Forsaken (16 page)

Amber didn’t respond for a long time,
just forked a few bites into her mouth. “Things will work out
somehow. They have to.”

“
I hope so,” I said as I
glanced over at her, a sad smile clinging to my face.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

JESSICA

I had never seen the bookshop so busy.
Being the middle of summer and a beautifully clear day brought
everyone out and into town. Rita had called all of the employees to
help out and I had been wrangled into helping out at the espresso
machine.

“
That will be $7.34,” I
said to the balding man at the counter. He paid and the next
customer stepped up to the counter.

The last week I felt like a machine
working. My hands were doing what they were supposed to but my mind
was just not there.

I should have been happy after Alex
came back. Things seemed to be going great. Sal was happy and
healthy. Rod and Amber were getting along, perhaps a little too
well. Alex was as loving and attentive as ever. Even the fact that
I still hadn’t been able to get a hold of Emily shouldn’t have
brought me down as much as I was.

Everyone seemed to sense something was
wrong. Amber had asked if there was anything bothering me,
apparently even Rod sensed something was up. Alex asked if
something was wrong, though he was always very careful in how he
asked. I think he knew what was in fact wrong, but he tried to
dance around it. He didn’t want me unhappy but he wasn’t willing to
fix the actual problem.

And then there was the fact that I
continued to find letters. I still occasionally felt eyes watching
me, felt a presence from the shadows. It just made the situation
between Alex and I all the worse. I knew it was shallow but I
didn’t want Cole seeing that we were having problems. I could just
imagine the smug smile he was wearing.

The high school aged girl before me
had to tell me twice what exactly it was she wanted. A few minutes
later I found I had still gotten it wrong and the girl decided
cursing at me was going to help.

“
Why don’t we switch
places for a little while?” Austin offered mercifully.

I gave a sheepish smile and gladly
stepped aside. “Thanks,” I said. “I’ve been feeling a bit off
today.”

He probably thought I
wouldn’t hear him, I
shouldn’t
have heard him, as he muttered, “more than just
today.”

I held back the urge to turn around
and bite his head off. I felt more than a little irritated as I set
about to making the drink orders that kept piling up.

He didn’t know me or anything that was
going on in my life.

I searched around for a knife to open
a new box of cups and distractedly set to hacking it open. Who did
Austin think he was? He had no idea what I was dealing
with.

I should have been paying more
attention to what I was doing. It took me a second to even realize
that my hand had slipped. The blade was burrowed into the soft
patch of skin between my thumb and index finger on my left
hand.

The scream of pain that wanted to jump
from my lips was barely contained as I stared horrified at the
knife that was lodged into my hand. The sensations of pain dropped
away however as I waited for the blood to start flowing. It
didn’t.

I couldn’t make sense of what was
happening. The knife had to be sticking at least a half-inch into
my skin but it wasn’t bleeding. It hurt like I couldn’t believe but
there was no blood.

“
Jessica, did you get
that…”

I yanked the knife out of my hand when
I heard Austin’s voice just behind me, biting back another scream.
I spun around to see him looking wide eyed at my injured but
un-bleeding hand.

“
Whoa,” he said as he
blinked hard. “That was weird. I swear I just saw that knife
sticking out of your hand.”

I chuckled uneasily. “Guess it’s been
a long day for you too,” I snapped back.

I knew I’d been too harsh when he only
gave me a forced half smile then turned back to the
register.

My hand was shaking as I looked back
down at it. The half inch gash in my hand closed up and healed
before my eyes. There was nothing but a thin white scar seconds
later.

X

Three weeks after Alex’ return I had
to do something or I was going to explode.

I waited until Amber and Rod were gone
and found Alex out in the garage, working on something that had
been squealing for a week in my GTO.

“
I can’t take this
anymore,” I said as I closed the door behind me and sat on the top
step.

Alex looked up at me from under the
hood, wiped at something invisible on his forehead, only to leave a
greasy, black smudge there. He looked into my face for a long
moment before giving a barely audible sigh and setting a wrench
down on my battery.

“
Why are you doing this to
me?” I demanded as I folded my arms across my knees. “You know what
I want. You must have wanted it too at one point, you bought the
ring.”

“
You know why not,
Jessica,” he said quietly as he walked around the car. He leaned
against it and folded his arms across his chest.

“
It’s not a good enough
excuse,” I said as I held his eyes steadily. It wasn’t an easy
thing to do. Alex had the most piercing eyes I had ever seen,
except for maybe Cole’s. And the steel gray color was unnerving.
“The council told you that you could come back, to be with me, did
they not?”

“
You know they did,” he
said, exasperated.

“
Then what is the
problem?” I nearly yelled.

“
I told you before, I
can’t be sure about anything now, Jessica,” Alex sighed. “I think
what happened a few weeks ago is just further proof of
that.”

“
Then why are you wasting
time?!” I shrieked. “If what we have is limited then why are we
wasting it?”

“
Because I won’t leave you
alone!” Alex suddenly burst. “Who knows if I will be able to stay
around for much longer and I won’t leave you alone like that! What
if we were to go ahead and get married and then the next day I get
pulled back for good? It could happen at any time! They could take
me whenever they want. I won’t make you a twenty-one-year-old
widow, Jessica!

“
That doesn’t even make
sense! I’m already dead!”

Alex’s sudden burst of furry
frightened me, it was so unlike him. My eyes slipped from his gaze
to the cement floor. “Don’t say that,” I whispered.

