Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
brAM
Fuck.
Just when I thought everything was finally working out, Lucy pulls the pin out of a grenade and casually rolls it into our perfect little bubble. And boom. The reality of our situation explodes in front of me.
The worst part of it all is that I should have seen it coming. In fact, I think she might have mentioned it before. It makes total sense: the girl abandoned by her family becomes the woman who craves one.
The one thing I can’t give her.
I watch her as she sleeps, nestled in the crook of my elbow. She fits there so well it’s like she belongs there. But maybe the person she belongs with is the man I would have been. The one who could have given her everything. I’m not him anymore. I chose not to be.
Fuck.
This is the entire reason my golden rule exists, and I spent one weekend with Lucy before I totally abandoned it. Though I thought it was a bad idea to fall for a human because they’re too messy, but Lucy isn’t messy at all, she’s perfect.
The messy one, it turns out, is me.
And now Lucy is going to pay the price. Because however supernatural I am, apparently it’s not enough to stop me thinking like a human and wanting like a human and failing like a human.
I wasn’t lying when I told her all of this was real for me. It was. But that human future that she wants? The kids and grandkids and growing old together? Yeah, I can’t give that to her. And I knew that upfront, obviously, but did I let that stop me?
No, of course I didn’t. Because, as we established earlier, I’m an idiot.
If I wasn’t, I’d have distanced myself from the beautiful creature in my arms as soon as I knew she liked me too.
But I didn’t do that. I couldn’t, because being near her made me feel more alive than I remember feeling when I was alive.
Because I don’t think she even realises it, but Lucy Partridge is a national fucking treasure.
And that’s why I have to do this.
She wants a family. Of course she does. She wants it, and she deserves it. She deserves everything. And I’m going to be the one who lets her have it.
Even if it kills me.
I mean, it won’t, I’m immortal, but still. I can do this for her. I have to tell her.
When she wakes up. I’ll do it when she wakes up.
Until then, I’ll just lie here and regret all my life choices as I savour every last second of having her near me.
Ok, maybe not every last second. It got to around eight-thirty before the self-loathing got too much, and I had to get up and make a cup of tea.
It’s just around nine now, and I’m perching on the end of the bed and swirling the dregs of it around the bottom of the mug while I listen to Lucy’s soft, raspy breaths behind me.
I thought I’d be able to distract myself from the shitshow I’m about to create with the usually stunning view out of the window, but the weather today matches my mood: shit.
It’s dreary and it’s grey, and I’m not sure if it’s actually raining or if everything is just generally a bit damp the way it often is here at this time of the year. All in all, it’s the perfect weather for breaking someone’s heart.
God, I hate myself already. Good job she’s still asleep.
‘Bram?’
Well, so much for that.
I brace myself before I turn around, and it’s a good job I do, because when I see her it feels like I’ve been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. I have loved every incarnation of her I’ve seen so far, but sleepy, satisfied Lucy is the best of them all.
I commit every inch of her to memory: those blue eyes, sleep-rimmed and hooded; a mad thatch of curls sticking up every which way; the light etch of pillow indentations on one cheek; swollen lips that hitch into a bright smile as our eyes meet.
It’s the most beautiful she’s ever looked.
The most human she’s ever looked.
And that’s the moment when I know I have to go through with this.
‘Lucy,’ I say, and her face changes in an instant.
She knows.
I take a deep breath, though I don’t know why. All the oxygen on this planet isn’t going to help me.
‘We need to talk.’
She jumps up at that, grabbing the bedclothes up to herself with one hand, just like she did when I told her I was a vampire. God, was that only a few hours ago? It feels like years.
‘No,’ she says, eyes wide and panicked, ‘No-no-no-no.’ I’ve blindsided her, I know, but this is the only way it’ll work.
‘Don’t we-need-to-talk me. We’re good, aren’t we?
I thought everything was good. Y’know, with…
’ A blush races up her neck, and I almost have to look away so I don’t cave. ‘Last night. Was I—?’
‘Perfect,’ I interrupt. ‘You were perfect. Everything about you is, actually. It’s me who’s the problem.’
She doesn’t say anything for a little while, just stares at me, brows furrowed. My eyes catch on the jump of her pulse at her temples, another flush of red across her face.
‘You did not just say that,’ she grits out eventually, eyes narrowed and fixed on me. Ok, that wasn’t a blush. She’s furious.
