18. of dreams & disasters
Lucynda
I always knew there was something more to the story of his mom, but the surprise of his admission that she's alive and that she's nearer than I would have thought is what causes the nerves to float in my belly.
His hand encompasses mine, the feeling very domestic in comparison to everything else we've said and done with each other. It causes my skin to pebble under the warmth of this coat.
We walk a few more blocks into the hills and beyond so many trees. We pass houses with tire swings hooked onto tree branches, some cars parked in the garages, others parked inside. We pass a house where a husband works on an oil change just inside the garage and as we walk in front of their home, his wife comes out with a glass of ice water for him, and even though my paranormal life only started weeks ago, that gesture seems foreign. But it swells in my chest and gives me a glimpse at a life I'd likely never have, even if I hadn't followed Rivian into the dark.
Another house is covered in Halloween decorations while their neighbors are already setting up their Christmas tree. Kids can be seen in the windows running around with icicle streamers while their parents chase them with red and green glass ornaments. I can practically hear the laughter from out here and it gives me pause, wanting to know what that feels like.
I watch them for a second longer before Rivian clears his throat and leads me further, just a few more houses down.
We reach a large, beautiful, rustic home with somewhat of a European flair. It's made up of dark gray brick and white shutters with matching framing surrounding the windows and door. The roof provides a traditional point complete with a chimney—steam billows from the opening as the snow melts onto the roof.
The driveway is wide, and a basketball hoop sits at the edge of it. It's simple, yet elegant and only a few dim lights can be seen inside as the windows are covered with white linen curtains.
I look up at Rivian—he had pulled his hand from mine and has since stuffed both of them in the pockets of his traditional formal attire—who is now looking down at his feet instead of ahead at the home.
"So all this time, she's lived right here?" I ask, looking back ahead at the sight of movement behind the curtains.
My heart rate picks up a steady pace at the knowledge that his mother is right inside. Possibly with a husband and other kids.
"Why not visit her?" I add on. "Why not-"
"There's no point," Rivian cut me off. His tone is stern and anything but sad. Maybe angry? Defeated? He clears his throat while he adjusts his tone with me. "She doesn't remember me."
My heart breaks at his words. No child should ever go through the pain of losing a parent. And while she may be right here, happy and healthy, she's gone for him.
"Is there a way to fix that? To reverse what was done to her?" I know it might be impossible, but I wonder if he's ever tried to figure out a way to undo what's been.
"Not that I know of." His response is despondent now, almost as if he knows there's no hope for getting back what he's lost. What was taken from him.
I let him have a moment of silence as he braves bringing his eyes back up to the home. Lights flutter beyond the windows, likely from a TV playing a movie or TV show. We can hear laughter, not loud, but just enough.
Then I remember that I have a stronger sense of hearing than I'm used to, so I zone in to hear if I can make out voices.
One male. Older, maybe her husband. And a boy, not too old. And another a little younger.
"She's got two boys. Sixteen and thirteen. She shares them with her husband, Jared. He's great to her, and they’ve raised those kids to have respect and to be kind." I listen to the break in his heart bleed through his tone. “They do well in school with good grades, they’ve already traveled to Scotland together and they do family dinners every Sunday night.”
"I'm so sorry, Rivian." I don't know what else to say. This has to be hard, and the whole time this has been here. Something he'll never have because life was too cruel to afford him time or fairness.
"When the day came that Ameliana was introduced to the Society, my father called for an announcement and cruelly in front of everyone stated that he was getting married to his anima vinculum," he starts, and I let him take his time. "His marriage to my mother was out of contract for him to be king. It's not often Outsiders are subject to marital contracts, but however it happened, it did. And my mother was a willing participant.”
He closes his eyes.
"She would tell me bedtime stories about a young girl who followed her destiny and learned to love because it's where her heart felt the warmest in the world." His voice cracks, and I look up at him to see the threat of a lone tear welling in his eye. "She told me the girl always believed her life was meant for great adventure and she felt that where she was, was where she belonged."
I bow my head, hating that he's replaying these memories in his mind, recounting the sadness that traces their origins.
