She looked down at her meal, folding her bottom lip over her top one, her eyes awash with thought. “How are you coping then?”
“Me? Fine.”
She smiled, her eyes glassy. “Liar.”
I laughed once. “No, really, I knew this was coming, so I'm okay.”
“How long have you known?”
I shrugged.
“Did you know at the sleepover?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Not planning to marry him. So, that’s what you meant that night?”
I nodded.
“I'm sorry, Ara.”
“I'm okay.”
She stared me down. “Ara, I’m your best friend. You don't have to be strong around me.”
Funny thing was, she had become my best friend, and I knew I could tell her about David—and she’d understand. “Thanks, Emily. But I really am okay.”
“Did he say where he was even going?”
“No. Only that he won't be back. That’s why we broke up.”
I could see the thoughts flickering across her brow, in her eyes and over her lip, changing, forming into questions. “Why didn't you go with him? I mean, if I loved someone as much as you loved David, I would’ve just jumped in his suitcase.”
I laughed. “Um, well, because I didn't want to.”
“Why?”
“He…he wants a kind of life that I…well, we want different things.”
“Like?”
I swallowed. “Well, I want a family one day, and he—”
“He?”
“He wants a career in…” Punishing naughty vampires. “Politics. He can't have distractions, like a family.” Or food he’s in love with.
“Kids?” Emily practically spat. “You let David go because you want kids?”
I nodded, knowing it was a poor argument.
“I don't get you, Ara.” She dabbed her teary eyes with her napkin.
“Not much to get, Em. It is what it is.”
She shook her head, leaving her burger abandoned on the plate. “It’s getting late. We should probably go.”
“Okay,” I said softly, grabbing my bag as I stood up. “You okay, Em?”
“Yeah. I’m…yeah.”
I sighed, linking arms with her as we left the cafe. “Hey, Em? About your dress? We only have five shopping days left—are you sure you didn’t like any of them?”
She grimaced. “No. None of them really felt right. I don’t know, maybe I’ll just go in jeans.”
“Yeah, it might be a bit tricky for Spence to co-ordinate his tux with denim.”
“Well, it’s no big deal, really. If I don’t find a dress—I just won’t go.”
“You have to go!”
“Why?”
“I…” I frowned. “I guess you don’t.” I hadn’t really thought of that. I was so caught up in our only options being to either find her a dress or have her go in something old and tatty, I never even considered the idea that there were other choices to be made.
Which made me realise…I had options, too—just like everyone else.
Maybe I’d been going about this whole immortal-love-or-eternal-sadness thing all wrong. I’d been feeling trapped by the choice between two paths—David or Mike—but it was the confines of my own mind narrowing those choices.
I walked a little taller as we reached the parking lot, thankful that Emily was distant and distracted herself, allowing me to escape to my own thoughts.
Fate had stepped in and offered me an alternative to eternal blood. But maybe I didn't have to choose either of them; maybe I could choose to be on my own—to go in a different direction altogether and forget love.
Since Mum died, I’d spent so long blaming myself and living with guilt and anguish that I’d forgotten I was a girl of my own rights, and that there was such a thing as choosing how to feel.
Like when Dorothy made it home from Oz, she learned that she was never really gone in the first place—that all the fear and loneliness she felt in that world was in her own mind.
I have control over my own life, and I get to choose what it is that breaks me...
* * *
‘Dear diary,
Power of choice lasted about as long as it took me to sit in the nook of my window, diary in lap, and look out at the empty night. Emily was heartbroken about David tonight, and I wondered why he hadn’t at least said goodbye to her. She was right. She never did anything to hurt him. He shouldn’t have left her without a goodbye. And her sadness magnified my own, making my sudden epiphany to be independent null and void. Who was I kidding to think I could just get over David and Mike by choosing to be happy on my own?’
I chewed my pen for a second, then rubbed my ankle, warming the icy chill that whistled in under the slightly open pane. Down in the street, with the moonlight hidden behind a dense cloud, cars and trees looked shadowed and intimidating. It seemed eerily still out there, but the familiar feeling of being watched trickled past my reflection, making me hold my breath a little. I wished it were true—that I was being watched. By David. Except, a part of me was deathly afraid it may be something else—or no one at all. I wasn’t sure which was worse.
‘I never even leave my window open, anymore’, I continued, ‘I don’t want the fresh air, and I’m also a little afraid David’s creepy brother might visit me in my sleep again.
That freaks me out beyond words.’
A loud crack outside startled me, and a bright flash turned my legs white for a second.
I froze, unable to inch the window closed so the menacing storm wouldn’t notice me here. It grew in the sky above me, rolling in over the tops of the trees, carrying every fear, every tear I ever cried, surrounding me, cornering me in this tiny little space, only half covered by glass.
Then, in a second attempt to demonstrate its power, the thunder ricocheted off the distant horizon with a sharp snap, receding to a dense growl. And I believed it, submitting to the taut being it demanded I become. I thought it had passed—my fear of storms. I’d tried so hard, for so long, to grow up and get over it, and only a few weeks ago I thought I’d succeeded, but it seemed that every time something broke in my heart or my life, so crumbled that pillar of strength I thought I’d built.
I looked across my room to my door, knowing Mike would be out there—awake, waiting for me. But he wouldn’t always be there to comfort me through these thundery spells, unless I went with him to Perth.