Brave (Healer) (36 page)

             
Oliver frowns. ‘What are you thinking about?’ I ask, making small circles with the tips of my fingers on his tan skin. I could spend hours tracing his skin. It frightened me that tomorrow he would have to go home and things would change. It was a good kind of fear though; it was exciting. Oliver was right about this being an adventure.

             
‘Just thinking about the first time we met,’ he whispers. I wonder how he feels about leaving me. I doubt he’ll like leaving me unattended when the vampires are still at large but he is better at separation than I am; I’m still learning.

             
‘What about it?’ I inquire.

             
‘You looked hurt and very scared but at the same time you seemed very brave. You didn’t want to be afraid.’

             
‘I try not to be,’ I think of the bundle of nerves that are living inside of me right now. I was scared then of what I had lost when I left Toulouse but now I’m scared of what I might still have to lose. When he met me, I was a mess. Gabe saw it in my eyes when he saw me in New York, Rose saw it when she first came to Oliver’s house and Oliver recognised my sadness when he snuck up on me here in my own bedroom. I was broken for a while but now I’m whole.  I shouldn’t be afraid anymore.

             
As if he senses my anxiety about his departure tomorrow, he says, ‘I’ll never make you feel that way, I promise.’

             
His eyelids are beginning to get heavy and I feel him drift off to sleep. It takes me a little longer to fall asleep and, for a pleasant change, it’s not because of the nightmares. No, I just want to look at his face for a while and take in the magnificence of this moment. I’m home. I’m safe and I’m still me. My family are here, all five of them, and Maurice is dead. Rose and Channing are together and they’re happy. Gabe has Claire and he has found his happily ever after and as for me I am truly happy.

             
The sound of Oliver’s breathing and the familiar humming of my house send me into a blissful, dreamless sleep.