Mike lost his words to grief, sobbing heavily into his fingertips, as he reached into his pocket, removing a closed fist. My thumb landed on my ring finger when the gentle tink of glass drew my eyes to what he placed atop the stone.
“This is where it belongs now,” he said and backed away, wiping a weary hand across his lips. As his shadow receded, allowing light against the words on the headstone, the core of my being imploded:
‘Ara-Rose: Loved Eternally.’
All life drew from my soul, like my existence happened in reverse for that spilt second, and the remains of the ring I once wore for love bled out over the stone, weeping crimson tears across my name.
I stumbled on my heels, reaching out for something to ground me. And the dream slipped away, becoming smaller until the blackness swallowed it whole. He was gone, but I knew he still existed out there, somewhere I could never go—just like everything I loved—lost in a world I would not see again; their smiles, their voices, their warm arms. All gone. They would grow old and pass, time would pass, and I would remain here.
Ghosts were supposed to watch—to see who was at their funeral, to see who mourned them. I was supposed to see David again—to know if he came to my grave. I was supposed to sit beside him, comfort him, though he’d never know I was there. Everything just turned out so wrong. How had it all gone so wrong?
The imaginary me appeared in full light, just a soft, golden glow in the darkness, her pale dress billowing, like the fingers of a ghost. She was the storybook version I thought death would be. But I was the reality, sitting across from her—an empty vessel, dark, invisible, tortured. There were no happy reunions in the afterlife, no peace and, from what I could tell, no God, either. I had called to Him; called to everyone I could think of—even called to Rochelle. But she wasn’t here. God wasn’t. Buddha. Anyone. Just me. Just me and my regrets.
“And me,” said my imagination.
I wanted to shake my head. She wasn’t there either. I wasn’t sure there was even a mind. I knew only an eternity of nothing—my punishment, I guess, for condemning David’s heart to the same.
It was the little things I missed the most, like a smile or colour or twisting my ring around on my finger—my ruby rose. Mike would be so sad I couldn’t wear it. And I once thought David would be so sad that I did. But I guess time changes our assumptions. Or our hearts.
“I wonder what he’ll do—David—when Jason shows him the memory of what he did to us,” the imagination said.
We didn’t need to wonder, though. “David will hate me for letting Jason hold me the way he did in the tree.” That was supposed to be David’s right. He told me once, so long ago, that the touch of human skin to a vampire was like a thousand kisses of ecstasy; like satiating an eternal hunger with the warmth of one breath. He’d never forgive me for giving that to his brother.
I wished I could go back—tell him I was sorry. I should have stayed on the dance floor with Mike; I should never have gone with Jason.
“But you knew that then, didn’t you?” she asked. “You went with Jason, knowing deep inside that he was dangerous. You tempted Fate, tempted danger, so David would realise how precious we are to him, and stay with us forever.”
I thought about it for a second. “If that’s true, then I am one big, epic fail, and I will never see David again—never find out why he didn’t show for the last dance.”
“Don’t you remember?” the imagination said, smiling. “He told you that vampires leave and move on without saying goodbye—without telling people why.”
I nodded. “Yes, because it raises more suspicions when questions are asked. They simply send a letter resigning from jobs or schools and they’re never seen again.” As I finished the sentence, realisation struck me worse than shock. “Is that what he did to me? Did he leave me, and I never saw it coming? Did he convince me that he’d come back so that I wouldn’t try to find him?”
“I think you already know the answer to that question, Ara.”
“No. That can’t be right.”
“But it is right. David didn’t come…because David never was coming.”
The remains of my existence suddenly gave up in that one moment. If I could have been speechless or stared blankly, I would have. “Then he really is just as nasty as the memory Jason showed me.”
“Yes,” my imagination snickered, “and you were just another victim of his cruelty.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
An alarm clock set my mind on wake; its incessant bleeping stirring me before I was ready. But the sun, usually always up at this hour, was missing. I blinked a few times, thinking maybe my eyes were still closed, and as my breath came back hot against my own lips from a flat surface right above me, I jumped suddenly. Dread filled my lungs out, making my world sink backward. I placed my hands in desperate layers over the sides, the top, the base of this space I was laying, folding my toes down, pushing against the hard there, making my head hit the firm surface above it.
“Hello,” I called, but my voice came back dead absorbed by the wood it fell against. And the tiny box got hotter and smaller around me, my shoulders folding in, narrowing my lungs.
They thought I was dead.
I felt my heart—placed my hand right over it to see if it was beating, but I couldn’t feel it—couldn’t feel the wound on my neck or my wrist or anywhere. They’d healed. They were healed and I was in a box.
Panic rose.
A chain of fierce screams burst suddenly from my lips, blocked only by the forcing drive of each blow of my elbow, my knee, my foot being cast down on the solid surrounds. “Please don’t leave me here.” I scratched the wooden roof, my fingers splintering. But I didn’t care. “Please. Please, God. Please.”
I coughed out suddenly, the air leaving my lungs in a vulgar bark, fine particles of earthy powder spiking the back of my throat. The box compressed my shoulders on both sides, stopping my lungs from expanding, denying me the breath of relief I fought for.
I stopped moving then. Stopped kicking, breathing, everything, and laid perfectly still, listening to the flow of dirt rain down in a heavy pile over my ponytail, cooling my head through the strands of hair.
The first rule in this situation would be to not panic. But my chest moved in quick hitches. My fingers balled up so tight my thumb cut my hand, I was sure, and I couldn’t stop the thoughts entering my mind, things David told me—vampires, buried alive for seven days. They survived. They lived through that, tortured, alone, unable to breathe.