Back to You (54 page)

How cruel. It’s not fair. I cannot stop thinking that I am the reason for his absence. It’s ridiculous and self-centered to think that I could have such an influence on someone. Actually, no, it’s impossible. Yet I cannot help fearing that it’s true. Along the route to the main building, Tess watches me intently as Seth tries to distract me as much as he can. She understands me like no other.

Fortunately, once in the classroom, Tess sits next to me during statistics and history. I feel much more at ease than I anticipated before I decided to come to class.

I’ve lost my appetite, and buy only a bottle of lemonade in the cafeteria. I wait for Tess and Seth to get their food and I follow them to the table. My heart is broken and I don’t look up while I sit at their table.

In the room there is lively chatter, but Vuk remains the gravitational center of my thoughts and I am afraid I will start crying at any moment.

Thankfully, the interaction with Jamie forces me to swallow down the lump in my throat. She doesn’t stop blabbing even during dessert. She does not realize that I am not paying attention to her. She keeps talking about Bryan and how handsome he is, in particular the amber color of his eyes. But she complains about strange questions that he sometimes asks about me. Is he keeping an eye on me through Jamie? And for what reason? I don’t know. I’m so confused.

Suddenly, a light bulb goes off in my head as a memory flashes through my mind. Bryan is sitting in front of me at a table at The Pats, on the night of my party, just before Vuk’s performance. The amber of his eyes––different from the hazel that used to be his color––is identical to Tyler’s and the Siberian rangers. What if the story of the iris tattoo is not true? Is Bryan connected to the Bradford family? Maybe he is
part
of the family. Sounds like the missing piece of the puzzle. It seems contradictory, but nevertheless the missing piece. One piece connects to another, and everything is clearer. I sip my lemonade slowly while my stomach growls nervously. I just want to sit around and sulk, nothing else.

Epilogue

Dorian Gray

When I enter
the parking lot at dusk, the dense haze has become a mist, and it feels nice and dry in my car. Tess hasn’t done much other than anxiously watch me the whole time. Which is getting on my nerves.

Before turning on the engine, I open my purse to take an aspirin. I’m a little more than obsessed with the thought of Vuk. He was running so quickly that I couldn’t catch up to him. As much as I called out for him, screaming, he didn’t turn, and left me in the dark. I am also irritated by the unsolved mysteries of Bryan and Tyler.

I turn on the heat and for once I’m not worried about the deafening roar of the engine. I undo my jacket and shake the rain out my hair. The heater fan will get it dry on the way to The Pats.

With the engine roaring, I shift into reverse and look around to check to see if there are any other cars. I see a white silhouette, immobile, in the rearview mirror. It is Donn’s driver, the undertaker. He looks straight in front of him to my direction, with a straight face. He is still a human being, but seems to not belong to this world anymore.

I look away briefly and just about run into a black car that has slipped in behind me. Fortunately, I have time to slam on the brakes and the other car stops, waiting behind me.

The interior is dark and the weak glow of the dashboard lights barely shows the driver’s face. I let my eyes adjust, and when I meet that somber turquoise gaze I feel a bewildered expression take over my face. It is amazing to feel the tension vanish instantly, as I am immediately flooded with a sense of security.

Donn is staring at me through the window and doesn’t avert my gaze. With a finger he gestures for me to join him. I keep looking at him in disbelief while he’s winking at me. Taken aback, I take a deep breath and look away. Suddenly I hear someone knocking on my door and I gasp.

“Stella?” Asks a familiar voice, in a measured tone.

I recognize the melody of that sound and lower the window.

“Good evening baby, how are you today?” Donn’s eyes light up and examine my face from top to bottom, as if the question was more than a simple gesture of courtesy. He is smiling.

“Good, thank you,” I mutter, in his company I’m always better than good.

His smile widens and he looks into the sunset. He looks pensive as if his mind has wandered off somewhere. “Great day, huh?” He says, and it’s hard for me to hear him. His turquoise irises seem older than two hundred years. He was, after all, alive in the time of the Revolutionary War.

I keep watching him, while his eyes are somewhere else, lost somewhere in the past. Perhaps the battlefield where he lost his life. Suddenly his eyes come back into mine.

“Not exactly my ideal day.” He gasps, melancholically. It is the day that nobody would ever want to go back to: the day he died in 1781. “But it’s sundown” murmurs Donn, looking west towards the horizon thick with haze.”My favorite moment. Yet in a certain way, It’s also the saddest moment, the one in which I died. The dark appears, and the night returns, “ he says, taking a strand of my hair that is fluttering in the breeze between his fingers.

