First Vision of Destiny - Alicia (3 page)

She gave a single, jerky nod. Daisy nodded
back, smiling faintly. They hugged again.

“It’ll be all right,” Daisy said, moments
later, as she was leaving. “I know you two will be fine.”

These parting words helped Alicia hang on to
her calm as she prepared for Ben’s return. If anyone else had
offered her these platitudes, she would have scoffed. But Daisy
wasn’t anyone. She understood people, what made them tick, what
broke them to pieces or brought them closer to someone. If she said
things would work out, they would—or at least, Alicia held on to
that thought with all her might as she waited for Ben’s return.

Acting on instinct rather than truly thinking
about what she was doing, she started preparing dinner. She was
slicing vegetables to stir-fry when she froze, her knife half an
inch above the cutting board. She had just realized this was what
she had cooked for him the first time she had invited him to have
dinner at her apartment, her other offer hanging unvoiced yet all
too clear like a silver thread between them. It had been the night
they first shared I love you’s, the night they first made love.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and,
with very deliberate motions, resumed her slicing. Would Ben
remember? Would he realize something was happening before she found
the courage to talk to him?

On that first night, they had started with a
fresh salad and a glass of wine. He had stood at her shoulder while
she stir-fried the vegetables and chicken. She touched the back of
her neck, remembering the feel of his lips there, distracting her.
The apple pie had been cold by the time they had fed it to each
other in bed.

Before she even knew what she was doing, she
was throwing the ingredients for the dough in a mixing bowl. Pie
sounded good. She only had two apples, but they would be enough.
The salad would only take moments to prepare; she would wait until
it was almost time for Ben’s return.

“It’s going to be perfect.”

Her murmured words barely stirred the kitchen
air. Fumbling a little, she undid the clasp of her bracelet so it
wouldn’t trail in the dough while she mixed it. She held the
bracelet in her hand for an instant. The silver felt almost warm.
She ran her thumb over one of the enamel hearts, erasing a
fingerprint. For years, she had worn a bracelet on her left wrist
at all times, in part to hide the scars on the inside of her wrist,
and in part because every fleeting touch against those scars sent a
jolt through her, reminding her she was alive. At times, that
reminder had been much needed. Then she had met Ben, and the
touches had ceased to be important. The scars had healed, and when
Ben had offered her this bracelet as a wedding gift, she had worn
it as a reminder of his love. The scars had faded, slowly losing
their sensitivity. Until…

Her hand shook a little as she set the
bracelet on the countertop. The silver clanked on the quartz-flaked
gray stone, almost like a small bell. Pushing away the memories
that cluttered her mind, Alicia started kneading the dough. The
smoothness of the flour on her fingers quickly gave way to the
sticky feel of butter. She let her tactile memory guide her in
kneading to the perfect consistency, then rolled the dough with a
wooden pin. When she had lined her pie pan with the crust and
filled it with diced apples, she molded the excess dough into a
small heart that she laid in the center of the pie. She remembered
having done the same, on that first dinner date with Ben, and he
had fed her that crunchy, golden heart from his fingertips. Part of
her couldn’t help hoping that, maybe, he would again.

As she placed the pie in the warm oven, then
cleaned and set the table on the island, she wondered, for just an
instant, if this was the way to go. Could she reset their
relationship so easily? Years had passed since that date. Many
things had changed, including her and Ben. They had grown closer,
then grown apart. They had learned to love each other’s little
quirks, then learned to live with them. She still loved him as much
as she ever had and she hoped—oh, how she hoped!—that he did as
well. Would it help anything to cling to the past?

She dismissed the thought with a shake of her
head. This was the right thing to do if she hoped to fix things
between her and Ben. She knew it with a certainty anchored so deep
within her that she couldn’t question it. It was almost as though
she had already been through this storm, had already walked this
path, and knew it would lead her and Ben to safety.

