Carnelian

  Seth went into the hallway to talk to one of his brothers, and I got up to get dressed. I didn’t remember putting Seth’s shirt on, but I was in it anyway. In the bathroom, I found my clothes washed and pressed. I could get used to clothes magically washing themselves. I really needed a Miller. It was quite the life Seth had jumped in to. When I left the bathroom, Seth was back in his room and the door closed.

  “Last game of CRUSH for the year,” Seth said as I watched him. It was the last game. In the past week while Seth was gone we had two more competitions. With their leader gone, his dorm was in second place and Murdley Hall had taken the lead.

  “I think you could just forfeit,” I teased. “Murdley is already too far ahead for you to catch up.” In reality, Murdley was only points ahead, and a bad showing would lose it for us anyway. Seth laughed and grabbed me to toss me on his bed. He hopped next to me and kissed me down my neck as I laughed. Fear for the future was creeping into my life at every moment, but moments like that one were enough to make me forget for a while. Seth and I giggled until we had to leave so that we wouldn’t be late to CRUSH.

  The rest of the day went fast. After we picked up Sim and walked to CRUSH, the game took the rest of the day. The last CRUSH event was a scavenger hunt, and I led my team neck and neck with Seth’s. It was fun to see my team actually work together for a change. Being on the studious team was enough to give us a little edge, even though most of the team was not strong physically to compete head to head with the jocks. With the hunt neck and neck, it allowed me to also keep tabs on Seth. I didn’t think he’d disappear in the middle of an event, but the time was coming when he would disappear. It was a photo finish to the end and declared a draw. A draw was enough to make Murdley win their first CRUSH tournament ever.

  “Mari, come on,” Sim called to me from the stairwell in the dorms after CRUSH was done. She was doing her best to usher me away from the cheering Murdley crowd that was proud of our first ever win. “We have to go get made up.”

  “I’ll pass,” I called back to her. I didn’t want to leave Seth’s side for even ten minutes.

  “Obsessive much?” she asked before opening the door. “Fine, I’ll have to be the best-looking slutty school girl at the party then.” I nodded and waved to her as she left.

  “I could go for slutty school girl,” Seth said into my ear where no one else could overhear. I smacked his arm and put a few more inches between us.

  “You better not go after Sim,” I teased.

  “There’s only one girl for me. You don’t ever have to worry about that,” Seth replied.

  I joined Seth, Dee, and Ty in the crowd of students in the common square between the dorms. The party was already going and people were dancing, lounging around, and overall having a fun time. Some were dressed in costumes and some were not. We wouldn’t be out of place; even though we were not in costumes. After weaving through the crowd and pausing for congratulations from everyone, we finally made it to the food table. Sim didn’t take too long to make her costume before joining us. Just as she said, she was going as slutty school girl.

  “Are you leaving early this time, too? Maybe for a beach picnic,” Sim reminded me of my first CRUSH party.

  I looked over to Seth talking with his football friends. He smiled and waved to me. He began to mouth words to me, but my vision was temporarily cut off as a sparkly-white-clad costumed girl stepped in front of me. With her back to me, I had no clue who the person was, but from her direct line to Seth, I could only guess Melissa hadn’t given up yet.

  “Doesn’t that girl ever learn?” Sim asked, handing me a drink as we watched Seth talk to the girl before she left through the crowd. Sim obviously figured who it was as quick as me.

  “I can only hope one day,” I replied as Seth made his way back through the crowd.

  “Want to get out of here?” he asked. The party had only just started, but I couldn’t agree more. Should I stay here and have to share him with every person that passed, including ex-girlfriends… or run off to his place where we could be alone?

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sim,” I said to her as I left the party. She waved me away. It wasn’t much of a choice. I took his outstretched hand as my answer, and he pulled me back through the crowd. Dee stopped us by the door.

  “Are you leaving now?” Dee asked excitedly.

  “Just with Mari. I’ll meet up with you guys tomorrow. Make sure to bring Ty back home with you,” Seth replied before pushing by him. Dee’s face dropped a little, but not by much.