I look up quickly as a blinding reddish yellow light hits my face, a piece of the sky at dusk. “I like the night. In anything, even the darkest things, there is light and beauty,” I say, studying his perfect features in the dim light, waiting for my breath to get back to normal.

“Death has taken from me and given to me,” Donn resumes with a sad smile. “If I hadn’t died that night at sunset, I would never have known you. I lived through hundred of years to find you,” he says, with a hint of seriousness on his face of a tormented angel.

I glance back at him. “How do you feel, really?”

He doesn’t break away from my face. “I’d feel better if I knew what that fur ball was doing in your room the other night. I don’t like that he goes up there.” He’s referring to Vuk, and his tone is a bit too possessive.

My jaw drops, I am speechless and surprised.

“Yes, you heard me right,” he confirms. I’m still irritated.

I hiss at him. “Anyway, Donn. What are you doing here?” I look around me, sitting in the car in the parking lot.

He becomes more serious. “Of course, I haven’t told you yet” he mutters indignantly. “You never let me get to the point: you have accepted the invitation. You are busy with me, tonight. Well, really you’re busy every night, as far as that stray dog Vuk Wolf is concerned.”

I give him a look. “No offense. Sorry if your night won’t go as you hoped.”

He tilts his head to the side, his gaze becomes mischievous. “Mm … It will be so boring.”

“I’m serious,” I warn him, and I try not to give him the wrong idea.

“What a welcome …” he comments, and frowns, impertinent. “It’s more complicated than I had imagined,” he says to himself, smiling.

I sneer and wait.

“Do you want me to go?” He asks and my heart stops, because it is clear that he would be upset if he left me. I would too. I want to be with him. In particular, tonight. Besides, this is the day in which he died centuries ago, at sunset. I can’t deny that I’m curious to see at least a glimpse of Dorian Grayshire behind the mask of Donn Brooks, and this means spending time together. But my pride wins.

“No,” I reply. “I am the one who’s going.”

He sighs softly. “Can I know where?”

“Home.”

He looks up at the sky. “How are you going to get there?”

“With my car.”

“My car is behind yours” he points out, and with his thumb he gestures behind him. “I’m blocking your way.”

“Grrr. You’re overbearing.”

“Of course,” he admits curtly, a trace of arrogance emerges across his god-like face.

“But, say… It’s been a little while since you’ve come to the library, since we’ve seen each other… alone.” He adds, interrupting my mental conjectures.

“I have been busy,” I murmur, to be courteous. I also blush nervously. “I have been focused on my work.”

“To be honest, I didn’t think you’d come to meet me,” he continues. His warm voice has a velvet texture, but my attitude hardens his expression.

I shrug and smile. “Here I am. You found me … Now, if you’ll excuse me a moment …” I turn to his car, huge and bulky, suggesting with a gesture to move it.

“Okay,” he grumbles. “Go ahead,” and his voice changes. It darkens enough to force me to stop looking for a way to get around his car with mine.

I turn back to him. He is waiting for me quietly, with no intention of getting his car out of the way to let me go. Defeated, I fake indifference. I look at him straight in the face and react angrily: I honk the horn lightly in an attempt to make myself clearer.

He smiles, first severely, then angrily. “Don’t be rude, baby. There are people in the parking lot. “He breaks his stare and looks around, assessing his surroundings. “Otherwise I will have to exercise my right as an entrepreneur and take over this entire area of business to be able to talk to you.” His expression is calm, too calm.

I take a deep breath and give up. I let myself fall back on my seat, resigned.

“Be nice,” he mutters after a second, trying to calm me down. “Can you accept my apology to refuse to let you go …? Today, you can not afford to make me feel guilty.”

“No, indeed.”

“Because today is a special occurrence.”

“You talk about it like it’s a happy event, like your birthday.”

“Well, actually, in a sense … Today is the day of my rebirth. But it’s the chance to see you that makes me happy, not the event,” he clarifies.

I sigh. “Perfect. Apology accepted. What’s been happening to you lately?” I said coldly.

His gaze darkens. “I’ve been coming to your house, at night, like two days ago, just to make sure you were okay,” he says, giving me a look of disapproval.

For a long moment we stay looking at each other scowling.

He puts his hand under my chin and lifts up my face. “May I have your attention all to myself at least for a few seconds?” He murmurs, in an authoritative way.

I free myself from his hold and shake his hand away. But I won’t argue with Donn tonight. I breathe and study his face.

He narrows his eyes just a bit. “What is it, Stella?” He asks, annoyed.

I look at him, sullen and stern. “You know perfectly well what I want.”