While the pie cooked, she took a shower. It
calmed her nerves and, when she stepped out of the tub to finish
getting ready, she didn’t look anymore as though she had spent her
afternoon crying. She dressed in the same wide skirt and cotton
blouse she had worn that first night and stayed barefoot like she
had then. The only difference was that her left wrist remained
bare. She felt naked without the fine links of silver circling her
wrist, and a few times she caught herself stroking her skin with
her right hand. She wondered how long it would take Ben to
notice.

At six, she put the finishing touches on her
preparations. She transferred the pie to the warming drawer of the
oven, then prepared the salad. She had just set it on the island,
along with the jars of olive oil and vinegar, when a car stopped at
the end of the driveway. Seconds later, the front door opened.

“I’m home,” Ben called out. He sounded
tired.

Alicia clenched her hands, then opened them
again. “Dinner is almost ready.”

As she threw the vegetables and diced meat in
the heated stir-fry pan, she listened to his progress in the house,
through the living room and into their bedroom. She was glad
suddenly that she had thought of putting away her suitcase. That
would have brought questions she wasn’t ready to answer yet. She
absently stirred the food in the pan when it started sizzling, the
aroma spreading through the kitchen. She needed just a little
longer to prepare her words. She needed, also, to finally decide on
whether she would confess or accuse first. Her pain demanded that
she do the latter, but if she did, she knew she’d never get around
to admitting her own betrayal of his trust.

When she heard Ben approach, she shut off the
burner with a snap of her wrist and turned to him. He stopped just
beyond the kitchen door, taking in the candle-lit dinner set on the
island before turning his eyes to her. She wasn’t sure whether she
imagined the glimmer of recognition that lit up his eyes for a
second before he passed a hand through his hair, making it stick at
odd angles.

“Did I forget something?” he asked, his words
slow and cautious, as he took his seat on a high stool.

Alicia sat down across from him. “Did you?”
She winced at the tone of her own voice. She hadn’t meant to be so
brusque.

Her reaction made him pause with his glass of
wine halfway to his lips. He put it down on the table again without
drinking. “I mean… It’s not our anniversary. Is there a reason for
all this?”

Again, a snappy answer tried to pass Alicia’s
lips. This time, she managed to catch it before it spilled out. If
antagonizing Ben were all she had wanted, she wouldn’t have
prepared all this.

“No reason. I just thought it’d be nice.”

She served him salad before filling her
plate. When she sprinkled oil and vinegar over it, she was almost
proud that her hand only shook a little. They ate in silence. Every
so often, Alicia would steal a glance at her husband. The faintest
frown was pulling at his eyebrows. He knew something was up; she
would have bet he did. Did he suspect she knew? Was his guilty
conscience tugging at him? The thought vindicated her for a moment,
before she remembered—she was not blameless.

Maybe because of her anxiety to be done with
the entire ordeal, Alicia finished her salad very fast. Laying her
fork down, she watched Ben’s plate, waiting for it to finally be
empty. As he took his last forkful, she stood and picked the pan on
the stove behind her, filling her own plate first this time, then
Ben’s. Apart from his murmured comment that the stir-fry tasted
good, they were silent again.

Alicia remembered their first dinner in
her apartment and how much they had talked that evening. They had
talked about their jobs, about their friends, about the last movie
they had seen together, and the last movie they had seen apart.
They had simply
talked
.

The silence, this night, felt like a living
being standing in the room with them, ready to swallow and stifle
any attempt at conversation. She wanted to say something, anything,
but she wasn’t ready for the main course yet, and any other topic
would have felt too trivial.

Again, she finished before Ben. She pushed
her plate to the side and drew her untouched glass of wine closer
to her. Her fingers played on the long stem and over the rim, but
she didn’t take a drink. She wanted her mind clear when she told
him, without alcohol tripping her tongue.

She waited until he put his fork down on his
empty plate and forced the first words out, bypassing her fears and
hesitations. “I have to talk to you about something. It’s
important.”

For the first time since starting the meal,
he met her eyes, although only for a second before he looked at his
glass and picked it up for a sip. He seemed uncomfortable. She
wished she knew what was going on in his mind. Did he feel guilty?
Afraid that she had suspicions? Or was she only projecting her own
feelings on him?

