Elysian

  Brielle and I take a seat on the grass. The icy blades prickle our bare legs, and we run our hands under our thighs simultaneously.

  “Tonight was something none of us will ever forget,” Chloe spits it out triumphantly as if we had conducted a heist that procured of the opposing team’s mascot.

  “We lost,” Michelle points out.

  “It doesn’t matter. It was our last time to root for our team. In case you haven’t heard, we’ve been excluded from the All State Competition due to Skyla’s extracurricular shenanigans last year, so we’ll have to find something else to occupy us come spring break. But that’s not why I’ve called you here.” Her lids reduce to slits. “I wanted to make it clear that no matter what happens, no matter how bad each of you fuck up in life, we’ll always have each other. We’re cheer sisters, forever.” She puts her hand out, and each of us place ours on top, respectively, and we shout, one, two, three, West, in unison.

  We rise, ready to party with the rest of the school and start fucking up our lives like Chloe so gently inferred.

  “Nice job on the field today,” Chloe chimes. “Especially you, Giselle.”

  “Thanks!” Giselle gives a little hop before clasping her hand over her lips.

  Crap. I’m going to kill Ellis I’ll-Do-Anything-For-A-Blunt Harrison.

  “Why don’t you go inside with Bree,” I say, to Giselle. “I want to talk to Chloe for a minute.”

  Chloe lends an amused demeanor to Giselle, but buried beneath her faux smile, you can practically see the gears of revenge grinding at top speed.

  “What’s the matter, Skyla? Disappointed I’m in on your little secret?”

  “Not at all. It’s my birthday, and I’m not going to let anything, or anyone, get under my skin, least of all you.”

  “It’s sort of my birthday, too.” Her lips curve with a malevolent satisfaction. “In fact, I believe I was your big gift last year. Chloe Bishop with a bow on top.” She gives a little curtsey.

  “Yeah, well, that I’d like to forget.” The Eye of Refuge blinks at me. “How about you give me another present? The protective hedge.” I reach out to touch it, and she covers it with her hand.

  “You wish.”

  “Come on, Chloe. You have a price. Everybody does.”

  “Gage Oliver’s love,” she purrs. “I hear he’s back on the market. Rumor has it you’ve met your time limit with him. Is that true? You’ve used him until the end of the faction war and then threw him away like toilet paper. And now you’re right back where you started with Logan.” She clicks her tongue. “My sources tell me he won’t touch you with a ten foot pole. Imagine that. Skyla Messenger begging for Logan to fall in her bed, and he shuts her down each and every time.” Her chest huffs a silent laugh as she steps in tight. “You are nothing but gutter trash. And now that you’ve thrown away Gage, you’ll be left with no one. Oh wait!” She feigns a look of surprise. “Dudley will have you—in five hundred different ways. How does it feel knowing the only person on the planet who wants to be with you is some over-the-hill math teacher—”

  My hand glides over her cheek and ignites the slap that’s heard around the world or at least Ellis’s supersized backyard. Marshall is all of twenty-six if he’s not six thousand. He’s so hot I’ve seen grown women attach themselves to his leg at the supermarket and beg to give him a blowjob. Chloe is just jealous because he was never into her. Well, he sort of was, but that was Marlena. Why he would be interested in someone from Chloe’s demonic clan is beyond me.

  “Listen bitch,” I start. “Marshall is twenty-six—eight years my senior, and that’s hardly scandalous. If I choose to be with someone as wonderful and drop-dead gorgeous as Dudley, that’s my choice.”

  A series of gasps emit from around me.

  I go on, “And if I choose to be with Logan or Gage, that, too, is my fucking business. The three of them have kindly stepped aside and are waiting for me to make the decision on whom I’ll be with. They are waiting for me. I decide who falls in my bed, Chloe. And who’s waiting for you? Oh, that’s right—nobody.” I grab the front of her cheer sweater and pull her in. “You will die alone and unloved. You and I both know this is a solid-gold fact. Demetri showed us your future. Did you know that not even your own damn supervising spirit can stand you? I bet your parents rue the day you were born. You’re the demon who tried to kill the boy you profess to love, and you did kill Logan. I think it’s only fair you die, too.” I drive her backward until she dangles from the edge of the pool. The light from above creates a series of white veins in the water, trembling, opening their arms happy to have her. “Happy birthday to me.” I push her in so hard she flattens against the bottom a moment before corking back up to the top.

