Taking this as his round-about concession to let me stay where I was, I didn’t follow him when he left the room.
Heaven couldn’t have been this divine. Laying curled in the crux of William’s arm, my body running the length of his, feeling the heat of his body pass through our clothing, passing time with the rise and fall of his chest. Even when I’d brainwashed myself into believing I’d get to spend my life with him, I’d never taken any time with him for granted, but now, after coming to terms with the fact that I’d never see him again—let alone touch him with any kind of intimacy—this was utopia in the purest sense of the word. I didn’t let myself acknowledge that this would all be over, sooner probably rather than later; I simply couldn’t. I was certain if I would have let the realization that I would have to say goodbye to him again—in the most final kind of way—it would have sent me into a sickness there would be no coming back from.
So I’d emptied my mind of nothing but our reunion and willed the seconds to pass like hours and somewhere along the way, it had actually worked. I barely knew which way was up and down, let alone what time or day it was. An eternity could have passed as easily as an hour had. Bittersweet moments like this had a special kind of way of screwing with time . . . not to mention your heart.
A soft trio of knocks was the first outside stimuli to shake me from my feverish case of William hypnosis.
“Knock, knock.” Patrick’s voice emitted through the closed door. “You in there, Bryn?”
I considered not answering, hoping he’d leave, but Patrick wasn’t the kind of guy who ever left—especially if you wanted him to. “Yeah,” I whispered, as if William was sleeping and I could wake him. “You can come in.”
The door swung open, followed by Patrick’s head peeking past it. “I’ve got some of Mrs. Heinrich’s cherry danishes and some watered down coffee from the convenience store in town.” He shook a brown paper bag dotted with dark spots of butter leaking through. “You want some?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” I said, reluctantly sitting up in bed. My body ached from the separation. “What day is it?”
Patrick raised his brows, handing me a cardboard cup of coffee. “Two days later than it was when you first entered this room. Have you left his side to check on your boyfriend down the hall? Your boyfriend who I was really happy was a Mortal because I knew he would someday die—if I didn’t kill him first.”
I shook my head, popping the mouthpiece of the cup back, taking a drink—it was worse than I’d anticipated, but still good. For me, coffee was kind of like pizza—even when you got a bad piece, it was still pretty good. I looked back at William, his face peaceful, gorgeous as usual, and slowly coming back to its normal color and texture.
Patrick leaned against the windowsill across from me, dropping the danishes on the nightstand. “Okay, so I’m just going to say this, get it out of my system, so I don’t have to talk about it anymore.” Whenever Patrick’s face was wrinkled as it was now, I knew things were going to get serious. I’d had a lot of experience with this expression as of late. “I’m not going to pretend to understand this sudden fixation you have with William again. I’m not sure if you like playing nursemaid or are doing this out of guilt or are just plain crazy, and I don’t care.” He ran his hands through his hair, looking like he was searching for the right words. “That’s not true, I do care, actually. But I guess my point is that it’s not really any of my business, as much as I’d like to make it so.”
“Beating around the bush doesn’t become you,” I interrupted, getting a bit of pleasure from experiencing him scrambling for the right words.
He manufactured a smile. “Fine—point blank—here’s what I’m trying to say. Do you still care for him?”
“Of course I do,” I answered, before immediately experiencing one of those deer-in-the-headlights moments.
I felt his eyes penetrating me, trying to figure something out. I preoccupied myself by fishing a gooey tyrof from the bag.
“And vagueness doesn’t become you, sweetheart,” he said finally, still searching me, going deep to unearth my secret. “You know what I mean. Do you still care for him?”
I took a bite, chewing slowly. This answer was as impossible to answer unemotionally as it was for me to feel unemotional about it. “That’s none of your business,” I said, looking down.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he said, crossing his arms. “It’s just nice to know we’re on the same page.”
“We’re never on the same page,” I mumbled into my cup.
“So, I don’t have the first clue why you’re acting this way and, quite frankly, I don’t want to have one,” he said, before launching into a tyrof, annihilating half of it with one bite. “You’re the kind of mystery that drives men to insanity trying to figure out.” His words were muffled from the gob of dough and cherry turning over in his mouth. “Alright, so I’m taking off my protective brother hat and putting on my instructor one.” He tossed aside the non-existent ball-cap on his head, replacing it with what I imagined to be a top hat from the way he mimed running his fingers around the bill.
“Super.” I didn’t hide my lack of enthusiasm as I nibbled off another bite.
“So you said you can feel something before your gift manifests . . . when did you figure this out?” he asked evenly.
