Twenty-One
Peter
I watch Ava and her family go through the house. She asked me if I think she is a burden. What she sees as a burden, I see as a gift. I am allowed to share in her most intimate moments. I adore watching her throw her head back in laughter when her mother pushes her on the swing. I adore seeing her take the house in, committing it to her memory and taking pictures when she thinks no one is watching. I adore her most when she thinks no one is watching. I run around the property, so as to give her some privacy. I do owe her that.
The land is newer here; it has been logged and the trees are younger. Not as closely packed. I climb a few, looking out over the land. I can nearly see Canada. I've always wanted to take Ava to Canada. Maybe in a few nights I can take her.
Ava's laugh pulls me back to the ground, and I drop from the tree.
We will have to deal with Brooke soon, and Di. Ava is impatient, but I am more cautious. Whatever we do cannot be undone. The key to Di's undoing is Helena. The source of Di's pain, of her anger, of all that she has done lies with Helena and the love that Di thought she lost.
Helena looks, acts and talks like a human girl, but she is not. Her years are many, and the things that she knows could fill hundreds upon hundreds of volumes. My years are only a drop in a bucket in comparison.
I am surprised Di has not used Cal to contact me. To talk some sense into me, as she sees it. I need to unravel more of Di's story, and to do that I need to talk to Helena, perhaps while Ava is asleep again. Humans waste so much time in sleep. Although, they do not have to find things to fill that time. Many times I have wished I could close my eyes and lose myself to exhaustion with her. So we could be the same, even in sleep.
Ava and her family get back in the car. She glances to the woods, looking for me. I move so she can see me.
“I love you,” she says, making a heart with her hands before getting in the car.
I feel so strongly about her, it is hard not to give in to it. To lose myself in that overwhelming feeling of her and only her.
It is an interesting conundrum. The one moment I want is the one that will end me. You can't always get what you want.
Ava
Mom falls asleep on the ride home. Dad turns down the road trip mix and puts his hand on Mom's arm.
“Do you think she liked it?”
“I don't think she would have been happier than if you bought it for her. How did you plan that out? It was very sneaky.”
“Well, back in the day I used to plan surprises all the time for her. Your mother is not an easy person to surprise, as you well know.” Yes, I do. She has eyes in the back of her head.
“You should do it more. She loves surprises.”
“I know. I've got a few more in the works.”
“You gonna tell me?”
“No way.”
“What, because I can't keep a secret?” Oh, if only he knew.
“No, because I know she'd read it on your face.” God, can everyone read my face? “I'm not as good at it as she is.”
“Neither am I.” I pull out a blanket I brought in case it got cold and spread it on top of the cooler. It's not as nice as a Peter chest, but it's more comfortable than leaning against the car window.
I close my eyes as the trees and cars flash by and wish I had my Peter with me.
***
I'm nearly late for school on Monday because I don't really sleep on Sunday night. Every time I close my eyes my mind starts running through a million thoughts about Jamie, Tex and Mom, and Brooke and Di, and all the crap I'm in. And Peter. Always Peter.
His silent chest has been my pillow for the last few weeks. I've stopped asking him if he'll stay in my bed with me, he just assumes, which makes me so happy I don't want to sleep. As he reads, I listen to the scrape of the pages as he turns them. Hypnotic and soothing, but I can't get my mind to shut off.
“Peter?”
“Yes, Ava.”
I peer up at him and he meets my eyes. “Why can't we just run away?”
“Do you want to?”
“Yes and no. I want to run away from all the crap with Di and all that. Sometimes I want to run away from all the stuff happening with Mom. Does that make me a horrible person?”
“No. It makes you human.”
“I hate being human sometimes.”
“I hate being a noctalis most of the time.”
“Really? You hate it?”
“I hate most of it. Still, if I were not immortal I would not have met you. I do not regret that.”
“Well thank goodness.”
“I only meant that I wish things were different. That maybe you could have lived in my time, or I in yours.” I thought of the same thing more times than I could count.
“Well, you're an angel vampire. You should get on that time machine, chop chop,” I say, poking his chest.
“I would make a time machine for you, my Ava.”
“Where should we go? I'm thinking Victorian times. I really, really want to carry a lacy parasol and see you wearing one of those sexy long coats and a top hat. Yum. Although, I'm not so cool with the corsets.”
“You wouldn't need one. Your figure is perfect the way it is. His hand strokes back and forth across my stomach, and there is a fluttering deep in my soul.
“Ah,” he says, probably feeling it. Then I get another flutter, but it's darker, more insistent. It's from him.