I think immediately of Vuk, far from any danger from the Ceremony. Perhaps Donn is thinking the same, if he’s not too busy reading my mind.

“And you know well that it takes me some effort to give you what you want.” He points out. “This choice isn’t up to you. Or me. For once, trust me when I tell you that it will be the exact opposite of what you think. You’re concerned, I know, “he sighs and nods thoughtfully. It’s not a question. He knows my mood. “We are all concerned for the ceremony.” Probably he is referring to Aaron and Jason. “But you have to force yourself to be patient,” he says in a deep, calm voice.

“Donn, you understand that Vuk now … is one of the family, he is part of my life!”

I seem to hear him grind his teeth. “Not tonight, Stella, please”

“It’s not fair,” I mumble, and pause. “Well, then maybe Vuk will give me what I want, in one way or another.” I say, as Donn growls. A deep and menacing sound. “I said don’t worry.” He raises slighly his tone of voice. Every time he speaks of Vuk it’s always the same story.

I don’t answer. As if it were easy to not worry. Just touching upon the subject, it feels like we have spent the whole evening discussing it. A deep wrinkle appears across his smooth forehead. I sense he would have preferred to continue talking about the sunset.

He flashes a big smile. “So, are we going? Right now, I mean.” His gaze is still fixed on me and his eyes are sparkling. He’s amused at the idea of going somewhere with me.

I study his face in an attempt to read it. “Where are you taking me?” I whisper, worried by the mischevious manner he is inviting me again.

He glances at me sideways smiling through clenched teeth. “Where do you think I’ll choose to take you?” His eyes light up suddenly.

“Can we stop with the elusiveness, please?” I ask, but he responds with an enigmatic look. He waits.

“I-I think,” I stutter. “No scary places … I hope.”

“Well, the place where we’re going tonight is a bit different,” Donn tells me in my ear. He wants to tease me. Probably he means ‘different from the usual’.

I am quivering. “What …?” I ask with a smile. “What do you mean ‘different’? A cult meeting, the city cemetery?”

He holds back a laugh. “Could be … for example.”

My jaw drops, and he bursts out laughing. “What else could it be?” I can’t help but ask.

“You shouldn’t worry about the place itself, but rather the person who will be coming with you, and that in 1781 he died in exactly one hour from now,” he says. His smile disappears, lost in memories, and his angelic face becomes serious.

I shrug. “I think you can be scary, Donn, if you want to be. Or, no, better, your mask can be. Yet … you don’t scare me, “I add too quickly, and smile. “I fear however that I will never see …
Dorian
.” I confess, and I whisper cautiously his name; he doesn’t want me to say it.

He raises an eyebrow, softly. The turquoise of his eyes flames. “Then accept my invitation.” He murmurs in that velvet voice of his, melting any resistance I have.

I hold my breath. “I don’t think it would be a great idea.”

“I don’t know if at this point you have any other choice.” He punctuates cocky, self-assured. The faint trace of his smile lights up his face, and it is so beautiful that it pulls me in like an idiot. I hate to be pinned in a corner like this.

“You’re doing it again.” I say through my teeth, still shaken.

With a smile he opens his eyes, curious. “Doing what?”

I frown. “You’re trying to charm me,” I admit, as I try to stay clear headed. “You shouldn’t treat me like this, it’s not right” I tell him. I can’t do anything more than just try not to look at him, but I’m unsuccessful.

He seems amused. “Treat you like what?” He asks, smiling. He keeps staring at me with those piercing eyes.

“Charm me in this way to get what you want. You impress everyone by doing this.”

“Ah,” he says, frowning, almost modest. “But I am only interested in impressing you,” he points out, and on his face reappears that perfect menacing expression.

I try to ignore it. “Don’t you see it? You don’t realize the effect you have! Do you think that everyone is able to do whatever they want so easily?”

He ignores my questions. “So I charm you too.”

“Often.” I let out a shy laugh, but I’m not amused.

“Prove it,” he adds. “Baby, tell me yes. Accept my invitation.” He insists, and gives me an intense, haunting look.

“I told you it was a mistake …” I mutter anxiously, avoiding his gaze for a moment.

While pausing his expression seems impassive, neutral. “Well, it was obvious that you would give me this answer.” He gives me a bitter half smile. “Actually, I’m expecting you to go into a state of shock from that afternoon in my office,” he confesses, and his eyes betray anguish.

“Should I have?” I ask, surprised by his intensity. “Really, I wasn’t in shock,” I mutter. “Just … a little shaken more than anything else, and confused because I felt that you could control my emotions.”