For Ever, page 19
“You should close your eyes for this part,” Ever says.
“Are you serious?”
This is the worst possible place to close my eyes. I stare nervously at him before complying. In an instant, he sweeps me up against his chest. I gasp and then smirk, waiting for the punch line.
“Can I open my eyes now?”
“Go ahead.”
He sets me down, and I look around.
“Oh!”
We’re still on the cliffs, but we’re at least a hundred feet from where we just were, around an impassable area walled off by enormous stones.
“How did you … ?”
He shrugs and points in the other direction. Up ahead the cliff juts out, the jagged outcropping of rocks looking like some sort of sacrificial offering site. There’s a sign with a crude drawing of a man falling over the edge to warn people away, but I doubt anyone but Ever could get to this spot without mountaineering equipment. Walking very carefully, I get as close to the edge as I can stand and watch the hungry waters below. My heart begins racing unevenly in my chest, and I back away slowly. Once I’ve reached a conservative distance from the edge, I lower myself onto the ground, leaning against a large, weatherworn rock. I wrap my arms around my knees and watch Ever at the edge, his hair whipped by the wind. He looks like an avenging angel bent on conjuring a storm.
“Who are they? Audra and Chasen, I mean,” I ask quietly, knowing he can hear me.
He turns slightly toward me, but his eyes remain unfocused.
“They are like me.”
“Guardians?” I ask.
He nods and a chill runs down my spine.
“Are there many of you?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Are they,” I pause, “your family?”
I’m straining at my limits to grasp the truth about Ever, if such a thing even exists.
“They are the closest I have to family.”
He walks back from the edge and sits beside me, while continuing to watch the ghostly nothingness beyond the cliff.
“And they came back here because of …”
I stop when he looks over at me.
“Yes, because of you.”
“They seemed to think I was … insignificant. Why would they care?”
“I told you before, they believed I was concealing you from them,” he says.
I swallow.
“And you said you were.”
“Yes.”
I shake my head.
“Okay. You’ve lost me again. Why?”
Ever’s expression darkens, and I feel a flicker of fear. Is it possible that I haven’t yet learned the biggest of the secrets he has been keeping?
“When I didn’t leave here, they were curious,” he says cautiously.
I stiffen.
“You were going to leave?”
“Yes.”
Both the certainty in his voice and depth of my disappointment catch me by surprise. I look away, like it will hide my feelings. How different would things have been if he had simply never come back after that first day?
“I thought it would be better for you if I never came back,” he says. “Then it became clear that I was putting you in danger regardless of the choices I made.”
Frowning, I’m about to remind him of all the times he’s saved my life, but I stop when his hand comes up. I freeze as he touches my cheek very softly. His skin is perfectly smooth and unyielding, like glass coursing with heat.
“You’re cold,” he whispers.
As he says this, warmth begins to spread across my skin from his touch, and even the biting wind doesn’t feel as cold. His expression begins to change, the impossible emerald color of his eyes darkening as he leans forward, his fingers still resting on my cheek. I stop breathing altogether when his other hand reaches out and his fingers begin to trace my jaw.
Sucking in a ragged breath, I close my eyes. Instantly, his touch evaporates, causing me to blink and shiver. When my eyes focus, Ever is at the very edge of the cliff. A roar of pain sweeps out across the water and disappears in the wind. My stomach plunges when he turns to me, his eyes glowing and desperate. I scramble to my feet and walk toward him, but before I can reach him, his hand shoots out in warning. I continue toward him slowly, and when I’m inches away from him, I reach up until I can touch his cheek. His eyes close, and his head tilts toward me, his cheek resting lightly against my palm. Several moments pass before he opens his eyes and pulls back.
“That first day, I was so certain that I could end it. I watched you to be sure you were the one, but I knew. …” He shakes his head. “It should have been so simple, but I hesitated.”
Thinking back, I remember my relief at having a table all to myself that first day in the cafeteria. Then I remember the person who had risen from the table and disappeared just before I got there, and I feel my face go pale.
“That was you?” I whisper.
He nods.
“I swore to myself that I was merely being judicious. I continued to watch you, and then you heard me. …”
The strange laughter I heard in my head that first day—it had been his?
“No.” I shake my head furiously. “I can’t hear people unless I’m looking directly into their eyes.”
“But you did hear me. And I knew then that I could never leave you alive.”
With immediate clarity I understand why Ever came here, why he has been posing as a high school student. I’m suddenly very cold, any heat from Ever’s touch gone. It’s been me all along—a vessel that these incorporeal beings could use to take root. By getting rid of me, Ever would have eliminated their opportunity. He had never been hunting shapeless demons; he had been hunting me.
“Then that morning I blacked out in class—you were trying to kill me?”
When I take a step back, he looks down at me, his eyes pleading.