  We strolled back to Seth’s place, hand-in-hand. It was hard to imagine he would just disappear someday. He was here now and real. He kissed my hand and I smiled at him. I still hadn’t told him that I loved him, but I doubt I’d ever love a guy like I loved Seth.

  “Wait here,” Seth said outside the door to his house. He ran in and returned with a blanket. He held out his arm, and I took it. We strolled down the beach in the moonlight. It was perfect, just like the novels I couldn’t get enough of, even if it was a little icy out.

  Seth found what he considered the perfect spot, though I had no idea why he thought that. I was too busy watching him. Now that I knew the truth, I often found myself watching him carefully. Back in his real time, he was a warrior and charioteer, probably even an aristocrat. I could see in his movements the strong, lean muscles beneath the thin layer of a jacket he was wearing. Seth held my hand as I sat on the blanket before sitting down next to me. Coming from a warmer climate I expected him to get colder more easily, but he was the opposite. Seth didn’t even seem to notice the chill and forever radiated warmth. I cuddled up to the warmth. Seth slipped his arm around me and up the hem of my shirt. His warm hand pulled me close.

  “A beach picnic sounded more romantic in my mind,” Seth commented as I cuddled closer for warmth. “Sometimes I forget that it’s cool here. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.”

  “That’s because you aren’t cold,” I replied, warming myself on him.

  Seth laughed. “I guess not. Must be part of the time travel survival thing.”

  We were silent and watched the chilly water lap on the shore. My life didn’t have many quiet moments these days. I was too busy with everything, and then my actual free time was always spent with Seth. I didn’t regret it, I just realized I didn’t have a lot of time to just sit and listen to the silence. In the few moments I had to think in the past month, I only had one thought: not losing Seth.

  “Seth?” I asked, breaking us both out of the silence surrounding us.

  “Yes?” he responded, pulling me close.

  “Can you take me with you?” I asked him. It wasn’t that I wanted to leave my family and friends and the only life I ever knew. I just didn’t want to leave him.

  Seth seemed startled by my question. “Mari, please don’t ask me to take you back,” he pleaded. Seth wiped a tear away that was rushing down my cheek. I hadn’t even noticed. Seth wouldn’t let me go back with him.

  “Is that because you worry that I’m from an enemy land since we don’t know who my father really is?” I asked with a sniffle.

  “Yes. I worry that. I also worry that even if you aren’t, my time is no place for you. If I take you back, my family will never approve of you. My father is a firm believer in my country. We don’t marry anyone outside our country, and we typically marry within our groups. I’m expected to marry a daughter of a military official. If I take you back, you will be nothing more than a mistress in the eyes of my family. I can’t do that to you. You’ll never be anything less than the love of my life. Please don’t ask me to take you back. Please stay here and wait for me,” Seth pleaded. “I promise we are meant to be together.”

  I shivered again, and Seth pressed his nose to mine. “You’re cold. We have to go inside to warm up.”

  “What if I don’t want to move,” I protested. I was freezing, but actually very comfortable in his arms. He was like sitting next to a fire on a cool autumn night.

 
Seth tucked his arms under me and picked me up like I weighed nothing. I protested with a few smacks to his chest, but it did nothing to stop him. Instead, he just laughed and ran back to the house, leaving our blankets on the chilly beach. Upon reaching the door, I thought Seth would set me down, but he somehow opened the door with me in his arms and carried me all the way up to his room. After tossing me onto his bed, he pulled all the blankets around me. I laughed under all the nice warmth. I guess I had been cold. All that could be seen outside the blankets was my head.

  “Now that I have you captured,” Seth declared. “What should I do?’ I wasn’t exactly unmovable, but I was willing to play along. I giggled; our serious conversation had been lost again. It always happened that way with us. One moment I was worrying and the next laughing.

  I think Seth could see how much I really couldn’t move as he pushed me back on the bed, essentially trapping me on the open seam of the blankets together.

