Chapter 8
Just to hammer home the gravity of my situation, I should probably finish the story of how Jonathan and I first met. How I first learnt that he was my soulmate.
Two hours and two bottles of wine after Jonathan saved me from Pepperoni Guy, Daphne and I were still sitting with him and Baxter.
It was dusk by now, so my energy was lifting, and all my attention was on Jonathan.
I could smell that his blood was O positive, I could hear his pulse, and we were sitting close enough that I could feel his heat.
I could tell he liked me—his pupils were dilated and his heart sped up just a little when he looked at me.
And not just in the way men always liked me, he was really listening to what I was saying and replying with thoughtful follow-up questions.
I couldn’t shake the sense that he was special somehow.
And then, his knee touched mine under the table, my stomach clenched, I thought, Please, not now, and in came one of my flashes.
Black and white and sped up, blurred at the edges and silent.
He’s walking through a living room, up a staircase, pushing open a door, there’s a wedding ring glinting on his finger.
The door opens onto a bedroom and inside is a woman.
She’s sitting on the edge of the bed and brushing her hair and I can’t see her face but I can see that she is wearing a wedding ring too.
Ice moved through me and I pulled away, a deep disappointment settling over me, because just my fucking luck. I’d finally found a man who looked at my eyes, not my arse, who was kind and considerate, but of course he was, he’d been well trained—he was married.
I wasn’t going to be a homewrecker for anyone. Whatever I’d been feeling, that sense that he was ‘special’, was clearly nothing. I should go.
Jonathan must have felt the shift because he leaned in and asked, ‘Are you okay?’
I looked up at him and nodded, our eyes met, something pinged in my chest and then his hand found mine. My stomach clenched again.
And now, great, just marvellous, the vision was back before I could push it away. It was exactly the same as before, except with more detail this time . . .
Here we go again, I thought, never guessing for a moment that my entire reality was about to change forever.
He’s walking through a living room. There’s a Christmas tree in the corner with small unlit candles and sugared candies hanging from the branches. Beneath it, presents are piled, the wrapping paper adorned with cherubs and birds. He passes a mirror and he looks like a completely different man . . .
Slight relief came over me now as I thought: Oh, right, this is from his last life, not this one . . . But that was soon replaced by a strange sense of déjà vu, a feeling of awe.
He walks past a sofa and a small oblong coffee table with a newspaper on it. The date is displayed, clear as day: December 18th, 1875.
And I was thinking: Hang on, I think I recognise this house . . .
He takes the stairs, just like he did before, he enters the bedroom. There’s a bed, a wooden armoire, a free-standing wash basin, a dressing table, a brass vase, an oval mirror . . .
I definitely recognised this bedroom. It was the exact same one I’d woken up in 150 years ago, covered in blood.
The woman is there, brushing her hair with a big silver hairbrush, and then she turns to look at him. Like she’s just noticed him there.
I zoomed in on her face, looking for answers, and the floor beneath me seemed to open up.
I jerked my hand away, and as the images cut to black I grabbed my glass of wine, holding it so tightly it should have shattered.
What the hell was going on?
Because that woman, the woman brushing her hair?
IT WAS ME.
And according to the newspaper in that vision, it was 1875.
The year before I was turned into a vampire.
I blinked hard, trying to control my breath, which was coming out quick and shallow as Jonathan watched me, his lips moving. The vision had played out as though in real time, but in reality, it had been only a second or two. He was none the wiser.
‘Sorry, what did you say?’ I asked.
He smiled gently, a soft frown on his forehead. ‘I said, you feel chilly, would you like my coat?’
‘I’m okay, thanks.’ I smiled as I struggled to make sense of what was happening, and he turned back to Baxter and Daphne.
But what the hell was happening? In all these years, with hundreds of unwanted visions, I’d never experienced anything like this.
I’d seen people’s past lives before, sure, but I’d never seen myself in them.
Never met someone I’d known when I was still human.
I held the pieces in my mind, trying to put them together: this vision was coming from Jonathan, so it was his memory. It was from before I was turned so . . . what? We were married in his last life?
That had to be it.
I looked the same because I hadn’t aged. But he had died and been reborn. He was now a different man in a different body, but with the same beautiful soul, a soul that had somehow found mine all over again.
The realisation winded me. My brain lit up as if on narcotics. A strange and unfamiliar feeling pulsed through me . . . hope.
This is why he feels special. He is.
As I sat there, an entire version of my future, which I’d never thought possible, unfurled before me and everything shifted into soft-focus. It was as though Tinkerbell herself had sprinkled me with fairy-dust and I would never get it off. Because what did this mean?
What else might I learn about myself if I spent more time with him?
Who knew what other visions I could siphon?
I could finally get the answers I’d always wanted, finally learn who I was as a human, who my parents were, what I believed in, what I liked .
. . maybe I’d finally learn who did this to me, and why they left . . . the possibilities were limitless.
Did this mean I could have love? Real love? I mean, if anyone could love me despite . . . things . . . surely it would be him? Someone whose soul had loved me so much in his last life that it sought me out again?
By now, Jonathan and Baxter were telling Daphne how hard it was to get funding for an app they were developing while Daphne pretended to care.
But inside, all I could hear was white noise.
I traced the lines of Jonathan’s face with my gaze, and my vision got all wavy and that tug in my chest tightened.
Because how had I been so fortuitous? This was a once-in-ten-lifetimes occurrence.
Maybe even rarer. What were the chances of our souls meeting again like this?
Of my dud power firing up right when I needed it?
It was the most certain I’d ever been that there must be a god, or fate or something, after all. But I needed to hold it together, not get ahead of myself. I didn’t want a repeat of Freddie.
So, I made a deal with myself. I would spend some more time with him, but my focus would be solely on trying to get a few more visions—maybe I could figure out who I was and how I had become this way. I would see how things went between us, but I would not let my heart run away.
Clearly, I failed. I fell hard and fast and I didn’t care. It felt too good.
But now . . . well, once you’ve tasted hope, tasted love, tasted everything you’ve ever wanted, once you know that it is sweet and it exists for you—not just in books and movies, but in real life—and it can make everything better, how the hell do you go back to nothing?