The Heart's Ashes (56 page)

Em and David
evaporated.

“
Why is David finding this so funny?” I looked at Mike, who
stuffed his hands in his pockets, letting out a breath.

“
Because.”

“
Because why?”

“
Because...when he asked me the other day how I’d feel when
you guys make things...final, I told him I’d be fine.”

“
You’re not fine?”

“
No. Ara. I’m not.” Mike walked closer and looked down at me,
a familiar friend so foreign to me now, but the look behind his
eyes transparently concealing agony. “I’m really not. All this is
just too sudden for me. I’d prepared myself to spend the rest of my
life with you. Now, we’re talking eternity, and I don’t even get to
be with you. I…” He pressed his lips in.

“
Mike?” My voice glided slowly from my lips and I rubbed my
temples.

“
It’s okay, Ara, really. It’s not like I want you to break up
with him, and it’s not like I wanna leave Emily. I just wasn’t
prepared to see you—” He wiped his hand over his mouth, pinching
his lip for a second.

“
I’m sorry. You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“
I just—David should’ve been more careful. He could’ve killed
you last night.”

“
Only if he drained me.”

“
No, if he bit you, Ara—how can you not see this?”

“
Because obviously his bite has no effect on me!” Like other
things. I rubbed my palm across my neck—where my Mark
should’ve
been.

Mike studied
me carefully. “Are you a vampire?”

“
What?”

“
Ara, answer me. Are you a vampire?”

“
No. God, Mike, you know that, you know I—”

“
Do I? I can’t hear your heart. For all I know, when that
demon bit you, he—”

“
Nothing happened. Look!” I grabbed his hand and placed it to
my breast; he tensed, but stayed there. “See—heartbeat.”

“
Okay. Fine. So you’re human.” He dropped his hand. “So what’s
the deal then?”

“
We don’t know. If I have the gene, there’s no reason for the
venom to poison me.”

“
And if you do, why haven’t you changed?”

“
Because you can’t just bite someone to change them. You know
that.”

“
That’s all Jason did to Emily.” Mike pointed to her
room.

“
Are you sure? He locked you out. Are you sure he didn’t do
something else?”

Mike went to
speak but stopped, seeming to change emotional tactic. “I don’t
know.”

“
Look, David and I will figure this out, okay. When we go to
Paris, we’ll talk to his friend—see what she knows.”

Mike nodded,
raising his palms. “Okay. Fine. Okay. I’ll stay out of it.
Just...in the meantime, please promise me you won’t let him bite
you.”

“
Mike. Stop it. You can’t protect me all the time. I’m going
to get hurt, I’m going to get bitten—and pretty soon, bite. It’s a
part of it. If you want to be my friend, you just have to accept
that.”

“
I do accept it, Ara.”

“
No, you don’t.”

“
I do.” He softened. “I just...I just got scared, is
all.”

“
I know.” I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed my
cheek to his chest, listening to the strange sound of his heart,
thudding under his breath. He still smelled like home, like
Mike—familiar and constant. Despite his broken heart, I knew he’d
always be here, always side with me, always want me, and I knew the
smell of him would always make me feel safe and loved. Even my
attempt to bind myself to David hadn’t changed that.

“
Ha!” He looked down at me. “It’s funny. You’re still just as
short as you’ve always been. You really weren’t gifted with height,
were you?”

“
No. Nor luck.” I sighed.

“
What’s luck got to do with it?”

“
Can’t you feel it?” I leaned back and looked up at him. “The
way you make me feel? It’s like I forget I’m with David when I’m in
your arms.”

“
Yeah. I know.” He sighed heavily, his coffee-scented breath
warm and kind of sugary; I wanted to wrap my lips around his,
knowing too well how they’d taste.

“
Earth to Ara?” He clicked his fingers in front of my face a
few times.

“
Oh, uh sorry.” I scratched my head, taking a step
away.

“
You gotta stop phasing out, Ar.”

“
I know.” I cleared my throat. “So, I think you need to talk
to Emily. She may be supportive of your feelings for me, but she’s
still human. Okay, well, not human, but she still feels things like
a human. You being mad about this, it’s hurt her. I can
tell.”

“
I know.” Mike breathed out. “I just…I don’t really
know
what
to
say.”

“
Yes, you do.” I took another step back. “Mike you’re good
with words. Just tell her the truth—from the heart.”

“
I’m not sure I know what the truth is.” He combed his hand
through his hair.

“
Mike, she loves you. All she wants is for you to love her
back.”

“
I do—I do love her.”

“
Then tell her. You haven’t even said it yet, have
you?”

“
No.”

“
What are you afraid of?”

“
I don’t know.” But his tone said otherwise.

“
I think you do know.”

His eyes
smiled, though his lips didn’t. “I guess it’s...it’s just because I
told you I loved you, and then I lost you.”

Guilt. “Then
tell her that. Tell her you love her but you’re afraid she’s going
to leave you—like I did.”

“
I can’t tell her that, can I?”

“
Yes. Nothing beats the truth.”

Mike leaned on the bench and folded his arms. “So, what
are
we
going to
do, then?”

“
Secret love affair?” I said, with a grin.

“
Don’t joke.” He wiped the corner of my smile with his thumb.
“You think for a second I wouldn’t?”

“
Then why are you with Em? If that’s how you really
feel?”

“
Why are you with David? You still love me.”

I nodded with
a smile. “Touché.”

Mike stared at
me, motionless. “I hate it that you slept with him.”

“
I belong to him, Mike. I’m
his
to love.”

“
You belong to you.”

“
Yes, but that’s not what I mean, and you know it.” I leaned
on the bench, too. “I’m David’s girl. It’s only right for us to
make love.”