‘I might not be experienced in these kinds of things, but it’s not you, it’s me? Bram.’
She says my name like I’m a naughty puppy, and I have to say that at the moment, that’s exactly how I feel.
‘That’s not what I meant at all,’ I counter, and I mean to say more, but she cuts me off. A single sentence which cuts a blade straight through my chest.
‘Are you ending this?’
I feel like I’ve been punched in the face. ‘What?’
I heard her perfectly well, but I’m reeling from hearing it out loud, too torn up to form a response. Particularly when she straightens, her mouth flattening into a harsh line.
‘Are you…’ she snaps, jabbing me lightly in the chest with a finger, ‘ending this?’ She gestures between us as if I’m too damn dense to know what she means, when of course I know what she means. Of course I do. I just wasn’t ready to hear either of us say it.
I steel myself. ‘I mean, yes, but it’s not what you think.’
Her eyes drop to the floor, along with my heart.
‘Go on then,’ she says, her voice quieter now, but no less angry.
‘Tell me what I think.’ She pauses a little while but it’s not even long enough to process, never mind form a reply.
‘Never mind, I’ll tell you. That I was a nice distraction for the weekend, but now that you’ve got what you wanted, you’re throwing me away like I’m nothing. ’
I rear back at her words. The very idea of it is preposterous. ‘Lucy, no. It’s not like that.’
I hear her sigh, a ragged breath that catches at the end. It’s the same sound she made after we saw Jon with Amy, and I realise that’s what I am now. Just another man who’s disappointed her.
‘Tell me what it’s like,’ she says, her voice so quiet it’s almost a whisper. I can tell by the tension in her jaw that she’s trying not to cry.
‘You’re not nothing.’ I almost reach for her face, but I catch myself just in time. ‘You’re everything.’
When she looks back up at me, her eyes are glistening, a tear tracking down each cheek. It’s enough to abandon this and scoop her up in my arms, but I can’t. I have to go through with it.
‘I mean it,’ I say, fighting my own emotion as best I can. ‘Lucy, you’re everything.’
‘Then why?’ Her voice breaks on the why, the tiniest of sounds, which might as well be a deafening roar, a scream into the void.
‘Because you want a family,’ I say, quietly, ‘and I can’t give that to you.’
She draws in a breath so sharp that I almost feel it. ‘What?’
‘Last night, as you were falling asleep, you said it.’
She says nothing, and her silence is my answer.
‘You said it,’ I say, as gently as I can. ‘And I get it. That’s what you should want. Like I said, it’s me that’s the problem.’
It takes her a little while to reply. She clutches the bedclothes a little higher up her chest, knuckles slowly whitening with the tightness of her grip. When she eventually speaks, her voice is as small as I’ve ever heard it.
‘What if I’ve changed my mind?’
‘Lucy, no.’
‘It happens.’ Her eyes meet mine, steely and determined.
It reminds me of that first morning, when she was offering to let me share the annexe.
It feels like such a long time ago now. ‘People change their minds about stuff like that all the time. Or things don’t work out like you expect.
Family doesn’t have to mean marriage and babies, you know. You work with whatever you have.’
I shake my head. ‘I can’t let you do that for me.’
‘You’re not letting me do anything.’ Her face pinches into a frown. ‘I’m offering it. I want this.’
God, I want this too, and that’s what makes this so fucking hard.
‘I can’t be the one who takes that from you,’ I mutter into the space between us.
‘Not after we’ve known each other for four days.
I need you to go back to your life and try to find what you’re looking for.
If you still think you can deal with it, even if it takes ten years, I’ll be here, waiting for you, still looking exactly like this. ’
I chance a smile, small and bittersweet. ‘But now I need you to go.’
She’s silent for a while, those clear blue eyes studying me. I remember thinking that they were the colour of the sky close to the horizon, and I need that to steady me more than ever.
‘What time’s your train?’ I manage, trying to force down the emotion in my voice.
She looks away. ‘Twelve.’
I nod. ‘You’d better get ready. I’m gonna…’ I motion towards the door, and she nods too. I’m gonna go wander the streets of Whitby in abject pain, if we’re being really honest, but she doesn’t need to know that.
‘Ok,’ she says quietly, and that’s the last thing she says before I leave. I can’t trust myself to go through with it if I spend another second with her. It’s better for both of us if, the next time I walk into this place, she isn’t here.
I hope like hell she’ll come back, but I can’t be the one who asks her to stay.