76. Petra
PETRA
“What did you do?” I ask, already thinking the worst. “What happened to Amelia? What did you do, Sin?” The last question comes out in a frustrated scream.
He exhales loudly. “I did not do anything to Amelia. There was never any Amelia in the first place.”
“W-what do you mean?”
He doesn’t answer.
“What do you mean she never existed, Sin?”
“I—” He takes a deep breath. “I promised myself I would wait for you; that I would wait until you were old enough. But the truth is, I missed you. Knowing you were out there, within reach . . . I have no excuse for what I did. I know that. But I needed a way to talk to you. Even if it meant . . .”
“Even if it meant pretending to be a teenage girl?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? She was my only friend! And now I realize she wasn’t even real?”
“Everything else was real, Petra. I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Real? I told you my deepest thoughts and fears under false pretense. You . . . oh God . . .” I choke up as I realize the sly ways in which Amelia would probe about my love life; how she would encourage me to give Sin a chance and find excuses for him even when the situation did not make any sense.
“Petra, darling—”
“Don’t you darling me! You have no right after what you’ve done. And it’s not even the worst of it, isn’t it? Since we’re putting the cards on the table, you might as well admit the truth—you’re not human.”
“I am not,” he answers quietly.
I blink, stunned by the sudden declaration. For some reason, I thought I would have to pry the admission out of him.
“What are you then?” I demand.
“I reckon you have already seen what happened in the past,” he starts.
“Don’t avoid my question, Sin.”
“I am not,” he sighs. “But tell me this, you saw what happened? How you . . .”
“How I died?”
“Yes.”
“I did. And I know you were not there,” I burst out, tears falling down my cheeks again.
He taps his head against the wooden frame of the door a few times.
“Except I was.”
“W-what?”
“I would not expect you to remember that. You were far too hurt, in pain . . .” His voice is strained as he speaks.
“It is my fault for arriving there too late. That, I accept, and trust me, I have beaten myself over it time and time again over the last hundred years. I should have been there for you when you needed me the most. I failed you, Petra, and you have no idea how sorry I am for it.”
“That doesn’t erase the fact that I died!”
“No, it does not.” He pauses. “Now that you’ve seen with your own eyes what happened in the past, I can finally give you my side of the story—fill in the gaps.”
I let out a dry laugh. “Really? So kind of you,” I say ironically.
“Petra . . .” His voice sounds weary, old. Not at all the cheery, jocular voice I’ve gotten used to. But I suppose that is to be expected since this is not teenager Sin.
This is immortal Sin, one over a hundred years old.
“You think I did not want to tell you everything sooner? You think I wasn’t dying on the inside seeing you try to make sense of everything and knowing I had the answers—or, at least, most of the answers?”
“Why didn’t you, then?”
“There are a few reasons why I did not—why I could not.”
“I’m waiting,” I reply flippantly.
“The first is the most obvious one. You would not have believed me. If you had not experienced the past for yourself, if you had not seen that things are not as they seem, that the normal most people take for granted is just an illusion, you would have never believed me.”
I bite my lip as I consider his point. It is true that I would have never believed him if he came up to me and said, “Hey Petra, I’m Sin, your past life-lover. Oh, and I’m also immortal, and I kill people.”
I would have likely thought him insane and never spoken to him again; perhaps I would have gotten a restraining order against him.
“I will accede to that point.”
“In addition to that, I wanted you to fall for me as myself. Before you knew about the past, about our connection. I did not want you to feel compelled to be with me under any other circumstance but the fact that you wanted me.”
“Really? Are we forgetting the fact that you manipulated my entire life? That you basically ensured my parents moved to Radcliffe, that I attended St. Anselm Hall . . . that I was named Petra?”
“I may have engineered the circumstances, but that was only to gain proximity to you. Perhaps I did a thing or two to bring you by my side, but the fact that you came to me, of your own volition: That is all you.”
Once more, I roll my eyes.
“And the night at Elias’s party? You got me drunk and slept with me! How is that me coming to you? That’s you taking advantage of me in a vulnerable position.”
He makes a tsk sound.
“Perhaps I did do . . . some underhanded things to be close to you, to touch you, feel you again. I can only blame that on my own eagerness and the fact that I’ve missed you so damn much.
And then there you were, so beautiful, so comfortable with me.
I did take advantage. I admit that. But I am not sorry about it. ”
“You got me pregnant!”
“Another reason to not feel sorry about it,” he adds casually. “Although I will say, I did not even think that was a possibility. It was not on purpose. But I am very happy it happened.”
There isn’t much I can say to that since I am quite happy it happened, too. I press my hand to my stomach, caressing it lightly.
From the scared teenager anxiously buying pregnancy tests in a pharmacy to the expecting mother I am today . . . I feel like I am an entirely different person. And the realization that there is another life growing inside of me has had a lot to do with my growth.
“But how can you still say you wanted me to fall for you when you manipulated everything to make it happen?”
“Because I never manipulated your feelings, Petra. They are your own.”
Another thing I can’t quite argue with. There might have been an insane attraction between the two of us from the beginning, but I only started to fall for him after we spent more time together, after we talked, after he listened to me and cared about me and my dreams and passions.
He listened. That’s what truly made me fall for him. Not only now, but in the past, too. He saw me for myself, something no one else had ever tried to do before.
Moments of silence later, although I wish I had a clever comeback to deny his claims, he continues.
