer breeze.

God, hurry up,
Mike.

My fingers
stiffened over the keys; I changed the tune to a more sombre
melody.

“
Now
there’s
a sound I haven’t heard for a while,” Mike noted, walking
into the kitchen, his nose in a newspaper.

His sudden
appearance turned all my fingers to thumbs, and my pinkie hit a low
C, making everyone in the room look up at me.

“
What are you guys doing?” Mike folded the paper, his face
holding back a burst of obvious amusement.

“
Dancing,” David said. “But we’re short a man. Care to take a
hand so I can dance with Ara?”

Mike nodded
his greeting to Ryan and Alana, trying to look past David to see
the slender girl in the emerald green dress behind him.
“Who...who’s that?”

David moved
aside then, revealing Emily in all her loveliness. Mike’s mouth
hung open, frozen, as if stuck on a vowel. He dropped the paper on
the dining table and walked in a trance-like state to stand before
her. “Emily?”

“
Yes.” She looked down, pinching the fabric of her
dress.

“
No,” Mike whispered, shaking his head, his eyes washing
slowly over every inch of her face. “You look exactly the
same.”

“
I am the same.” She stole a sideways glance at David, who sat
beside me.

“
No.” He reached out and carefully ran tapering fingers over
her bare arm. “You’re dead.”

“
I’m not dead, Mike.” She placed his hand on her face. “I’m
still here—see?”

“
But, I...I watched you die.”

“
No, you watched me
change
.” Her eyes watered as it
became clear that the battle we hoped to win was being lost to
reality, all too soon.

Mike shook his
head again, a gaze full of his thoughts brushing her brow, her
cheeks, collarbones, then her lips, staying there, watching them,
contemplating them before his own lips fell against them—his hands
clasping her face as he breathed her in.

David took my
hand, a hopeful squeeze warming my fingertips.

Slowly, and with what looked like consideration, Mike pulled
away, running his tongue across the remains of the kiss.
“You
are
the
same.”

Emily nodded,
touching her fingers to his hand, still on her face.

“
Oh, Em,” Mike said, almost melting.

It worked. I
knew he couldn’t resist her in green.

I smiled up at
David as Mike pulled Emily in and whispered repeated words of
apology to her.

Alana,
standing behind them, lost in the sweetness of the moment, gave a
silent little clap, winking at me; I bowed.

“
I’ve been a dick,” Mike said as he stood back.

“
Yes.” Emily smiled, looking up from him, wiping her face.
“Yes, you have.”

“
How can I ever make it up to you?”

She shook her
head. “Just treat me like a human being.”

Mike nodded.
“Consider it done.”

We ended the
night after a few more hours dancing and laughing by candlelight,
playing piano versions of songs we all enjoyed, and after saying
goodbye to Ryan and Alana, David and I laid on my bed, still fully
clothed, our eyes on the roof, absently running circles over each
other’s palms. When David stopped humming the tunes of the night, I
took over, offering a sweet song that popped into my head.

“
Where did you hear
that
?” I couldn’t see his face, but
the tone of his voice held utter confusion.

“
In a dream, I think.”

“
Do you know what that song is?”

“
No. Do you?”

“
Yes—it’s a vampire song. One written a
long
time ago.”

“
Where did
I
hear it, then?”

“
I don’t know,” David mused in a deliberately dull
tone.

With a stretch
and a slight yawn, I rolled onto my stomach. He was an expert at
displaying impassiveness; the only real way to tell if something
troubled him was to look at his morbidly furrowed brow; that’s
where the truth sat. But this time his face, upturned, his eyes on
the ceiling, gave no clues. I studied the curve of his jaw, the way
it held strongly, well-defined under his golden skin—with a certain
set that always made him look slightly amused, even when he was
angry. A pair of shocking green eyes suddenly focused on me, making
my heart jump.

“
What?” he asked, leaning up on his elbow.

I caught my
breath, smiling. “You’re beautiful, David.”

He laughed,
relaxing back. “As are you, my love.”

“
And...” I watched his eyes carefully, “Emily looked nice
tonight, didn’t’ she?”