“You should get some sleep.” The last thing on my mind is sleep.
“Then you shouldn't touch me like that.”
“Ava,” he says, staring into my eyes, into the depths of my soul. “I don't think I can stay next to you right now.” Without another word he gets up so fast that my head bangs against the pillow as he removes himself from under me.
I run to the window, but he's on the roof. I look up to see him peering down at me.
“It's too hard, Ava. To be near you and not feel it.”
“That's what you wanted, originally.”
“I know. But now that there is a chance I could have it, even if it's wrong, I want it. I want it more than anything I've ever wanted. I want you more than anything.” His desire comes to me in dark ripples, slowly flowing through my body. It is warm, slow and torturous. There is something else there, something deeper. Something that feels a lot like love.
“Goodnight, Peter.” I don't tell him that I love him. I don't say anything for fear it will trigger something and I'll lose him. I can't lose him. The thought of losing Peter makes me feel like I'll never breathe again. It's different than the pain I feel when I think of losing my mother. That is more of an ache, dull and long-lasting. Losing Peter would be bright, sharp and cataclysmic. I would not survive losing them both.
I think back to the nightmares I have, where they both burst into flames. I can't let it come true.
***
Sleeping without Peter is hard. I toss and turn, and my bed feels cold and huge. I open my mouth to call him down from the roof, but I can't let the threat of losing him out of my mind. I can get through a damn night. I slept for seventeen years without him and I can do it again.
In the morning I get up and he's still on the roof. I shower and go downstairs alone. Mom and Dad are yawning in the kitchen, exhausted from the day before. The house is spotless, thanks to Aj. Mom didn't say anything when we walked into the cleanest house I'd ever seen last night. Either Aj is the best cleaner ever, or she hired a crew.
“It looks like the cleaning fairy has been here,” Mom says, wiping her finger across the spotless kitchen counter.
“Imagine that,” Dad says. “I hope she didn't leave any fairy dust behind.”
“Oh I don't know about that. A little fairy dust never hurt anyone,” Mom says.
I make breakfast, trying not to mess up the immaculate kitchen. I wonder how long it will last.
Peter isn't waiting in my car, but instead twenty feet away by the trees. I'm afraid to even make eye contact with him, so I just pretend he isn't there. It's one of the hardest things I've ever done. It's like trying not to close your eyes when you're staring at the sun. I arrive at school and he still doesn't approach me. Viktor and Tex are canoodling by her car, complete with hair flipping and giggly laughter. Viktor's face is animated, and he is gesturing with his hands. From far away they just look like a normal couple. He says something and she throws her head back, gripping onto his arm.
Why can't I do that? I glance around for Peter, but he's nowhere to be found. He's close, but hiding.
“Where's your surly shadow?” Tex says as I walk up to them.
“I don't want to talk about it.”
“Trouble in paradise?”
“Tex,” Viktor says.
“Right, sensitive. Sorry. Viktor's trying to help me be sensitive.”
“Thank you,” I say to Viktor.
“Hello? Standing right here.” She waves her hands in front of my face. “So, let's try again. What happened?”
“I don't want to talk about it.” I wrap my arms around my chest because it's really starting to hurt. Not like the times when he leaves. This is a different kind of hurt. Like a piece of me is missing and has left a hole I need to cover up.
“I'm sorry, honey.” Tex hugs me, but I wish it was more. I wish someone would wave a magic wand and make all my dreams come true. Stupid fairies. They can clean my kitchen, but they can’t take my bad dreams away.
“Did you do anything fun this weekend?” she says. I took my dying mother to check off an item on her bucket list, how about you? I don’t want to talk about it. It isn't that I don't want to tell her, but I'm not sure she'll really understand. Although, it would be fun to laugh about Real Estate Gretchen with Tex.
“Fine. Nothing earth-shattering.”
“Oookaaayyy,” she says, glancing at Viktor.
“I'll see you later,” I say, spotting Jamie. I can't deal with Tex anymore. “Jamie, wait up.” I jog up to him. Peter follows in the shadows.
“Where's your other half?” he says, looking behind me for Peter, one of his hands in his pockets.
“I don't really want to talk about it. Where's yours?” Brooke and Helena must be around here somewhere.
“Around.” There's something sad about the way he says it. Mere days before he was so taken with her that he wasn’t able to keep a smile off his face. Something has happened.
“I'm surprised she's letting you talk to me after that reception she gave us.” With the hissing and everything.
“That's not fair, Ave.” I want to open my mouth and tell him all the mistakes he's making, but I can't. Hypocrite, remember? “She's a part of my life now.” His mouth sets in a stubborn line.
