Timeless (30 page)

“He’s a friend,” I finished, knowing that
neither of them would be satisfied with that answer.

The tension eased a little from Damien, and
for that, I was grateful, but only for a moment.

He turned back to Ben, and said in a calm,
controlled voice, “For her sake, I will not kill you here. I will
see you outside, after school.” The intensity of his voice cut
through the silence. Everyone in the cafeteria had stopped eating
to watch the drama unfold.

I closed my eyes. This was worse than a
school fight. I thought Damien might actually follow through on his
promise to kill Ben. Knights fought for their ladies in tournaments
all of the time. Sometimes they killed. I thought back to the
tournament I’d seen in my past life, when Damien nearly killed
Justin in the joust. Knights regarded life and death differently
from everyone else, and they expected to meet their death at any
moment. Damien was absolutely fearless. Would he know when to
stop?

Damien strode out of the cafeteria, going, I
assumed, to clean up in the bathroom. I had to admit, even with
mashed potatoes on his pants, he was still the hottest guy in the
school.

I stood up to go after him, but Ben’s voice
stopped me in my tracks.

“I hope that loser makes you happy. I see now
why you dumped me. I mean, I really couldn’t compete with his fancy
car or his designer clothes,” he said in a sneering voice I’d never
heard before.

The entire cafeteria, which was most of the
school, hung onto his every word. I caught Angela laughing from the
corner of my eye and could feel the blush on my face.

I said softly, hoping no one could hear me,
“Ben, you know who he is, what he means to me. Don’t you
remember?”

He replied so that everyone could hear: “Oh,
you mean that lame story you told me? I thought you were just crazy
at the time, but now I know you’re not only crazy but also the
meanest girl I’ve ever known.”

“But I showed you, Ben,” I said, feeling
humiliated and betrayed. Maybe I was wrong to sit with Ben today,
but did he have to take his revenge like this?

I could feel the tears in my eyes. I shook my
head in disbelief. I couldn’t believe he thought I’d broken up with
him because Damien was rich. Or that he hadn’t believed me when I’d
poured my heart out to him. There was no rational explanation for
who or what I was. But I expected him to care enough about me to
believe what I’d told him. I didn’t realize the depth of the pain
I’d caused him.

And then there was the unhappy truth that
maybe he was right. Maybe I was the meanest girl he knew. But I’d
never intended to hurt him.

I shook my head and turned away, too upset to
speak and too embarrassed to face anyone. If it hadn’t been for the
fight that afternoon, I would have left to go home. I seriously
thought about leaving anyway, but I was afraid of what Damien might
do to Ben if I wasn’t there to stop him.

Annie followed me out of the cafeteria and
must have seen me heading in the direction of the teacher’s
bathroom. It had a lounge with a small sofa and a lock that I
hadn’t bothered to flip. She knocked, came in without a word, and
sat down beside me, letting me cry on her shoulder for the next
hour. We skipped fourth period, fortunate that nobody came to
investigate.

****

I didn’t see Damien again until that
afternoon after school. He stood outside my last class, waiting for
me.

“Emmeline,” he began, “I want you to go home
now.”

“What?” I answered, confused. I was still too
traumatized by what had happened at lunch to understand what he was
saying.

“Annie’s agreed to take you,” he said.

Annie had come up beside him. They both
looked worried about me.

“But why?” I asked.

But I knew why, of course. Damien had
regarded Ben’s action as a direct challenge to his honor, one he
would not let slide. But he didn’t want me to see him. Though I’d
watched him perform in several tournaments in our past life, this
was different. This as personal, almost like some kind of duel.

“Damien, stop this madness now. This is just
ridiculous. We’re going home,” I said firmly, taking him by the
arm. He didn’t budge.

“No, Emmeline. You’re going home. This will
be no place for a lady,” he responded.

I’d had enough of his high-handed medieval
ways. I had to put a stop to it.

“Listen to me, Damien. In the twenty-first
century…” I began.

“I’ve heard enough about the twenty-first
century,” he interrupted. “I don’t know who that boy is to you, but
we’ll discuss it when I get home,” he finished, taking my hand
firmly in his.