Realizing that she was only delaying her
admission a little longer, she put down her glass and rested her
hands on either side of it. The stone was cool beneath her fingers.
She took a deep breath, forced herself to look straight at Ben, and
plunged in.

“I’ve been visiting a blood bar again.”

Whatever Ben
had been expecting, this clearly was not it. His eyes, wide and
round, snapped up to her face. His mouth opened and closed again
without a sound. She waited for him to find his voice again. “You…
what?”

Very slowly, she turned her left hand over,
exposing the inside of her wrist and the marks there. She kept her
eyes on Ben, and could not miss the way his gaze dropped to her
hand on the countertop. His eyes narrowed. For just a second, she
thought she could see the doctor in him, examining a wound,
evaluating its severity. In the past weeks, she had often expected
him to notice. She had been surprised he hadn’t. It had only added
to her overall depression.

“I’ve been going for three months,” she said,
and wondered if he would hear the pain in her words that he had
never noticed.

His brow furrowed. “Three months…”

She could see the moment he made the
connection. “When you took that new position, yes. You were so
stressed, and so busy, we weren’t talking like we used to and…” At
his deepening frown, she shook her head. She hadn’t meant to blame
him for this. It was coming out all wrong. “No, I don’t mean… I
know your job is demanding, and I’m proud of you. Of what you do.
But I’ve been feeling like…” She clutched at elusive words. She had
to explain, she had to make him understand, but she could barely
explain it all to herself. “Like I didn’t know how to reach you
anymore. I felt… I don’t know, a bit lost. Lonely.”

He mouthed that last word soundlessly. His
eyes dropped again to her exposed wrist, and Alicia fought with
herself not to hide it and the glaring proof of her malaise.

“You could have been killed.” His words came
out slowly at first, as though he had to push them past a knot in
his throat. Soon, though, he was speaking faster, his voice filled
with fear. “Vampires are killers! Every week someone is brought to
my E.R. because they trusted a vampire! Even in blood bars—”

“I know, Ben,” she said, raising her hand in
a calming gesture. “I know.”

They had had this same conversation just two
weeks after they had started dating when he had first noticed the
scars she hid so well.

“And you did it anyway.” His eyes searched
her, as though trying to understand. After a few seconds, he shook
his head slowly and asked, his voice a mere whisper, “Why?”

He had asked back then too, but she hadn’t
been able to give him an answer, instead hiding behind claims that
this was no different from the experimenting they had all done in
college with alcohol, sex, and cigarettes. It didn’t occur to her
to lie this time. “For the same reason I used to do it before we
started dating.” She swallowed hard and dived in. “To feel like
someone depended on me. Needed me. Wanted me more than anything. He
made me feel like I used to feel when I was with you. Like I want
to feel again.”

Ben had been leaning forward over the island.
At her words, he slowly moved back, finally slipping off the stool
and standing. Alicia’s heart leapt in her throat when he took a few
steps toward the door and she thought he would leave, but he
stopped and turned back to her. “He?” he said, almost choking on
the word. “So… it’s just the one vampire, then? Are you telling
me…” He passed a hand through his hair again, the gesture familiar
and a clear sign he was troubled. “Did you… did you sleep with
him?”

Alicia was shaking her head before he even
finished. “No,” she said, then repeated just a little louder, “No.
It was always just about the bite.”

Hands now buried in his pockets, Ben seemed
to be hesitating between stepping toward her and moving back again.
Clutching the edge of the island, Alicia stood and took a small
step toward him. Before she could take a second, he asked, “Do you
love him?”

“
No.” She had not expected him to ask this.
Even so, the answer came without hesitation, for which she was
grateful. She didn’t want him to have the slightest doubt that she
was telling the truth. She held his gaze, hoping he would see in
her eyes that she meant every word. “Of course I don’t. I
love
you
. I’ll always
love you.” Her voice broke on a tearless sob. She finished in a
murmur. “I wouldn’t be so scared to lose you if I
didn’t.”