52. Chapter 52
Chapter 52
Cedric
W e should be exhausted, yet sleep doesn’t find us.
Fern Port seems to be, impossibly, quieter than usual; not even the chirrup of cicadas or the light rustling of green leaves can be heard above Blaine’s soft snoring at the feet of the bed.
I’m nearly overcome with gratitude.
“Don’t you think it’s a little wild?” Delilah says, angling her head so that our eyes meet. “How quickly everything has changed?”
“I think my conception of wild has been thoroughly challenged since I met you,” I say, which makes her chuckle against my shoulder. “But it’s like you said, isn’t it? Life is too short to stay where you’re unhappy. I suppose I needed a chance to change that.”
“So you’re saying I’m your ticket out of hell?” she asks, eyebrows scrunched.
“That is not–”
“Kidding!”
“Perhaps Cambridge wasn’t so bad after all,” I say with a shrug.
“Take it back!” Delilah gasps, moving so that she’s hovering over me.
“You could make me.”
Delilah lowers herself slowly, eyes glinting in the low light. “That is a very elaborate way of asking for a kiss,” she says, lips twisted in a quasi-smile.
“Looks like it’s working,” I whisper, before leveraging myself so our lips can meet midway. Delilah makes a contented sound in the back of her throat, easing herself back down when we part.
“Hey,” I say as her expression quickly turns thoughtful.
“I know we have time, but there’s something else I’d like you to know. If we’re going to be together, I can’t keep this from you.”
I nod, drawing soothing circles on her arm. She inhales deeply, letting out a shaky breath.
“It’s my fault Grayson died.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d been bitten a few months before” she starts, scooting almost imperceptibly closer to me, as if seeking comfort, which I am all too glad to provide. “I’d managed to keep it a secret from my family with Faye and then Myrta’s help, but...” She closes her eyes for a second, perhaps to keep painful memories at bay.
“Grayson was supposed to be away with some friends, and he came home early. I told you he was on a run when he hit his head, but that’s not the whole truth. He wasn’t running toward somewhere.”
“He was running from you,” I deduce.
Delilah nods, exhaling slowly. “I don’t remember everything clearly, but I do remember him screaming when he saw me. I didn’t hurt him, but he ran faster than I’d ever seen him, and I–I don’t know how I managed not to follow after him, but–”
“Delilah, you can’t blame yourself for that.”
“How can I not? If I hadn’t terrified him, he wouldn’t have run.”
“You could have had no way to know he’d be there. It was a tragedy, but not one you could have prevented.”
“Maybe,” she says, shaking her head lightly against the pillow. “But at the end of the day, I’m still the reason he’s gone.”
We are quiet for an endless minute, then I tip her chin up so she can look at me.
“Did you ask to be Turned?”
“What?”
“You heard me,” I say gently. “Did you ask to be Turned?”
“Of course not.”
“Then there is no one to blame except for who bit you.”
Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out of it. She worries her lip, seeming to consider that.
“We are only responsible for the choices we make,” I add. “You can’t spend your life wallowing in guilt because of something that was thrust upon you.”
“That seems sensible… but I don’t know how much longer it’s going to take for me to see it that way. ”
“It’s easier to forgive others than ourselves,” I nod. “Even so, you have all the time in the world. We have all the time in the world.”
Delilah nods, too, her eyes shining with more hope than sadness now.
“I think you and Grayson would have gotten along,” she says after a beat. “He would have made fun of your ugly running shoes, and that’s how you would have known he liked you.”
“I see your despicable sense of humor is to be blamed on genetics, then,” I say with a smirk. Tension doesn’t bracket the lines of Delilah’s mouth anymore as she elbows me lightly.
“You love it.”
“I do,” I say.