For now.
“Happiness is deceptive. Joy is cruel. In the end all you have is selfishness. And pain. It’s okay to want the things people say you shouldn’t have. To take without asking. If it fills that hole in your heart, it can’t be all bad.”
I didn’t understand what he was saying but I smiled like I did. It wasn’t until later, when I was much, much older, that he made so much sense.
“What are you going to make me?” Elian asked, picking up a basket.
“How about spaghetti and meatballs?” I suggested.
Elian’s grin faded a bit. His green eyes that had begun to dance again clouded over. He went dark. So dark.
“My mother used to make spaghetti. It was Amelia’s favorite meal.”
I knew.
“Then let’s make it tonight,” I insisted. I pushed even though I knew it hurt.
We walked up and down the aisles. Pasta. Sauce. Meat. Ingredients for one last meal on one last day before the emotional holocaust.
Because in just a few days I would go to see him.
My beginning.
“Elian,” a quiet voice. A miserable sound.
I glanced toward the obtrusive invasion and saw Margie, silly love-struck Margie, staring at Elian, my Elian, with angry, desperate eyes.
Elian barely acknowledged her. His entire focus was on me. On our hands that were still clasped. On touching my hair and brushing against my side.
I smiled at Margie. Silly, stupid Margie.
Margie, who never went away.
“Where have you been? Are you really not working at George’s anymore?” Margie’s eyes were only for Elian. She hadn’t even looked my way.
Ripping skin, chunks of hair on the floor. I stomped on her neck, just as her heart tried to thump beneath my sole.
Elian looked into my eyes. Hooded green and coal black. “We have to go,” he murmured. Not caring that Margie looked stricken. Devastated.
I noticed. I cared.
“Elian! Everyone would love to see you. Can’t you come by later?” Elian tugged on my hand, and we walked past Margie as though she weren’t even there.
I leaned in towards the redheaded bitch. “Let him go, Margie. He was never yours to begin with. Pathetic,” I hissed jubilantly.
Margie stilled. She wanted to maim. She wanted to kill.
Just like last time she confronted me, I wanted her to try.
But she didn’t. Some people were complete disappointments.
Elian pulled me along. Away from Elian Beyer and the life he used to live.
Toward Elian James and the life that belonged to me.
Mine.
We went home, and I made him spaghetti and meatballs. And Elian ate his painful history, he bloated on it. One mouthful at a time.
I packed my bag and put in the trunk of the car. Layna followed me out of the house and put her suitcase beside mine. A small overnight case containing her green notebook was thrown on the backseat.
We didn’t take much. Just enough for a few days. Why did I get the feeling I was grossly unprepared for the trip that lay ahead of us?
“Are you ready?” she asked after settling into the passenger seat.
Shouldn’t I be asking her that question?
Was I ready?
Would I ever be ready for something like this?
I slept little last night.
And the night before.
I tossed and turned, the sheets soaked with sweat.
And Layna—blissfully undisturbed Layna—slumbered peacefully beside me. I would watch her while she breathed deeply, eyes closed. Wondering what made her smile like that in her sleep.
When I watched her I felt the closest to content I had ever been. But it never lasted long.
Because every time I closed my eyes, I would remember. Who she was. Who I was. Who we were together.
Two wasted people with nothing. No one.
Because of him. Cain Langley.
She no longer shared his name, but Layna shared something else. Something darker. Something so much worse.
But there were other things that I saw in the quietest moments of the night. While she slept and I could watch her without reservation.