“Given my lack of social outlet as of late, I’ve had plenty of time for thinking,” I began, setting my tyrof and coffee down—neither could win the battle for my attention with the man lying beside me. “I’ve been racking my brain, trying to come up with similarities or differences or anything that could help us figure this cursed thing out.” I ran my hands down the length of my body. “And then a few days ago, I got that tingling-numb feeling—just barely a hint of it—but it was enough. It sparked my memory enough to know I’d felt the same thing, at about a hundred times the wattage”—I squinted from the word choicem the [email protected]“those two times before.”
“What were you doing,” he asked, setting his coffee aside, “when you felt the tingling touch of death?” He smiled darkly at me before popping the remaining half of the pastry in his cavernous mouth.
“I wasn’t really doing anything,” I said, drawing William’s upturned hand into my lap. His skin felt warmer than the last time I’d touched it, more alive. He’d be waking soon . . . and then he’d be gone again. I’d never wanted to see his eyes stay shut more. “I was just thinking.”
Endless time to think; enough time to even think about thinking.
“What were you thinking about?” he asked, swallowing.
“Everything,” I answered, scrolling my fingers over the backside of William’s hand.
“You’re going to have to be more specific. Just a bit,” he said humorlessly.
I heaved a sigh. “I was thinking about everything from why rainbows don’t last to which team’s going to win the Superbowl this year.” I was being difficult and I knew it, but a woman’s thoughts were meant to be kept private, especially not to be divulged to a man like Patrick who had the emotional height of a thimble.
“So it’s going to be one of those days,” he said, clearly not amused. “One where your deference is only outdone by your sarcasm.”
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. “Okay, so right before I felt . . . it, I was thinking about Paul dying. How unfair it all was and how I was utterly, positively useless when it came to stopping it. How the Council was taking their sweet time to make their decision. How everyone around me winds up hurt or . . . worse,” I whispered, biting my lip.
“Hmmmmm,” he mused to himself, tapping his fingers over his crossed arms. “Okay, so first time, Council was killing you, second time, badly-dressed thugs were attempting tokill me, third time, you were thinking about Pauly-Dearest dying . . .” He walked to other side of the room, pacing back, looking perplexed.
“I’ve got nothing,” he said finally. “I can’t see any relationship between those three encounters. None whatsoever. What have you got?”
“Nothing,” I said, exasperated. “None of it makes sense to me, either. I know,” I said preemptively, anticipating his expression. “Big surprise.”
He snorted. “You and I might have the most destructive constructive relationship in known existence. We’re the original dynamic duo.”
He managed to get a laugh out of me. “Yeah, well, I’m not being your green-cape wearing sidekick.”
“Well, green isn’t my color,” he said solemnly, collecting the empty tyrof ba g and coffee cups. “You know that. It makes my skin look washed-out.”
“To the bat cave,” I said, lowering my voice a couple octaves.
He chuckled, heading for the door. “He’ll be waking soon, probably a few hours at most,”—his voice took on the serious quality that had dominated Patrick and my conversations lately—“so stay if you like, but remember what we agreed to. When he wakes up, you leave him alone and let him get back to his life. He isn’t a toy you get to pull out and play with whenever you so desire. You got that?”
“I understand,” I said, turning my gaze to William’s face, cherishing the fleeting moment. “I only wanted happiness for him.”
“Well, you should be thrilled you got your wish,” Patrick plucked an envelope from his back pocket and sailed it towards me. “He’s happy in a way he never could have been with you.” He passed through the doorway, nodding back at the envelope in my fingertips. “Could you make sure he gets that when he wakes up? Something tells me he’s going to want to read that right away. You know, it’s from someone special.” He winked, pulling the door closed behind him.
The envelope took on a unique chill, likely due to knowing who the letter was from and what was written on the tri-folded piece of paper. I propped it up against the lamp of the nightstand, my hands shaking the entire way in their journey.
Patrick was right, I should have been the very picture of happy: William was going to be alright, Paul was saved from an untimely death, and William had found someone to fill in the holes I’d punched in his life. Happiness should have been my steady-state for the next decade at the very least.
So I didn’t understand how I felt nothing but an ache that seemed to sink into the marrow of my bones.
CHAPTER TWENTY
GOODBYE
Patrick was right. Again.
It wasn’t more than an hour—a heartbeat—before William’s muscles twitched to life, his arms contracting around me with such strength I could almost feel the shattered pieces of my life coming back together.
“Mmmm,”—he nestled his face into my hair—“I’m dead, aren’t I?” he asked, his voice hoarse from the extended sleep.