“Please understand. If I had tried, you would not be alive now,” he whispers. “But I never anticipated that you would be able to see into my world so easily. Those few seconds nearly destroyed you.”
It takes every ounce of willpower I have to hold very still as I try to make sense of the information crashing down on me. The conflicting thoughts and emotions are about to suffocate me. Part of me wants to run away from him as fast as I can. Another part can’t forget how many times over I would be dead if it weren’t for Ever.
“All those times after that, though,” I whisper, needing something to hold onto. “You could have let me die, but you didn’t.”
His eyes tighten, and he shakes his head.
“No. I couldn’t. If you had come so close to death, you could have very easily been inhabited. It is my function not to let that happen.”
His function? A wave of nausea hits me when I finally digest the truth: that I am truly an obligation to him. I try to hide the hurt before it can spread its way across my face.
“That makes sense,” I whisper like he just said something exceptionally logical.
His sudden growl startles me.
“Do you realize how endlessly infuriating your logic is?” he says, his tone somewhere between amusement and pure frustration. “You completely misunderstood my intention. I did not follow you around solely out of some morbid obligation.”
“That’s what it sounded like! So,” I exhale, “for once, can you explain in a way that makes sense?”
He studies me.
“Why did you care when you found out I hadn’t returned to school?” he asks.
I throw my hands in the air.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Humor me.”
“I don’t know! I had nothing better to do? I’m a conspiracy theorist? I couldn’t understand why no one else cared? I didn’t know you, but I couldn’t get you out of my head for some stupid reason?” I stop and smirk. “And you just answered my question with a question!”
“I suppose my motivations were similar. From the moment I saw you, I couldn’t get you out of my thoughts, and for once I felt very human. For the first time it felt as though I had a purpose beyond destruction. A future that didn’t seem so dark and meaningless.”
I blink.
“Because of me?”
“Yes.”
The look in his eyes is so intense that I look down and shake my head, arguing against something I find utterly irrational.
“But you were so indifferent. You spoke to me once. And after that you acted horrified any time you had to be around me!”
“Don’t you understand that I had to be? I swore to myself that I would leave you alone, but from that first morning, seeing you lifeless—because of me—I felt such a profound loss—not guilt, but a loss like something had been ripped from me. I knew then that I would betray everything I knew to make amends. To protect you. Even from myself.” He exhales. “Instead, you are in constant danger, because of me.”
“I’m the one who has an absurd rationale? Do you have to save me indefinitely to feel you’ve atoned enough? And for what? What could you have done that’s so terrible? You didn’t kill me, remember?”
His eyes cloud over.
“You don’t understand. You can’t.”
Ever’s words aren’t dismissive. It sounds like he’s stating a fact as he believes it.
“Then, explain it to me, okay?”
He reaches for my hand and gently steers me in the direction of the trail.
“Close your eyes first.”
I hesitate, feeling my stomach flip at the thought of hurtling several hundred feet through the air—or however we made it from one side of the cliffs to the other.
“Are we going to fly?” I ask suspiciously.
He laughs.
“Not quite.”
His arm wraps around my waist, and I squeeze my eyes shut apprehensively. I’m not curious enough to risk opening my eyes mid-flight and losing my lunch. But only seconds later he’s pulling me along the other side of the trail like nothing happened. I’m about to demand how he did that when he interrupts me.
“Did you notice anything unusual when you arrived here?” Ever asks.
I suppress my impatience and decide to play along, simply because it’s a relief to have a two-way conversation for once, rather than having thoughts pulled out of my head at random.
“You mean other than you?” I shrug.
“I meant your capacity for misfortune.”
I smirk.
“Bad luck?” I muse. “Let’s see. I freaked out and fainted in front of a bunch of strangers on my second day of class, I slipped and nearly killed myself on the cafeteria floor, then a drunk driver would have mowed me down if it hadn’t been for you. …”
We reach the car, and he opens the door for me. I sit down and look toward the driver’s side. Ever is already there, and the car’s engine is purring.
“Why does it matter?”
“Because it wasn’t simply luck,” Ever says.
“What then?”
“A gathering.”
“A gathering?” I repeat flatly.
“Your presence is attracting … bad things.”
“You’re serious?”
He nods, and I frown.
“What about you? How did you get here before I did?”
“Let’s just say I had a head start.”
“You knew I was coming here?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t get it. If you knew about me this whole time, why didn’t you just show up in Topanga and—” I stop, unable to finish.
“I could see where you would be, not where you had been.”
I shake my head, trying to make sense of what he just said.
“You can see the future, but not the present—whoa, hold on. You can see the future?”
“Not in the way you’re imagining. It’s not a linear view so much as it is a bending of time. A brief glimpse—a trail to follow.”
“Into the future?”
He nods. I look down when my stomach growls.
“I’ve kept you too long,” he says apologetically.