“
Love
, huh? So
that’s
what you’re calling it.” He
turned away and opened the fridge, then stopped. “I’m sorry, Ara. I
didn’t mean that.”

I swallowed my
infuriation, biting the inside of my lip to stop from crying. “You
have to move on, Mike. This is getting ridiculous.”

“
I know,” he said, closing his eyes.

Before he had
a chance to add anything else, I stormed from the room, leaving him
alone with his pain, hearing only a sigh as I reached the front
door.

The morning
burst through the clouds above, opening up over the tree at the far
side of the field. In the daylight, this dream looked different;
the wide plains of golden knee-high grass whispered tales untold,
and in the distance a lighthouse sat proudly, marking the edge of a
cliff I couldn’t see. I folded my arms across my chest, wrapping
the long cream cardigan closer to my body, and let my hair whip out
behind me in the wind. Somewhere nearby, soft giggles lilted among
the warmth of day, becoming louder with each step I took.

“
Hello?” I called, but no one answered.

I stopped
beneath the bows of the tree, staring down at a girl; her hair soft
and wavy, dark brown, like mine, falling over the back of her
canary yellow dress.

“
I missed you today,” a boy said, landing beside her,
appearing out of nowhere.

She rolled her
cheek into his touch, closing her eyes as he swept her hair from
her shoulder and kissed her alabaster skin. “Maybe I should sleep
more often, so I can be with you,” she said.

“
I’d like that.”

The girl
rolled over then, looking up as she did, but when our eyes met,
freezing me in place, she just smiled, like I was a ghost; a
spectator who had no bearing on life. The boy didn’t notice me at
all, or if he did, made no attempt to let me know.

“
What should we do today, Jase?”

“
How ‘bout that flight I promised you,” he said, cradling her
head in the crook of his elbow, looking down so lovingly at her
smile.

“
Maybe. But, for now, I just want to lay here.”

“
Your wish, Ara-Rose, is my command.”

With the deep
breath she drew, her hands clasped on her belly, she exuded
happiness; the joy of summer, the easiness of love, melting the
world around her in soft, white light. “Jason?”

“
Yes, sweet girl?”

“
When are we going to tell him?”

“
Soon.” He nodded to himself, contemplative. “I have
everything planned for our departure.”

She smiled
sweetly and rolled onto her belly again, winding her thin finger
around a strand of grass. “It’s going to kill him, you know.”

“
I know.” Jason rolled onto his belly, too, elbows propped
under his chest. “And I know you love him.”

“
I love you more,” she said, turning her head to smile at him;
his face split into the biggest, cheesiest grin. “It’ll hurt
though. I’ll miss him.”

“
I could make you forget.” He traced a line over her cheek;
she closed her eyes, revelling in his touch.

Inside, I felt
the sun go down, felt the world around me change and shift, growing
colder, but the day stayed bright, despite me usually being in
control of this place. This scene didn’t belong to me, it had
already happened, and I was just watching from a place neither time
nor want could change a thing. The girl, me, bobbed her head. “Can
you make it go away for forever?”

Jason’s voice
softened to beyond caring, “If that’s what you want.”

“
How? You can’t just erase a memory permanently. How do you do
that?”

“
Do you remember the dream you had, when I changed your hair
colour? How, when you woke up—” He smoothed his fingers over her
hair and a vibrant blonde trailed behind them. “Look in the
mirror.”

The roof
looked grey under the cloud of dawn. I pressed my palms beside my
legs, listening to the restful breathing of David, sound asleep
beside me, the warmth of my dream still tingling in my cheeks.

My hair!

Touching the ends, I ran to my mirror, my heart pounding as I
looked at my face; pale and soft, my eyes sparkling a brighter blue
against the golden,
honey
colour of my hair. “Blonde?”

“
What’s blonde?” David sat up and looked at me.

“
My hair.” I looked back at the mirror. “Does it look lighter
to you?”

David’s sweet
scent filled my breath before I felt his arms on my waist. “Still
the same beautiful chocolate it’s always been.”

“
I had a dream,” I said with wide eyes. “Golden
hair.”

“
Perhaps it’s your subconscious mind adjusting to the idea
that you’ll stay the same forever,” he said, his cheeky grin
warming the room.

“
Very analytical, David.”

He reached
around my shoulder and brushed his fingers through the length of my
blonde hair, studying it carefully. “It’s pretty. You’re not
thinking of changing the colour, are you?”

Looking at him
in the mirror, standing behind me with a calm smile across his
lips, it felt as though he was in a different world—somewhere
beyond the looking glass, a place I couldn’t go. What he could see;
the face, the hair, the frame of this girl he loved, was something
so different to the gold-haired traitor I stared at.

“
No,” I said, maybe a little too late. “I’m not thinking of
changing it.”

“
Come on.” David wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Come
back to bed.”

Through the
dark room, I walked beside him, touching the ends of my blonde
hair, willing it back to brown. “David?”

“
Yeah,” he said, letting his head fall softly on the pillow
beside me.

“
I—” I wanted to say
I dreamed of
him. I dreamed I loved him, planned to leave you.
But the words stuck down my throat. “Are you sure
my hair’s not blonde?”

He swept his
long fingertips across my scalp, his cool touch tingling throughout
my entire body; my eyes fluttered and closed involuntarily. “I’m
sure. Must’ve been some dream, huh?”

I nodded,
keeping my eyes closed, my hand tucked under my cheek. A dream it
was. That’s all it was.

My mind wanted
to go down the path of memory, wondering if things happened and I
couldn’t remember them, but my heart belongs to David. There’s no
way I’d betray him that way. The very idea made me insanely mad, so
mad that, when the sunlight touched David’s hair, lighting his ear,
his cheek, then his sleeping smile, I was still awake, afraid to
let myself drift away again.