Bird Song (69 page)

I felt my eyes start to sting as those words hit me like a brick to the chest.
 
“You never did tell me what happened to him.”

“I told you, he’s gone.”

I looked at him, the tears still clinging desperately to my lids.
 
“Yes, but what did you mean by that?
 
Gone as in dead, or gone as in not here?”

He turned away, refusing to speak the words out loud.
 
I turned to look at Lark and I could see it in her face as well.
 
I nodded in understanding and allowed my tears to finally flow freely down my face, watching in blurred waves as they fell to my feet.

“He was never punished, was he?
 
He hadn’t done anything wrong; he was just finishing the job he started.”

When no arguments came I nodded in mute understanding once more.
 
I felt my heart burn as I continued.
 
“I guess there’s no real point then, is there?
 
He wants me dead, I’m supposed to be dead…it’s only fair that he get his shot.”

“No!” Lark and Robert both cried out, their voices cutting off as they each heard the other, their anger towards each other causing their wings to ruffle and bristle with tension.

“I won’t let him harm you, Grace,” Lark vowed, her eyes boring holes into Robert.

I laughed mockingly.
 
“You won’t let him harm me?
 
No one can protect me.
 
Even Robert knows I’m supposed to die.
 
It’s a sure thing now that everyone knows I was supposed to die eleven years ago and didn’t.
 
It’s why Robert’s been bugging me to accept being turned..
 
And you said it yourself that it was selfish of me to deny him this, knowing how much it would hurt him to see me die, Lark.”

Her eyes grew wide, her mouth forming an “o” of surprise at my words as she nodded hesitantly.

“Yeah, I heard every single word of your conversation, Lark.
 
And just so you know, there can be no greater example of selfishness than your brother demanding that I turn for him simply so he could escape ever having to deal with me finding out the truth.
 
That’s the reason, isn’t it?
 
The entire reason for wanting me to become one of those who-knows-what out there?
 
If I became one of them, Sam couldn’t kill me, and the secret would be safe, right?”

Lark looked over at Robert, her eyes still wide.
 
He shared the same surprised look, their thoughts shared quickly between the two before they both turned to look at me.

“Grace, how did you know that I said those things?” Lark asked nervously.

“I was here.
 
When I was passed out, I saw my mother.
 
She brought me here to listen to you guys all argue and talk.
 
She said that I needed to hear something important.
 
She was right.”

Lark and Robert once again stared at each other, their eyes flickering so rapidly as they shared a private conversation, I felt dizzy just watching them.

“Stop it!” I shouted.
 
“If you have something to say, say it.
 
I’m done with all of this secrecy, mind reading crap.
 
I’m sick of it.”

Lark shared one last apprehensive look with Robert and frowned.
 
“We weren’t speaking when we said those things, Grace.
 
No one uttered a single word during the conversation you’re talking about.
 
Everything that was spoken was done in our thoughts—we didn’t want to disturb you or draw any more attention to our location than we already have.”

Stacy and Graham both nodded their heads, while Robert looked on, pleadingly.

“I heard you speaking,” I countered, but bit back the rest of my words as Lark shook her head.

“You know that I cannot lie, not even a little, and I’m telling you that no one was talking, Grace.”

I turned my gaze angrily towards Robert, waving off Lark’s denial.
 
“It doesn’t matter who said or didn’t say anything.
 
The fact remains that I know what was being discussed, and I know that you’ve got it wrong; I’m not being selfish for not wanting to change who I am.
 
If I could, I’d give any and all chances I had at immortality to Graham and Stacy because they have
have
a genuine reason to want to live forever, they have someone who deserves to have them around forever, who
wants
to have them around forever.”

I felt the burn in my heart and the ache in my throat as I let the final words slip past my lips, my eyes fixed on Robert’s as I uttered them, feeling that fissure in my chest blow wide open as I did so.
 
“I don’t.”

I grabbed the hem of my dress and began walking towards the twinkling lights at the edge of the woods.
 
Robert grabbed my arm, but I yanked free.
 
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed.

“Grace, please.
 
I did this to keep you safe, to keep us safe because I love you,” he pleaded.

“Don’t. Talk. To. Me. About. Love!” I growled.
 
“You don’t have a clue what love is.
 
You view love like it’s a toy you can play with, and I’m merely the stupid box that it comes in.
 
You don’t view me as an equal—you never did.
 
I’ve always known it, but I just haven’t accepted it until now.
 
It’s why you waxed poetic about virtue and patience—I’m simply not good enough, not for that and certainly not for the truth.

“And you can go ahead and blame all of that on you being a naive angel who’s never experienced what love truly is until you met me, and that you’re still trying to understand it.
 
But I’ll know it’s just another lie because I’ve never before experienced a single ounce of what I feel for you with anyone else.
 
Not with Graham, not with anyone, but that not knowing has never caused me to keep from you anything that would have changed our relationship the way you just did.

 
“I never asked you to change who you were, despite all of your differences.
 
I didn’t care that you could read my mind, or could fly.
 
My God, I even looked past all of the death stuff because I love you!
 
But you couldn’t accept me the way that I am—you kept trying to get me to agree to turn, and you couldn’t even be honest about why.
 