“The other reason why I could not tell you everything is because it’s not entirely my story to tell.”
“You mean Leah and Arnoult?”
“Yes. You’ve seen how their relationship has been misconstrued in some articles, how Arnoult himself has been vilified throughout history.”
“You did repeat some of the same stories,” I add wryly.
“I did, and I did not. I told you what was common knowledge, something any native person in Radcliffe would know, but I’ve also given you small enough clues so you could question the narrative, to investigate and get to your own conclusions. The most vital part of this equation was your dreams.”
“How did you even know I would dream of it?” I shoot back.
“Because that night at the Elias’s party, alcohol was not the only thing we drank.”
I frown. “What are you talking about?”
“The bottle was infused with Jí, a potion that helps a person remember their past life.”
“Y-You gave me a magical potion?”
“Fret not, Petra. It did not harm you in any way.”
Thinking back, now I realize that the dreams began after the party. And he was the one who engineered this, too? At this point, what hasn’t he done?
“You remembering everything was key to understanding how everything fit in. Although I did not know when or how long it would take for you to remember everything. You weren’t exactly forthcoming to me about your dreams . . .”
“Because I thought I was going insane!” I cry out. “I was seeing this other version of myself living in the eighteen hundreds and this person who looked exactly like you, and I did not know what to make of it.”
“I’m sorry. If I could have made things easier for you, I would have. But I did not know how either. I am sorry for my shortcomings. I am sorry that my actions have confused and hurt you. I did the best I could with the resources I had.”
“Back up a little. You gave me a magical potion without my consent!”
“I think that’s the least bad thing I’ve done, all things considered,” he replies drily.
“Right. I suppose so. But why would you be so concerned as to whether I found out about Arnoult and Leah from you or by seeing it in my dreams? They’re dead. It’s not like—” I stop. “They are dead, aren’t they?”
He chuckles. “In a way?”
“Sin . . . What are you talking about? Explain yourself!”
“Well, you’ve met them.”
I blink, shocked.
“What?”
“My current parents,” he says. “Leah was reincarnated as Lisa, and Arnoult as Tom. My sister, too, happens to be the reincarnation of the baby that died with Leah.”
I stare at the door, shock reverberating through me.
“But . . . how? How is that possible? And they know about you? How did you trick them into accepting this farce?” A barrage of questions comes out of my mouth as I try to wrap my head around this.
It’s just so ludicrous.
“Yes, they know. They’ve always known. One of the promises I made Arnoult before I killed him was that when he was reincarnated, I would help him get back his memories.
“So that is what I did. But before I found him, he was already inseparable from Lisa. I only returned his memories after he turned eighteen. But he and Lisa had been neighbors, best friends growing up, and then lovers in high school. They recognized each other even without those memories. Fate is such a beautiful thing, isn’t it, Petra? ”
“You gave Lisa her memories, too?”
“Yes.”
“And they also remember me?”
“They do.”
“B-but . . . what about the fact that you’re an adult male and you have been one for the past hundred years or so. How the hell did you fool people? How did you pretend to be a child, a teenager . . .”
“Ah, that? It’s called glamour. I can change the perception people have of me. My sister was told everything when she was old enough to understand. As for my presence at school, I only joined when you did.”
“Glamour?” I echo.
“Open the door, Petra, and see for yourself.”
I shouldn’t, should I?
I’m mad at him, I don’t want to see him. But I’m also curious, and that particular trait has always been stronger than my will.
With slow but steady steps, I walk toward the door and open it.
He’s in front of me, dressed in just a shirt and a pair of sweatpants. His hair is messy and tousled, and for a moment, I don’t see much of a difference.
But then I focus on his face. His jaw is more angular, his cheekbones more pronounced. Some of the baby fat has melted away to reveal a more sculpted version of Sin—one that mirrors the version from my dreams.
I gulp down. Is he taller? I’m not sure. But as I stare up at him, I feel suddenly small, defenseless.
“It’s you . . .” I mutter, mostly to myself.
“There isn’t much of a change now, but I have had to shift my appearance over the ages to match that of a boy going through puberty.”
“Going through . . . oh, Lord, Sin! You’re a hundred-year-old man, and you’ve been going to school with teenagers!” I cry out. “That’s so wrong!”
“Is it?” He shrugs. “I do admit it was rather odd. But I never had any nefarious intentions, never paid much attention to those around me—except you.”
“As if that makes me feel better! I was still fourteen when I started at St. Anselm Hall.”
“And I waited until you were eighteen. You can’t say I was not a gentleman.”
My mouth drops open in shock.
“You’re insane.”
“Perhaps. But I am insane for you. And I slogged through boring high school courses just to be near you. I had to withstand all those annoying little bastards just so I could cultivate a sense of normality. It wasn’t easy. But I did it. For you.”
“And that doesn’t make it any less weird.” I scrunch my nose in disgust.
He shrugs. “I did what I had to do.”
“Right. So you’ve said. But you still haven’t told me what you are. You’re not human. So what are you?”
He takes a deep breath.
“I suppose I should start with the beginning. You might want to sit down for this.”
Against my better judgment, I allow him to take me back to the living room, make me some food and a cup of tea. Perhaps I should be more wary now knowing he fed me some magical potion so I would recover my past life memories.
But no matter how much I want to rage at him, to hate him, there is a part of me that just wants to understand.
“Tell me,” I say.
And so, he does.