Chapter 29 Elijah #2
We crawl back into her bed, Gemma settling at our feet after a good five minutes of biscuit-making, which Molly records on her phone, like she always does.
When Molly’s tucked under my arm, her head on my chest and leg across my lap, I stroke circles up and down her back.
I could spend every night like this, her in my arms, listening only to the sound of her breathing.
She lets me use her e-reader (which is a tablet, but it has a screen that looks remarkably similar to paper) and I could spend every night working my way through her digital library while she drools on my chest, perfectly content until her alarm wakes her in the morning.
I ache at the thought that she could let me have this, that this is within the confines of what friends with benefits do.
‘Why haven’t you been in a relationship since Matt?’ I ask her.
Molly, surprised by the inquiry, pauses a moment to formulate an answer.
‘Matt was so sure that I was wrong to ask for what I wanted. For a love that was singular, but I didn’t feel like it was so far-fetched–I mean, people fall in love all the time, right?
But he believed everyone was just pretending, that no relationship is perfect and if I dumped him and found someone else, I’d just be trading follies. He said I’d never find what I want.’
‘And what is it that you want?’
Molly thinks about this for a couple of quiet minutes, only the sounds of the city and her fridge humming while she absent-mindedly rubs her hand on my chest and I play with the tips of her hair.
‘I want a lifelong love. I want weeks off in the summer at national parks, and showing a baby snow, or the beach for the first time. I want… to choose and be chosen back. I knew I wanted to get old with Matt, have kids and then maybe grandkids. I wanted a life where sometimes we’d feel like we were going crazy, so busy and exhausted.
And among this, I imagined quiet moments of surprise and reminders of why we chose each other in the first place.
I imagined that we’d keep loving each other, keep coming back to each other, keep trying. ’
The picture she paints makes my chest tight. I can see her imaginings so clearly; the sticky little hands, eyes like hers, and pretty sunsets on a porch swing.
‘I wanted him not to cheat, because trust and loyalty are both part of it. The love and commitment are built on that,’ Molly says. ‘Or at least, that’s what I thought.’
I roll onto my side so that I can hold her hands between us and face her completely.
‘Why haven’t you looked for it?’ I ask. ‘It would be so easy for someone to love you if you let them.’
I fear I’ve given away too much with the question, made it too clear that I am far beyond the risk of loving her.
‘How can I trust it won’t go like it did last time?’ she asks, her voice a whisper as if someone might be listening to the fears and desires of her heart, ready to ridicule her. ‘Elijah?’
‘Darling.’
‘You aren’t supposed to call me darling,’ she reminds me.
‘Sorry then, yes, my colleague?’ I try again. I feel her smile against my chest, and it gives me immense satisfaction.
‘How many times have you been in love?’
The question feels dangerously close to territory we promised not to tread, but as we’ve established, I can deny her nothing.
‘For a long time, love was easy to come by and difficult to avoid. I fell in love many times in many ways,’ I tell her.
My mind conjures hazy images of them; a cook in the kitchens at the manor house who worked with my mother, the painter boy in Italy, a woman who sculpted, another who sang opera.
I fell in love briefly with a vampire called Celine, and her lover called Joseph, and then there was Ada.
Ada was a quiet thing with curious eyes who loved science nearly as much as she loved to dance with her sisters, and I loved to watch her laugh.
‘There was Ada,’ I say. ‘She was young, just twenty-two, but her family considered her practically a spinster. I lived in the cellar of a church near her home. There was a lake between us, and I spent many nights skipping rocks on its surface. Ada said the sun sparkled on it in the day. She found me there one evening, and I fell in love with her instantly.’
Molly stays quiet, hanging on each word of the story.
‘We met there each night for weeks. After a time, she discovered my secret, and then, a while later, she convinced me that she wanted to be with me more than she wanted the human life her family expected for her.’
I feel at once transported to that night, the agony and bliss of her confession, her plea to make her like me. I feared she’d regret her choice, come to resent me, but oh how I wanted to have her by my side, nights and days talking through our endless lives.
‘I tried to dissuade her, but she was sure,’ I say. ‘She was so excited.’
Molly’s thumb stills its circles on the back of my hand.
‘I was excited too. I was in love and besotted by the thought of not being alone in my immortality.
‘It was supposed to be simple. She drank my blood, told me it tasted horrid.’ Ada and I had giggled about it then, both so nervous and excited, like it was our wedding night.
‘She wanted to die by drowning, said she’d always been curious about it since her studies as a child.
I’d seen vampires turned in all sorts of ways, any death would do.
So, she walked into the lake, dunked her head under the water and didn’t come back up. ’
I close my eyes, wishing I could remove from my memory the stillness of the water, the moments ticking on as my gut churned with dread.
‘Only it wasn’t like it had been for me or my siblings or any of the other vampires I’ve seen turned. It was–she’d gone under smiling, so hopeful, and then, when I pulled her to the surface, she never woke.’
Molly wraps her arms around me, pulling our bodies flush together as if she can anchor me to her through these memories.
‘I killed her,’ I whisper, and my eyes are full of tears that are more blood than water. ‘She trusted that she would live forever and she died instead.’
‘Oh, Elijah,’ Molly says, her own voice wobbling as she embraces me. ‘You didn’t know, you couldn’t have known.’
‘She could have lived another sixty years.’
‘Or she could have died the next morning–natural causes or a house fire–that’s the thing about mortality. It’s so damn fragile, a gift we all take for granted until it’s not ours any more.’
We hold on quietly, our wounds of love laid out plainly for the other’s inspection.
‘You’ve been punishing yourself,’ she says, not a question. ‘Can’t you forgive yourself?’
I bring the back of her hand to my lips, and don’t say what I’m thinking; that neither of us can.
Texts between Molly and Devi on 10 December 2026
Molly: yo
Devi: Yo yourself
Molly: you know how Elijah is kind of weirdly ancient for a 34 year old?
Devi: yes
Molly: I just learned he’s never been to a CLUB, like the man has never gone CLUBBING
Devi: why are we discovering things about Elijah at 9.45 p.m. on a Thursday?
Devi: Molly?
Molly: No comment.
Devi: OMFG I KNEW YOU WERE SEEING EACH OTHER, WHY DON’T YOU TELL ME THINGS
Molly: Can you plan a club night or not?
Devi: Because I am a nice person, yes I will plan a club night. Saturday?
Molly: yep!
Devi: I expect you’ll tell me everything tomorrow and leave out no details
Molly: no comment!!