I was almost too shocked and angry with him
for words. How dare he talk to me like that! On the other hand,
he’d sensed something. Was there still so much between Ben and me
that Damien had noticed? But he must have. A different look came
into his eyes when he’d threatened to kill Ben earlier, one that
I’d recognized only once—when Lamia had proposed that I marry
someone else. I didn’t think it was jealousy; Damien wasn’t petty
enough for that. But I belonged to him, and he wasn’t about to let
Ben tell him how to behave around me.

It was probably a good thing that I was
speechless. I let him pull me out to the parking lot, where a crowd
had already gathered, eagerly awaiting what looked to be a
promising fight.

We arrived to Annie’s car first, but I
refused to get in, knowing I had to stop this somehow. I didn’t see
Ben yet, but I knew he’d show.

When Damien saw that I wouldn’t get in on my
own, he picked me up with one hand, opened the door with the other,
and gently placed me inside almost before I had time to react.
Annie just stood there, motionless. I guess she was also too
stunned to speak.

“Get in,” Damien ordered her in a voice none
of us could argue with.

Annie quickly climbed in beside me. I had, by
now, given up the idea of reasoning with him or getting back out to
confront him, knowing that Damien would just put me back in. I also
had a plan.

“I’ll see you at your Aunt’s house later,” he
said. He bent and tried to kiss me, but I turned away. Never, in my
entire life, had I been treated this way.

Damien shut the door, Annie started the car,
and we drove out of the parking lot, parting the crowd that
continued to stare at me. We waited less than five minutes before I
suggested going back. Her eyes grew large and round.

“I don’t know, Em. He looked pretty serious
to me,” she said in a nervous voice.

“I don’t care. I have to stop Ben, even if I
can’t stop Damien,” I said, anxious to prevent the fight or
something much worse.

I knew they’d wait until the parking lot had
cleared. Though Damien had been used to fighting in hand-to-hand
combat in tournaments, Ben hadn’t had any fighting experience with
anyone except for his brother, Jake, and his best friend, Zack.
They wrestled all the time, but this was different. Damien wasn’t
playing around.

My only hope was that Ben had forgotten the
events at lunchtime and decided to drive home.

Annie turned the car around, and we turned
back into the parking lot. From what I could see—which wasn’t
much—the fight was underway. A huge crowd surrounded them, blocking
my view. Was the entire school here? Where were the teachers or
principal to stop it?

Once Annie parked, I quickly got out of the
car and ran to the edge of the crowd. I could see Angela cheering
Ben on. It looked like they’d made up, I thought. I tried pushing
my way through the throng of people, but everyone was too focused
on the fight to take any notice. Finally, several people realized
that it was me, the object of the fight, and they parted to let me
through. I was just in time to see that the first punch had been
thrown by Ben. So they were beyond words now. The blow merely
grazed Damien, who didn’t flinch. Nevertheless, he quickly
responded, seemingly unfazed as he sent Ben a blow that made
everyone recoil. In terms of height, Damien had the advantage. His
size and sheer muscle power would have intimated most guys. Ben had
been an athlete his entire life, but he could not compete with
Damien, who’d trained to fight, fully armed, since he’d been a boy.
I remembered what he’d done to Justin.

The fight was over almost before it began.
Damien’s punch lifted Ben off his feet. Ben went sprawling
backwards, landing with a thud on the pavement. Realizing he’d
likely knocked out his opponent, Damien turned, wiped his hands on
his pants, and parted the crowd, which instantly moved out of his
way, awed, I could tell, that he’d effectively won the fight with
one blow. He got into the Audi, not even winded. Fortunately, he
hadn’t seen that Annie and I had driven up a few spaces away. Her
car had been hidden on the other side of someone’s van. And since
he didn’t expect us to be there, he didn’t look for us in the
crowd. I didn’t think he saw Annie’s car as he drove off. I knew he
was headed to my house first, but I had to make sure that Ben
wasn’t lying there, unconscious or dead.

The crowd had surrounded Ben now, and I had
to push my way through them to get to where he was.

“Stand back!” I yelled, worried he couldn’t
get any air with everyone so close. Kneeling down, I immediately
felt for a pulse; it was there, but it felt faint.