"I always knew they were about her. I knew she was the young girl in the stories. It gave me hope in my own life." He removes one of his hands from his pockets to rub the back of his neck. "The stories stopped when my father had her removed from the kingdom."
I reach up to my cheek to wipe away the snow that's melted against my skin, only to find that I'm crying myself. I can't help the sniffle that leaves me, not wanting him to turn his attention my way but he does.
Rivian lifts up my chin with his index finger and leans down to press his lips to mine. They get caught over a tear that travels over my closed mouth, but he presses gently for a moment letting the tear melt between us before he lets go.
"I hated what my father did. And I blamed Ameliana's mere existence for the trajectory of it. Maybe I have some re-evaluating to do but if I ever know one thing for sure in my entire existence…" he releases my chin and uses his thumb to wipe the tears that shed, the feeling of his warmth gliding against my cold cheek causes me to shiver. "It's that my heart feels warmest when I'm with you."
He turns to walk away but I can't help but feel the pull to the house, the gravity of his words—repeating something sentimental his mom has told him—weighing heavy in parts of my soul. But it's not a crowded feeling, it's cozy and all consuming.
I don't want to leave just yet but I don't want to force him to stay. I think about what he just said and how I don't know if I have it in me right now to allow his sentiment to fester for too long. He's had this fear of love leaving him and causing him pain without even so much as giving anyone a second glance. I led my loyalty to him, blindly, just for him to hurt me, grazing me with his betrayal and now, I don't know if I want to accept him again because I don't want to get burned. Not when I know what it does to me. Not when I gave him a chance and he didn't give me one.
But his words…
My heart feels warmest when I'm with you.
That has to mean something. That has to be his way of letting me know that he feels what I thought I felt all along. And sure, he's said as much to me in the last few days but it's as if he's coming to terms with his true feelings and showing me that he really wants this.
"Wait," I shout at him as quietly as I can so as not to disturb the families cuddled in their homes.
Rivian turns to look at me and that's when I sense defeat fall from his chest, almost as if he's assuming I'll never return to the trust I once gave him. But he walked away just now, not me. He gave me his heart then took it back before I even had a chance to catch it and that's what I'm afraid of the most.
There's so much I want to say. I want to confront him on his emotional notion. I want to confront him for not giving me even a second to breathe before he turned to walk away. I want to tell him that we can try to get back to a place where I don't look at him like his whole existence in my life was built on a lie but I cower and decide that all of that is too much for my broken heart to handle right now.
"Don't you want to see what she's like?" I ask, nodding my head toward the house and assuming that he hasn’t already infiltrated their home once before. The sky falls darker as the sun dips below the tops of the houses, hiding behind the rooftops.
"I know what she's like," he tells me with his eyes closed and his head bent down. He's still giving me his shoulder, not turning to face me and part of me feels guilty for it.
"Well, I want to stay," I say to him, not knowing exactly what I mean by it. Stay and stand here? Stay and go knock on the door?
Stay in this moment where he shares who he is with me and I can learn about the parts he hides, feeling special that I get to know what Rivian holds deepest to his chest. Because that might make me want to stay. So, all I know is that I want to stay.
"We can't just stand around and watch them. That's called stalking, Lucynda." His tone is almost mocking, but I still hear the sorrow setting in.
"Well, you would know all about that now, wouldn't you, Mr. Poe?" I quip, giving him a silly little nickname to signify the first time I ever met him. The day that changed my world forever.
It was that day that I was somewhat mesmerized by his being and even though I didn't know how he belonged in my life just yet, it was the moment that carved my intrigue for him and gave me a path to let him in.
"What if we just . . . pretend to be stranded?" I step up to him with pleading eyes. "We can say our car broke down and-"
"No." He holds his hand up to me, but instead I take it and wrap his fingers around mine.
"We don't have to stay long. They might not even mind." I attempt to argue.
"I said no, Lucynda."
"It doesn't have to mean anything we can just-"
He snaps. "I said no!"
I notice the volume of his tone and worry encompasses me, seeing the curtain to the house we stand in front of shift slightly, as if someone is trying to peer out. I see her . . . his mother. And I gasp because she is truly beautiful. But before we're seen by them, he manifests us off into the trees, fitting us behind a trunk for cover.