“You brought me here to frighten me into turning, to try and scare me with my mortality by having monsters threaten my life, yet the danger is far more closer to home—Sam is still alive, he hates me more than ever, and it’s all because of you.”

I could hear my voice shaking and stuttering as my tears brought on hiccups.
 
“You know the worst part about this?
 
You did all of that to try to convince me to turn when you didn’t really need to.
 
I would have agreed to it, Robert.
 
I was ready to tell you before all of this started, ready to tell you that I wanted to spend forever with you because I knew that if it took forever for you to finally want to be with me the way that I wanted to be with you, I would have gladly waited that long.
 
But now that’ll never happen because I can’t trust you; you—an angel.
 
And if I can’t trust you then I can’t be with you.
 
Not now, not ever.”

I started to walk away, but Robert’s hand once again grabbed my arm.

“Grace, don’t do this.”

“I’m not, Robert,” I replied simply through a thick curtain of tears and hurt.
 
“You did it all on your own.
 
Congratulations.
 
You’ve finally learned how to be human.”
 
I jerked my arm free of his grip once more using my entire body weight and stormed away from him, each step feeling heavier and heavier, a complete contradiction to the exaggerated feeling of emptiness that was inside of me as I approached the ever brightening glow of the mocking lights that encircled the tent of merrymakers.

I quickly brought my hand to my face to wipe away any residual blood and tears before running into anyone that might recognize me.
 
I heard the sound of footsteps nearing me from behind and I turned around, ready to sound off on Robert once more, but instead I saw the comforting face of Graham and I collapsed in his arms with a pitiful wail of sobs pouring out of me.

“
Shh
, it’s alright,” he cooed as he held me tightly against him.
 
He did not move, did not stir as my body was racked with seemingly endless sobs.
 
Instead, he smoothed my hair that had fallen out of its pins, stroked the nape of my neck, and allowed the slow beat of his heart to seep in to steady the erratic beat of my own until everything had calmed down.

When my violent sobs made way for the soft tick of hiccups, he finally spoke.
 
“Stacy’s gone to tell your dad and Janice that you’re not feeling well and we’ll take you home, okay?”

I nodded beneath his now impossibly dampened shirt, thankful for his presence.
 
I muffled my gratitude into the soggy mess that I had created and felt him chuckle.

“You can thank me later by washing this shirt.
 
Come on, I’ll walk you to the car.”

With one arm around my waist and the other one cradling my hand, we walked towards his green Buick, him gently patting my hip as I renewed the sobbing, though it was silent now.
 
He pulled his keys out from his pocket and fiddled with them until he found the right one, then proceeded to unlock my door, pulling it open and helping me inside.
 
He waited outside for Stacy to return, and when she did, she motioned for me to roll down the window.

“Okay, so I told your dad that you weren’t feeling too well and that Graham was going to take you home.
 
He said that he’d call you from the car when they were heading off to that resort place they’re going to for their honeymoon.
 
I’m going to call my mom from your house and tell her that I’m staying over with you, is that alright?”

I nodded mutely, the words making sense…and then not.

“So what are we waiting for then?” Graham asked as he walked over to his side of the car.
 
He opened the door and pulled back the seat to allow Stacy to climb in but she remained on my side of the car.

“Lark.
 
She doesn’t want Grace going home alone.”

“She’s going to be with us.
 
How can she be alone?”

I couldn’t see Stacy’s face, but I could tell by her tone as she responded that she was annoyed.
 
“You don’t really listen too well, do you?
 
She’s not going to have Robert there to watch her, not willingly anyway, and that’s not safe for her.”

“Because of that Sam guy?”

“He’s not just that Sam guy, Graham.”

I heard Graham’s fist pound the roof of the car and I winced.
 
“I know he’s not just that Sam guy.
 
I could kill Robert for bringing a guy like that into Grace’s life.
 
What was he thinking?”

“He didn’t bring Sam into Grace’s life, Graham.
 
Sam was a part of her life before Robert was.
 
Robert is the reason she’s still alive—as heinous as his actions were, we have to at least acknowledge that.”

I heard Graham sigh, followed by a muffled “I know” before he straightened his body.
 
I turned to look out of my window and saw the silhouette of Lark standing just outside of the perimeter of the woods.

Grace, you know that he loves you.

I turned away from the window.
 
“How utterly unfair, to not be able to avoid a conversation even this far away,” I mumbled to myself.

He was stupid, he was wrong, he knows it.
 
Please, give it some time and think things through before you go writing him out of your life forever.
 
You don’t know what he’s gone through.

I stared at the gear shift and tried to ignore the musical notes that echoed with each word.
 
I snorted as the last one seemed to echo in my head.
 
“Forever isn’t a term that exists with humans, remember?
 
And you saw this happening.
 
You knew it was going to happen…it’s too late to stop it now,” I whispered, knowing that she would hear me.

Whatever your decision, you must know that he’s never going to leave you alone, right?
 
He might have been foolish enough to trust you with Sam once, but he knows much better now.
 
He has been actively trying to keep you safe, especially now.
 
Whatever his faults, he loves you, Grace, and would gladly give up his life to keep you safe.
 
Please, if nothing else, at least remember that.

I turned to scowl at her, but she was gone.

“Okay, Lark’s going to meet us at the house.
 
Let’s get going,” Stacy said as she slapped the car’s roof.