Chapter 37
OUR EYES SNAP OPEN IN unison, his deep inhale bringing us back to the here and now. And his first words are, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear the whole thing.”
I stumble back, my hands falling to my knees, taking deep breaths. My jaw falls to my chest, and all I see are the tops of my scuffed Docs, my favorite pair.
“Are you okay?” Bastian kneels to my level, and my eyes float up to meet his.
“Yes, it just. Takes a lot.” But my heart is absolutely pounding and breaking at the same time because…I didn’t get the whole thing. I recite her words in my mind, the beginning of an incantation of some kind. “When the sun can shine on the vampire. And the witch is tied to the pyre…”
I stand as he crosses his arms in sheer frustration, his head falling against the Cabildo. “I can’t seem to get anything right.” He sighs, and I grab his arms, but they stay locked, folded against his chest.
“You remembered the beginning of something! That’s huge. Some kind of spell that wasn’t in Cassius’s book. And I got the beginning. That’s great, that’s wonderful. And it was the first try. You can remember more. This probably shook up your memory, and then all the pieces will fall into place.”
“I don’t remember. It’s not working. I’m failing!” His voice switches to a yell, and I inch closer to his face.
“Don’t yell at me,” I warn, and he rolls his eyes like a teenager which only frustrates me further. “Baby,” I say, closing in on him and placing his face between my hands. “Let’s try again. Can you try again? Should we read the diary once more?”
“No,” he says, hands finally falling to his sides as he shoots a long breath out. “I’m sorry. I just want to come through for you. I want it so badly.”
“You just being here every day means you’ve come through for me.
Okay? Let’s try again!” He nods, and I place my hands back on his face, I say the words that take me back to his memory, ignoring the people who walk by wondering what we’re doing.
I can push them out, and I do. But only moments into the memory, I can already see that everything is exactly the same.
Nothing has budged or changed, the words we need are incomprehensible, my grandmother’s whispers completely unintelligible, and now I think I made a huge mistake.
We should have waited, we should have given him time, and now he’ll just feel like more of a failure.
“Fuck!” he yells, fists clenched when we come back, and I’ve never seen him like this before. He’s so…livid. And I hate that this is what he’s become. An angry man.
“Bastian,” I call, grabbing his elbows, exhausted from constantly reassuring him, exhausted from trying to convince him that he deserves to be here and it’s okay that everything isn’t perfect.
“We fucked up and we fell in love, and it was the best mistake I have ever made, and now we are suffering the consequences for it but fixing it at the same time. No one died—”
He gives me an incredulous look, his eyebrows practically meeting his hairline.
“Okay…” I almost laugh. “You did. You died. But you’re back. And no one in either of our families died. We are picking up and moving forward, baby,” I say, my heart softening.
“I’m not a vampire anymore, I’m not special anymore.
I can’t break someone in half with my bare hands, I can’t protect you.
I don’t remember what I need to, and I can’t forget what’s torturing me.
” His voice wavers, his neck so tense, the veins bulge.
“I keep having nightmares, from the fire. The burning, I—I don’t want you to know… ”
“Know what?”
“The pain, the torture. I can’t get it out of my mind.”
“Tell me,” I say, my voice hard as cement. “Tell me so I can know. You don’t have to carry all this pain inside you. We are partners now, we carry each other’s pain when it gets too heavy. Let me help you,” I plead.
My hand presses into his heart, the beat rapid, his lungs frantically gasping for air.
“Partners,” he scoffs.
“Bastian,” I reprimand and he turns serious.
“You mean that?”
“I might lie to myself, but I don’t lie to you.”
Something flashes in his eyes, my words filling a hole that must have been sitting empty since I brought him back.
“I can’t forget the pain,” he stammers. “The bubble of my skin igniting, the agony of when it hit the muscle, the searing of my very soul. But the worst, the worst is…I can’t get your face out of my mind.
Your pain, your agony. I said those words to you, and I meant every one of them.
I would do it over and over again, but I also couldn’t bear to see the agony I caused, Franklin caused.