“No! I’m fine. Really.”
He smiles at me.
“You are a poor liar.”
“Well, yeah. Sure I am—when you can poke around in my head for answers.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” he laughs.
His laughter is hypnotic, just like this new side of him is intoxicating. And despite the continuous stream of grim revelations, I can’t help enjoying every second I’m with him. This scares me more than anything else.
“This whole honesty thing between us is pretty new,” I point out. “I barely know anything about you.”
“You know more than anyone else.”
Ever’s features become solemn again.
“It was wrong of me to tell you any of this—”
“Stop! No more regret.” I pause. “I don’t regret meeting you.”
He looks at me doubtfully, but I already know that I can’t regret my connection with Ever, whether it means as much to him or not.
“I don’t regret our meeting. I only wish …”
When he stops, I don’t press him. It takes me several minutes to work up the nerve to test the limits of Ever’s candidness.
“So … I’m not sure how I see stuff in people’s heads, but I need eye contact, at least with normal people.” I wince, wishing I had found a better way of excluding Ever. But he isn’t normal. He looks over and smiles wryly in a way that says he doesn’t take offense, and I relax. “Well, your ability goes way beyond mine. Can you try to explain how it works?”
He raises an eyebrow and then goes back to watching the road.
“Because I kind of want to avoid embarrassing myself every five minutes,” I murmur.
“In most cases, I can only see thoughts as they are crossing a person’s mind during a particular moment in time. It’s not an endless catalog of an individual’s every thought. The reception becomes much hazier if the person is highly agitated or frightened and it can make the flow of information difficult to follow, including a person’s location. That night,” he stops and inhales, his hands gripping the steering wheel before he continues, “I used poor judgment. By trying to keep my distance, I nearly cost you your life.”
My pulse thuds at the memory of running through the darkness of the cemetery.
“It wasn’t your fault. I told you to leave me alone,” I remind him quietly.
“I knew better!” he snaps, glaring at the road ahead. “I just couldn’t bring myself to admit how badly I was being compromised by these emotions.”
I frown when he bites off the last word like it’s a curse.
“What’s so wrong with emotions?”
“Nothing, for you, but I am supposed to be able to control them.”
“That’s ridiculous. You can’t control what you feel.”
“I can.” He shakes his head and looks over at me. “I could.”
“That sounds awful, ignoring what you feel.”
“Necessary and useful, though.”
“To feel nothing? Why? Besides, your friend Chasen seemed perfectly capable—of anger at least.”
“That is Chasen. I have found it easier to operate without such a human vulnerability. It is useful to understand human emotion, not to suffer from it.”
“And now?” I ask carefully.
“I wouldn’t give up what I feel for anything.”
His eyes burn into mine for several seconds before I look away. That’s when I notice that we’re parked on a street—not mine, though.
“Dinner?” Ever prompts before stepping out of the car.
When he opens my door, I get out and look around, my eyes landing on the restaurant on the corner. It looks expensive. I hesitate a moment before following him. He opens the door for me, and after walking up a short interior staircase, I stop at the hostess station. The kitchen is visible from where we’re standing. Several men in crisp white jackets are rushing around amidst the steam. The smell is mouthwatering—savory and rich, and my stomach grumbles. Still, all I want to do is turn around and find the nearest fast food place. I mean, is he crazy? I can’t afford this! A young woman walks up, her eyes locking onto Ever instantly before her gaze flickers briefly in my direction.
Please say that’s his little sister.
“How may I help you?” she says to Ever.
I’m attempting to shrink into the background when Ever grasps my hand. I gawk at him.
“For two,” Ever says.
It’s early on a Monday, and the restaurant is only half-occupied. As the young woman leads us to a quiet corner, she turns back, and I see her expression wither a bit at the sight of my hand in Ever’s.
“Your server will be right with you.”
She smiles brightly at Ever before departing. I look down at the menu to distract myself; the prices are enough to do the job.
“We didn’t have to come here. … Unless you wanted to eat.”
I study him, thinking of all the times I’ve watched him sitting in the cafeteria with an untouched tray in front of him. I remember assuming that he didn’t like cafeteria food. I’m still surprised that he ate actual food when he came to our house.
“You’re hungry,” he says. “And I didn’t want to take you home yet.”
His eyes are burning through me again, and my head begins to spin. My trance is broken when a man arrives at our table and fills the water glasses before setting bread and olive oil on the table. My cheeks still feel warm when I look back at Ever.
“Well, I didn’t want to go home yet, but you already knew that, because you cheat.”
I smile, but it’s more to cover up my doubt, or more accurately my conviction that our association is skewed so transparently in my favor, even taking into account that Ever’s original purpose had been my quick termination. If I were here with Josh—or even Jeff Summers—it would make more sense. But I probably wouldn’t feel nearly as ecstatic or conflicted as I do now.