"Don't you see?" he starts, anger rattling him as he grabs me by the shoulders. "I don't fit in with them. I never will. There's no use in trying to weasel our way into worlds we don't belong in." I hate the way he sounds so final, like hope isn't something he can allow himself to feel for even a moment in time.
I shake myself out of his hold, forcing him to step back a bit.
"You didn't have a problem weaseling your way into my world." I point out, shoving my finger into his chest.
"That's because I-"
The steam from our breathing hits the cold air between us as Rivian lowers his forehead to mine. I let him back in for a moment, feeling so much tangle between us. Like a wave of emotions crashing against the shores of our souls and shattering, leaving all of the overwhelming feelings distorted in a mess for us to untangle.
"I needed you." He lowers his tone, agony circling his words. "More than I even knew." I shiver at his admission. I wish he would have said this before; wish he would have realized that it's okay to feel these things.
“How did she-” I want to ask how this happened but I stop myself not knowing if that would hit a sore memory that Rivian didn’t want to revisit. But my husband doesn’t put up much of an argument as he reads the question that floats in my mind and decides to answer it.
“The day after it was announced my father would be remarrying, my mother was confined to a room. The same room I later would find myself victim to. She begged and pleaded to be left alone, promising that she could remain in the Society without any issues but my father didn’t want to listen to her.” Rivian looks off into the distance beyond me as he recalls the memory.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, trying my best to comfort him while also reassuring him that he doesn't have to finish the story.
“For one to become empty of vampire blood, you must bleed them dry. Which can take days. Longer if they contain Royal blood, which my mother did. The process consists of starving them of any substance and letting their blood drip from their body until desiccation. It’s dangerous. A moment longer and you could kill someone.” He swallows before continuing.
“Once their vampire blood has been drained, they’re able to be compelled to forget that vampires ever existed. They’ll age over the days according to their true human age and then, they’re off to try and get back to whatever life they had before.”
“How often does this happen?” I ask, cringing at the idea that anybody experiences something so cruel.
“It’s very rare. I’ve only heard of it three times in my lifetime and one of those occurrences was from an older Nocturne of a different Society before I was born. But he was way past any normal age for a human so when he turned back, he immediately died.” I bow my head, knowing that the other two occurrences he knows of were of his mom and mine, when she supposedly escaped the old king and found herself at Valor, though she did it to rid herself of one Society blood to trade for another.
"I'll never fit in with them,” he repeats, letting his words hang in a mournful perception. “I was supposed to fit in with her. Not them. There's no point." He leans back and lets the cold air find its way between us once more, the sun now shifting against the dark sky and disappearing to make room for the pearlescent light of the moon that rises just on the other side.
"There's no point if you won't stand to find the purpose," I steel my back and look him right in his eyes. I let my words settle between us in a soft timbre in hopes that he'll truly take in what I have to say. "If you can't stand to find the purpose, you might as well just roll over and die. Life doesn't have to be so lonely, Rivian." I recognize how strong my words are and understand that maybe I could have worded them a little differently.
But what's the point of life if we never try to find the wonder in it? Why take the next breath if you can't even fight for a little happiness, or something to believe in.
It takes Rivian a minute to register my words as I lean off the tree trunk and start to travel in the direction we came.
"I am fucking trying here!" he shouts at me, frustration tracing his tone as he walks after me.
"Try harder," I deadpan, not even worried about turning to face him as I let him seethe on his own.
I remain focused on the path ahead before I'm stopped at his feet, obviously having manifested himself before me.
"What do you want from me?" he demands, everything crashing in him at once; anguish and longing twisting in his chest. "Anything. Everything! Just tell me what you fucking want!" I hear the desperation he carries and I watch his eyes try to find their place in mine.
I know this is what I wanted all along, someone who would do anything for me. Someone who would fight for me. But I can’t come to terms with whether or not it’s too late.
I step up to him once more, but not touching him. I simply lift my head up to his—hung as he looks down at me for a response—and I part my lips before answering him.
"I want you to dance."