I hate myself for it. I hate him for it.
I can’t seem to let it go, and I know it’s bothering you.
So I keep it inside because I know you’re so stressed, but I wake up at night and it’s like, the memories and the rage are…
swallowing me.” He grips his shirt with a fist, pounding his chest, his teeth clenched, the veins in his hand pulsating.
Something breaks inside me, my man, my love, his pain eating away at him, consuming him. I push a hand up his chest until it wraps around the nape of his neck.
“I’m sorry…I didn’t know. You have to tell me…I didn’t know.”
“Do you have a spell? Something that could take away this ache?” he asks, desperate.
The air gets wetter, hotter; the clouds in the dark sky seem to be in battle with their own bout of rage.
Then Bastian grabs my neck, pulling me close, searching and scanning my face.
But whatever he’s looking for can’t be found in the curves of my mouth, the lines of my nose.
I could perform a spell that would make him forget, but that means so much would be wiped away, and I would have to share a life with someone who had pieces of our story removed from their memory.
No. I wouldn’t do that, at least I don’t want to.
But right now, I hope I can make him forget.
I push his lips to mine, rushed and hot, missing his top lip so that I suck solely on his bottom lip, and that seems to stir something inside him as a raindrop plops on my forehead, and I press my body against his.
“Make me forget, Aster,” he whispers, goading me on, begging for more. He’s not asking for a potion or spell in this moment, he’s asking for just me, just my body, just my mind to make him forget, and that, I can do.
My fingers snake down his neck, following the raindrops that wet our hair and shoulders.
He leans back against the building, his open palm making its way down my side, stopping on my hip.
The rain pounds down now, a typical New Orleans storm that will come quickly and be gone in the blink of an eye.
The alley is empty as we mold into each other, his hand grabbing my ass now, pressing me against his hard groin. A moan escapes my lips, all the stress of everything that’s transpired between us seeming to beg for a sudden release.
“I need you,” he huffs, his mouth back on mine, his tongue sliding along mine, the taste of him like honey in my mouth, and all I want is more.
A finger tilts my chin up, angling to deepen the kiss, our mouths on the verge of devouring each other. He pulls away, but only to kiss down my neck, his other hand sliding down the outside of my thigh and sweeping back up over the middle seam of my jeans.
“Oh, my God,” I say, looking down the alley, the touch of his finger outside of my jeans making my legs quiver because he presses right in the center, and I feel it to my core, my hands gripping his shirt as he suckles and nips at my neck.
The rain causes chills to rise along my skin, but my insides are searing.
“We need to go,” he says. “Or I’m going to fuck you right here against this wall.”
“Home?” I breathe, but he shakes his head.
“Too far.”
“My old place? My mom is at our house, but…” I don’t say the words. I don’t have to. We haven’t been back there since the fire, since his death.
He pinches his bottom lip between his thumb and index finger and looks me in the eye. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”
Before I can speak, he’s pulling me behind him, the rain pummeling us as we dive and swerve around people huddled under terraces, waiting for the rain to pass, until we’re next to the shop in front of my apartment door.
I release his hand, fumbling for the keys, then turn to see him looking up to the roof. “Are you sure about this?”
“Yes.” But there’s a flicker in his eyes, and my job is to make him forget, so I decide that’s what I’m going to do.
“Wait,” I say and go to unlock the shop’s front door instead.
“Come on.” I pull him into the shop, locking the door behind him, and this time, I push him against the door with my body.
My mouth captures his, my hands falling to the bottom of his T-shirt, scrunching it up in my fingers until I’m pulling it over his head.
Our mouths instantly attract back to each other as his hand glides under my shirt, his warm fingers guiding up my back.
I step back so he can peel my wet shirt off, and then my fingers flow across his beautiful body, the roundness of his shoulders, the curve of his pecks.
How I missed this body, how I still want to pinch myself to make sure this is real, that I’m not in some cruel dream that’s meant to tear my heart out.
But as my lips brush over his collarbones, over the beat of his heart, I’m reminded that he’s really here, and I won’t take a second for granted. Not one single second.