  “Now that I have you captured,” he repeated. “I’m going to force you to tell me your deepest darkest secrets and all your most embarrassing moments.”

  “You’ll have to do more than that to get my most embarrassing moments out of me,” I retorted, and he grinned.

  “Oh, a feisty one.” Seth moved over me to keep me pinned. “I’ll have to go for the kiss torture method.” Seth leaned down and barely brushed his lips to mine. He pulled back and kept himself just out of my reach. I tried to lean forward and kiss him, but I couldn’t reach him. Kiss torture was not torturing me with kissing like I wanted; it was torturing me by denying those kisses.

  “For every answer you get a kiss and move closer to freedom,” he said, desire coming through his voice. It seemed Seth’s torture to me was torturing himself.

  “I’ll go easy and start with one that should be a quick answer.” Seth pondered a moment.

  “Are you my prisoner?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I replied and wiggled a little to show I was not getting out unless he let me. He gave me a quick kiss.

  “What is your deepest, darkest secret?”

  I pouted, but didn’t reply. I actually didn’t have deep dark secrets, at least not from Seth. Sim, on the other hand, still didn’t know that I found about my father finally.

  “Fine, fine. As an anthropology major, what do you see as your future?” Seth asked.

  Everyone had dreams for their future. Some girls were off dreaming about the perfect guy and the perfect life with the two kids and white picket fence. Others dream of that perfect job where they would be the head of such and such company. I didn’t really dream of anything. It was expected that I’d get my degrees and go back to work with my grandfather. I hadn’t really been given a choice. I never looked elsewhere. Now sitting with Seth above me, I had a head filled with other thoughts, a future with him that was not a guarantee. He may have assumed it was an easy question, but it wasn’t.

  “I don’t know,” I answered in only a whisper. Seth unwrapped me to pull me into his arms, like he knew I was on the verge of tears.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking with that one. I was thinking about your future in terms of what do you do with an anthropology degree. I don’t know what you do with half the majors at college; that one really stumped me.” Seth apologized. I smiled as Seth held me, and I explained more.

  “I had a future told to me many times as a kid and I never really thought of doing anything else. You go to college, get a degree, and come home to work with grandfather in his business. Now….” I paused. I wanted to tell him that I loved him too much to care about that future and wanted to create one of our own, but I still couldn’t tell him that.

  “I’m so sorry I came in and messed up your world,” Seth replied, smoothing the hair on my head as I was pressed to him. I pulled back to look into his eyes.

  “You didn’t mess up my world,” I said. “You opened my eyes to the world is what you did.”

  “And when I disappear, then what will you say of me?” Seth asked.

  “That you were the best thing that ever happened to me,” I answered quickly. He still didn’t completely see it. “I know that someday you’ll have to go back, that’s the way it works. I hope by then we’ll have figured out what to do so that we can always be together. But even if we can’t, it won’t change how I feel about you. You have opened my eyes to possibility. There’s a whole world out there for me to explore. I don’t want to just wait for my future to happen. I now want to create my own future.”

  “Even one without me?” Seth asked.

  “You are my future,” I replied. “And we will find a way.” I’d find a way to him if it came down to it. I knew he was always in protection mode, but eventually he would have to stop and listen to his heart.

  “I wish very much that that was true, but my world isn’t for you. Women are traded and bartered off to bind families together. There is war, poverty, disease, all you never have to deal with here. Here you can be eighteen and off at college, pretending to be grown up but not really having to yet. By eighteen in my time, you’d be a mom with one or more kids, living the short, hard life everyone does. If I took you back, I’d be condemning you to that life. You deserve more.”

  “Seth, a life with you’d be all I needed. The rest I can deal with then. I’m tougher than I look,” I replied.

  “And more delicate than you’ll ever admit,” Seth whispered against my neck before kissing it. “How about we let tonight be a past-free zone? We focus only on the present.” He kissed my neck again, not waiting for a response, and it was a good thing as I felt like a melted puddle of snow.