“How long have you known her?”
“Less than two weeks, but that doesn't matter. The second I saw her on the side of the road, I would have done anything for her. She's it for me.” He rolls his shoulders back like he does before a game. I've seen him do it a million-billion times. He's ready to fight for her.
I try an indirect approach. “So the immortal bloodsucking thing doesn't bother you?”
He sticks his other hand in his pocket and hunches his shoulders. Oh, something is definitely up.
“Doesn't seem to bother you,” he says. Good point.
“It's weird what you can get used to when you love someone.”
Jamie makes a sound of surprise. How can he not know?
“You love him?”
“I do.” How has he not seen it before? I told him. Maybe it's different now that he knows everything. Now that he knows what loving Peter means.
“But you're going to tell me that I should let her go.” I wish I could. I wish I could tell him what to do, but I can't. “She makes me forget about everything. About Dad and Cassie, and all the shit I have to deal with. I don't have to pretend with her.”
I've never heard Jamie talk about anyone this way. He's had dates and flirted with girls, but never anything serious. Until now. A little pang of guilt goes through me. Maybe if I'd been there for him, he wouldn't have had to look somewhere else for someone who understands and listens to him. Maybe if... But it isn’t meant to be.
“She makes you happy,” I say. It's not a question.
“Yes. She's it for me. I'd be with her no matter what.” I glance behind me at Peter. I know he can hear everything. I feel his ache for me, and it magnifies my own. Jamie catches me looking mournfully at Peter.
“Why are you staying away from Peter?” Way to switch the topic with ease, Jamie.
“Remember how I told you about the bind he made with Di? Well, it's been chaffing him lately. I know that's a weird way to describe it, but that's the best way I can describe it. I'm just so scared to lose him. I can't lose him, Jamie.” My voice cracks and I'm afraid I'm going to get all blubbery and emotional again.
“Then you have to fight. I know I haven't been a fan of him, but if you love him, then I'm cool with it. As long as he doesn't change you without your permission. Then his ass is grass.” I laugh a little.
“I don't know how. It all seems so impossible.”
“If it's meant to be, it will work out.” Rasha said the same thing.
Yeah, I'm not really into the whole 'wait and see.' It's time to seize and take. The future belongs to those who take hold of it. My mother never said that, but I read something like that once.
“I'll be right back.” I turn around and see Peter lurking behind a Sentra.
“You. Come here.” I point to him and crook my finger. “I know you want to keep your distance and all, but that's not going to work for me.” I wait for him to tell me to stay away, that he can't be close to me, or for him to turn to ash.
He takes a step toward me. “It is not working for me, either.”
I want to throw myself on him, but I settle for another step. “Just, don't fall for me. Please? I'll do really unattractive things like blowing my nose in my hand and farting and stuff.”
A step. “Nothing you could do would ever disgust me. Ever.”
“Then you have to promise me something.” I pause before I say it. Promises are huge things for us. “That when we go to find Di with Helena, that if it doesn't work, you will change me. No more waiting.”
He turns his head to the side. “You want me to change you?”
“Yes.” I'm sure. It only took less than an hour of him ignoring me to know that I never, ever want that to happen again. The only thing that would be worse than being a vampire hybrid would be Peter ignoring me. It is unendurable.
“I said I would only change you if that was what you wanted. Is that what you want?” I nod.
He holds my arms with his hands, looking deep into my eyes. Just to make sure. “If we can't get rid of Di, yes. I want you to change me.”
He nods. That's a first. “Then I promise. I promise that we will make a plan to get Di and if we can't follow through with it, I will change you.”
“Okay then.”
I lean up and kiss him on the lips. Just a quick peck and then I run away. Kiss and ditch. My heart fills with the certainty that no matter what, human or noctalis, Peter and I will be together. I can deal with anything else, as long as I have him.
I go through the rest of the day with a crazy smile on my face. Tex asks me about it, but I just shake my head. My teachers keep looking at me suspiciously, so I have to cool it in most of my classes. There is such certainty in my decision. I wasn't ready, but something about today has flipped the switch. One moment I had doubt and now I have none. I think the weekend did it to me, too. Seeing Mom's house and how tragic it all was affected me more than I could admit. I don’t want my relationship with Peter to be like that house. A place I remember, but can’t go back to.
Yes, the immortality thing scares the bejeezus out of me. Yes, I don't really want to live forever, but if I get to have Peter, I'll take it. I can do anything as long as he is by my side. The other side of the coin is that death scares me. Despite having a mother who is soon to face it, I am actually more scared about the thought of my own mortality than I was a little while ago.