“
It’s true, Jessica! I
know you don’t like to admit it, but it’s true! I feel like I’m
already being selfish enough staying. I’m not supposed to still be
here but here I am! I must be the most selfish man there is because
there is no possible way I could
not
be with you.”

I couldn’t say anything after that. My
insides quivered and my stomach felt sick. I clutched my arms
around my waist and squeezed, trying hard to keep myself from
falling apart.

“
Don’t you think I want
to?” Alex said softly, his voice trembling. I heard him take a step
closer. “Don’t think that
I
don’t think
every
day
about how you were supposed to bear my
last name now? How badly I want to call you Jessica Wright now?” He
was standing right in front of me now and even though I still
couldn’t look at his face, he pulled me to my feet and wrapped his
arms around my waist. “I think every day of how you would have
looked, dressed in white. About how the veil would have looked in
your hair. How you would have been the blushing bride. About how
our wedding night could have been. But how can I give you that
anymore, only to have it all ripped away? My time here isn’t even
mine anymore. I have no control over anything.”

Tears streaked down my face. “But I
don’t care about any of that. I’ll deal with it when or if that
time comes. I just want you.”

“
You already have me,”
Alex whispered into my ear, his lips brushing against my skin. “I
am yours in the deepest sense of the word I can
conceive.”

I didn’t say anything for a long
while, just clung to Alex’s strong frame, trembling even though the
tears had stopped. “I love you, Alex,” I said quietly, my face
buried in his chest.

“
I love you, Jessica,”
Alex whispered. “As much as I think it is possible for anyone to
love someone else.”

X

I hated it, but one person wanting
something out of a relationship that another wouldn’t give reminded
me of the letters.

After Alex had left to go off and do
something “adventurous” with Rod, I sat alone on my bed and pulled
out one of the last letters. I hadn’t received any more in over a
week. The last one I had received was addressed to me personally. I
had yet to find the courage to read it. And yet I had finally felt
the eyes disappear. Something inside of me told me Cole was finally
gone and that he wouldn’t be coming back.

12 December,
1762

My Dearest,

I am realizing now just
how truly hopeless this relationship is. I understand now that any
feelings you had for me at one time are gone, if there truly even
were any feelings at all. The hole that has been ripped into my
chest can never be repaired as I know any chance of us being
together again is impossible. No other woman could ever replace you
though.

I will never understand
how you could reject my affection, after the hundreds, perhaps
thousands of times I confessed my eternal love for you. James never
has and never will love you as I do. That love will not end when I
leave this Earth.

Even if you must be rid of
me forever, I beg of you, let me see my son just once more. I
cannot bear the thought that I will never see William
again.

My chest feels hollow and
empty and with nothing more to say, I bid you good-bye.

Cole Emerson

Despite everything I knew of how
things went between Cole and this woman, whose name I still had not
learned, I too felt hollow and empty as I read his
words.

Cole had been a bad man and his
actions that led up to his branding and position were hinted upon
in these letters but one thing was certain, he loved this woman. He
may have been obsessed but I never doubted he loved her.

As far as I could tell, Cole had met
this woman when he started to do business with her father. I wasn’t
sure what the business was but it sounded like Cole had been over
to their house when the woman arrived home from boarding school.
She had just graduated and had immediately become engaged to this
man James. They had been friends for a long time but the woman had
not appeared to have ever had any romantic feelings for poor
James.

An affair quickly started between the
woman and Cole, consisting of a lot of sneaking around and dodging
her father and James. Cole continually begged her to break it off
with James. He was more than wealthy enough to please her parents
and take care of her but for some reason it appeared the
arrangement with James was more beneficial.

The relationship appeared to have
constant ups and downs of this woman telling Cole it was over and
then telling him that she could not live without him. She went
ahead with her marriage to James but the affair continued. A year
and a half after the wedding, the woman became pregnant and when
the baby arrived it couldn’t be denied that the father was not
James. Apparently James was oblivious to the fact that William
looked nothing like him though.

Despite Cole’s willingness and desire
to be a part of William’s life, the woman pushed him further and
further away. James caught Cole trying to sneak into their house
one day and had him arrested. This had apparently been the end of
the relationship for good. The last few letters had gotten no
response from the woman.

I threw the letter aside,
felling disgusted. I didn’t want to feel sorry for Cole. The fact
that I did made me feel sick. Cole had never changed. He had well
known that Alex and I were together and still tried to pursue
something. And this other woman was
married
and he still had the gall to
continue to pursue her.

But I still couldn’t deny the fact
that I knew how much he had loved her and still couldn’t help but
feel a little sympathy toward him. I knew what it was like to want
something from someone and never get it.

My torment from a few
weeks earlier returned as I read this last letter. He had said he
would never love another woman and that no one could ever replace
her. So
why
had
he come after me?

I shook my head, trying to clear it.
Why did it matter why? Cole couldn’t touch me, he couldn’t hurt me.
I needed a distraction.

The phone just rang and rang before
Emily’s chipper voice told me to leave a message. I had tried to
dismiss my worrying thoughts of Emily but it was going on four
weeks now with no word from her. Her yoga class had been shut down
and the owner of the building had told me he had not been able to
get a hold of Emily for weeks either. It was time to figure out
what was going on. I would have called the police weeks ago if it
wasn’t for the fact of Emily’s very convictable past.