  “I can agree to that,” I finally got out before losing my thoughts in kisses.

  Seth pulled the blankets over us as I shivered. He assumed I was still chilled, but it was his kisses sending tingles down to my toes, not the temperature. Though I didn’t mind bundling under the covers as Seth pulled me back to him, our bodies pushed together as close as they could get. His hands drifted from my face to around my waist. I barely could feel his fingers as they tugged slightly on the hem of my shirt as if he was asking permission. I replied by making sure his shirt came off first between kisses. Soft teasing pecks turned into deeper kisses.

  Actually sleeping with someone was something I had considered only once before, but had too many questions to actually follow through with. I was glad I didn’t. This was entirely different. I had loved my high school boyfriend, but it felt nothing like what I felt now. This was more real and something else completely. As our lips met and our hands wandered, I had no questions lying here with Seth as to where this would lead. I also didn’t have any regrets about it either.

  My hands traveled over his chest unrestrained. His muscles were carved just like a stone statue and were smooth to the touch. The heartbeat beneath my hand made everything more real. Seth was here with me now. He was not a dream, and he was not lost in the past. He was mine. I wanted to touch more; I wanted to touch all of him. He must have felt the same way as I felt his hand move across my bare skin. My hands found the waist band of his pants momentarily before he flipped onto his back next to me. His breathing was heavy like mine as he covered his eyes with his hands.

  “We can’t do this,” Seth said with his eyes still covered.

  “You don’t want to?” I asked, a bit hurt. I was pretty sure we were on the same page, but he was making me have doubts.

  Seth rolled and grabbed my hands, bringing them to his mouth. “I want to do this more than anything, but not tonight. Not right now. We still don’t know what the goddess has planned for us and until we do, we should not go further than this. Dee could be right and all the goddess wants is for us to get together to produce a child.”

  “That’s what protection is for,” I replied.

  “And can it guarantee 100% that nothing will happen?” Seth asked. He obviously already knew the answer. Nothing was guaranteed 100%.

  “But,” I complained.

  Seth stopped me from talking with
a kiss. He wanted more too, but he had way more control than I did.

  “I promise you I’ll find out why the goddess brought me to you,” Seth said into my hair as he pulled me tight to his chest. The promise was for the both of us as I could tell that Seth didn’t want to stop either. Seth took a few deep breaths, slowing his heart beat only slightly. While lying my head back down on him, I smiled and kissed his chest with my fingers still toying at the edge of his pants. His heart beat was picking back up its pace.

  “I think I need a shower,” Seth said, releasing me from his grip and hopping off the bed in one fluid motion. “I’d ask you to join me, but I’m guessing you’d finally win this war inside me.” I smiled at him and wiggled my eyebrows.

  “You do want to do this with me?” I asked to be sure. I wanted to believe his reason, but at the same time I couldn’t help comparing myself to Melissa, his last girlfriend. It was girly of me, but I couldn’t help it.

  Seth sat down beside me immediately. “Yes, by all means yes. I am male after all,” he teased. “But I can’t do it right now. We need to know why the goddess wanted us to meet. And then I’ll be all yours.” Seth kissed my fingertips before leaving the room.

  “I think I might need a shower, too,” I teased before he was out of hearing range. Seth shook his head and shut the door.

  I snuggled back into the blankets and slipped my pants off. I understood Seth’s reasoning completely, but I didn’t want the goddess dictating our lives. Seth could choose to not let things go further, but I didn’t plan to make it easy for him. I was cuddled down in the blankets in just my undergarments. While I waited in the warm blankets, I began to feel sleepy and warm fuzzies surrounded not just my body, but my mind. I was content. I tried to stay awake, but it was a futile effort. Heck, I even feel asleep during the action movie the other night, now all cuddled up was a dying battle.

  I somewhat heard Seth as he came back into the room. I wish I had been more awake to watch his face as he climbed into the bed, but I couldn’t open my eyes by then.