“Ben, are you okay?” I asked. It was a
ridiculous question. Everyone could see that he was not
alright.

“Do you think we should take him to the
hospital?” Zack asked.

“Ben?” I said, cradling his head in my lap. I
would never forgive myself if he didn’t wake up.

His eyes started to flutter, and I felt
relief sweep through me. He was going to be okay after all.

He looked at me, focusing his eyes.

“Emily?” he whispered.

“Yes, I’m here,” grateful to hear his
voice.

“I think I need a doctor.”

It must have been bad. I had never, through
all my years of knowing Ben, heard him ask for a doctor—not when
he’d broken his leg climbing a tree when he was eleven, not when a
drunk driver had rear-ended us one Friday night, and not when his
brother had tackled him so hard playing football that he’d broken a
rib.

We carefully lifted Ben into Zack’s Jeep,
which was big enough for him to recline. As I started to shut the
door, I heard Ben call me back to him.

“Emily?” he said. His voice was barely above
a whisper now.

“Yeah, Ben?” I asked.

“I’m taking you up on your offer.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I want my ring back.”

Chapter Fifteen

"The Ring"

…for history is a pattern

Of timeless moments.

T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”

I didn’t speak to Damien for two days. He’d
left me a note at my Aunt’s apologizing for his behavior to me, but
I hadn’t called or gone to see him. And he must have sensed that
he’d crossed the line with me because he left me alone, not coming
to school or the house.

I finally realized that I missed him too much
let this incident—however bad it was—get between us. I knew I had
to forgive him or go crazy. It was true that we had a lot to work
out, but we loved each other. I was hopeful for the future.

Ben had quickly recovered, needing only a few
bandages, and amazingly, no one had reported the fight. I couldn’t
believe that the principal or teachers hadn’t seen the crowd
outside, and I knew we were lucky.

Despite the disastrous first day, Damien
eventually settled into high school, the only foreign student.
Everyone accepted the past we’d created for him, and most of the
girls thought it was terribly romantic of him to fight for me. I
probably would have thought so too if I hadn’t lived it. It’s only
romantic in books and movies, not in real life.

Annie had overheard Angela say that I was the
luckiest girl on the planet and that it wasn’t fair since I didn’t
deserve the newest hot guy in school. Hadn’t I already had my
chance with Ben?

Despite feeling terrible about what happened,
I knew that at least the worst was over. And Ben wasn’t dead. So
that was a plus.

Before Zack took Ben to the hospital, I’d
given Ben back his ring. It was the right thing to do, I knew, but
I couldn’t shake the feeling I had that it would lead to something
terrible. But Ben was right; it was cruel to keep his ring since we
weren’t together. I had to honor his wishes, whatever misgivings I
had.

Understandably, Damien and Ben completely
avoided each other after the fight. Damien and I stayed away from
the lunch table, choosing instead to eat outside on the picnic
tables by ourselves. This suited me, and Ben was grateful, I think,
not to have us near him. Not that he ever spoke to me after
that.

Damien hadn’t yet asked me too many questions
about Ben, and for that, I was grateful. I hadn’t stayed angry at
him too long, but he told me it was long enough. Though he’d
hastily written the note for me on Aunt Jo’s message pad, he made a
more formal apology to me later, knowing that I must hold Ben in
some regard and telling me that he wished the outcome of their
exchange had been different. Evidently, before Ben punched him,
Damien had offered to accept an apology for his insulting behavior
at lunch. I cringed when he told me and didn’t have to imagine
Ben’s response. I had watched it.

I felt obliged to explain something to
Damien. I didn’t tell him that Ben and I had once imagined being
together our entire lives, that we’d originally planned to go to
the same college and eventually get married.Instead, I explained
that Ben had once been something more to me than a friend.

Damien still struggled with the past life I’d
had without him—the one before my dreams had begun. But he accepted
the brief description of my past relationship with Ben. He didn’t
begrudge me the happiness I’d found with Ben, so long as it was
over now. As far he was concerned, we could be friends if Ben could
respect the boundaries. I was a little amused by this. I knew
Damien had researched modern relationships at the library, and he
used psychologists’ terminology as he tried to understand how men
and women related to each other.