I'm sure now.
***
I get home to a note that Dad's taken Mom to the doctor's. It sends a wave of nausea through me, but I know that this is going to be the norm now. It's going to get more and more frequent. We must have taxed her yesterday, but that was bound to happen. She refuses to slow down. I don't blame her.
Mom's tulips are starting to poke their little heads out of the soil and into the sunlight. She's been trying to keep up with the weeding, watering and such, but it's just too much for her since she tires so easily.
“Hey, want to be my garden boy?” I say to Peter, shading my face from the sun. Maybe I'll borrow Mom's giant straw hat.
“Your wish is my command,” he says, bowing. Oh, I could get used to that.
I put on the hat and grab some gloves and a trowel. Peter digs right in, moving faster than I ever could. I've discovered yet another one of his talents. Weed Master. I'm going to add it to the List of Things I Love About Peter right between Doing My Laundry and Letting Me Play Taylor Swift In The Car.
I sit back and watch him. The dirt covers his clothes, and he doesn't care that it's everywhere. He's so breathtaking and I can't believe I get to call him mine.
“You're staring,” he says.
“You're sexy.”
He lunges at me and I squeal to get away. He rolls with me in the flowerbed, and I don't care that we're probably crushing some of them. He props himself on his elbows over me and wipes some dirt on my nose.
“There.”
“What was that for?”
“I wanted to see what you looked like covered in dirt. Humans are very clean.”
I can barely breathe, and it's not because my lungs aren't working. “We tend to be. I could not shower if you'd like that.”
“I like the way your skin smells in the morning when you wake up.”
“You probably don't like my breath very much.”
“Humans are very concerned with how they smell, I have noticed.” I roll so that I'm propped on one elbow. We should really get off Mom's flowers.
“Well, if we all smelled like you, we wouldn't have to worry about it.”
“You smell good to me.”
“That's a relief,” I say. “We're probably crushing Mom's tulips.”
“We probably are.” He moves to his feet and leans down to pull me up. He pulls too hard and I slam into his chest. It hurts, but I like it.
“If you change me, maybe I'll be the one bruising you.”
“We don't bruise.”
I roll my eyes. “I know, but it would be cool to think that I'd be the one with the upper hand.”
“Ava, you have the power to destroy me every second. What more of an upper hand do you need?” There he goes again, turning it around on me.
“I guess you have a point. Still, it would be nice to beat you at an arm-wrestling match.”
He gives me a slow smile. “I could let you win.”
“Such a sweet boy,” I say, patting his cheek and wiping some dirt off it. He's a dirty boy, too.
“Come on, why don't you get cleaned up? Not that I don't like the garden boy look on you. There are some clean clothes in your drawer.”
“I will be right back,” he says, smearing dirt on my face as he walks by. Naughty boy.
I like this playful side of Peter. It is rare, so I cherish it even more. I realize this is what it could be like. Forever. I could lie in the dirt with him forever. Never grow old. Never change, never worry about getting sick.
My parents pull into the driveway as I'm putting the tools back in the shed. Dad helps Mom out of the car and she leans heavily on him.
“What's wrong?”
“They did some blood tests, so I'm a little woozy,” Mom says as she toddles up the steps to the front door, Dad helping her like she's a baby learning to walk.
I wish they would stop doing tests. They're not going to change anything, because she's not going to get better. I lean on the banister of the porch steps. That's a horrible thing to think. I know they're doing tests to figure out what medications to give her so she can be more comfortable, not just because they're sadists with God complexes. First do no harm, and all that, but still. Why can't they leave her alone?
I walk back inside as Peter is walking downstairs, slicking his wet hair back from his forehead. God, I love it when he does that.
“Oh hello, Peter. I didn't know you were here,” Mom says. Such a lie.
“He was just helping me in the garden,” I say because Dad looks really suspicious, like he's going to start talking about cleaning his gun, which he doesn't have.
“Oh,” he says.
“And he was just going home, right Peter? You have finals to study for.” I give our connection a little pinch.
“So do you,” he says.
“You're welcome to study here if you want to,” Mom says, smiling and giving Dad a pinch that we all see, but pretend not to.
“Thank you, Claire, but I should get home. Goodnight, Ava.”
“Goodnight, Peter.” I dive and give him a kiss on the lips right in front of my parents. If things go according to our promise, they're going to be seeing even more of that. Best to start them out slow.
“See you later,” I say as he walks out the front door. He's just going to turn around and go through the backdoor. Or in his case, roof. I'm adding Stealthily Climbing In My Window to the Peter Love list.