  Take that, bitch.

  34

  The Present is a Gift

  A wise man once said, Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you can’t do something. It’s poison every single time. And that wise man was Logan Oliver.

  Can you come over? Logan sends the text just after I push Chloe in the pool.

  B right there. ~S

  I make my way through the jostling crowd of Ellis’s party. It’s wall-to-wall linebackers and skanks. Truthfully, I’m over it. I’m ready to hit the quiet solitude of the Oliver house and maybe kick back and watch a movie with my two best friends before heading over to Marshall’s and crawling beneath the sheets with him. Who knew his bed was the portal to ethereal plane? Marshall, that’s who.

  The lights are on in the kitchen at the Oliver house, but Emma and Barron’s sedan is missing. Even better. I get to have Logan and Gage all to myself. I miss the three of us just hanging out, not having to worry about who I’ll choose.

  I sprint across the street and up the driveway.

  Logan greets me at the door before I can knock.

  “If it isn’t the birthday girl.” He pulls me in and buries a kiss in my neck. “Come in. Sorry it took so long. Gage and I actually tried to bake you a cake.”

  “A cake?” I’m floored by this.

  Logan shuts the door behind me and leads me into the darkened family room.

  The lights flip on, and a room full of familiar faces scream, “Surprise!”

  “Shit!” I hiss, and the room explodes with laughter.

  Mom and Tad are here, my sisters, the Olivers, Drake with both Em and Brielle, Ellis with his arms around Giselle, and Marshall with that I’ll-have-you-in-my-bed-later grin that makes my heart give an unexpected flutter.

  The house is decorated from floor to ceiling with streamers, and balloons, and a furry pink piñata in the corner in the shape of a donkey. A giant banner stretches just under the ceiling reading, Happy Birthday, Skyla and Gage Oliver, and my stomach sinks.

  “I sense my mother’s touch,” I say.

  “She wouldn’t have it any other way.” Logan kisses the back of my hand.

  More bodies file into the room, and I recognize them as people from across the street.

  “So where’s the birthday boy?” I ask.

  Mom comes up before Logan can answer.

  “Isn’t this terrific? And I knew you didn’t suspect a thing.” She jostles the sleepy baby on her hip.

  “What’s with the not-so-subliminal message?” I glance up at the sign.

  “Sorry.” Her lips pull back with regret. “I had the sign made up before Halloween when I thought you two were still together. I got a serious discount when I put in that huge order for Demetri’s party, so all the decorations were dirt cheap.”

  “You’re forgiven.” Unlike Demetri.

  “We won’t be staying long. I’d better mix.” She sprints off into the crowd, presumably to find her favorite Fem.

  I turn and spot Logan off in the corner talking to Giselle and Ellis, still no sign of Gage. My gut says check upstairs, so I trot on up without hesitating.

  I walk the long hall down to his room. It’s so peaceful up here, the noise from the party melts away with each step I take.

  “Gage?
” I give a gentle knock over his door and open it a notch.

  He’s sitting on his bed with the wide-eyed look of surprise, his face white as Ezrina’s lab in the Transfer.

  “Are you OK?” I step in and close the door behind me.

  Gage launches a paper plane dead ahead at the basketball hoop hanging from his wall, and it lodges in the rim nestled with at least a dozen other downed airliners.

  “It’s the birthday girl.” He flexes his dimples, but it looks forced.

  My stomach pinches as I note the red wash of color in his eyes.

  “What’s going on?” I ask tenderly as I make my way to his bed.

  Gage dips his chin and looks at me from under his brows. He shakes his head just enough to let me know he isn’t going to share.

  “I heard you baked me a cake.” I swallow down the tears. It’s clear I’ve hurt him, and I don’t need to ask how.

  “Come here.” He pulls me in until we’re lying side by side. Gage presses a molten hot kiss over the top of my head as a searing tear baptizes me from above.

  “Gage,” I whisper, looking at his tortured expression.

  He gives a little laugh and wipes down his face with his T-shirt. Just past his shoulder I can see a journal with the pages ripped out, the word Irresistible on the title line and a poem just beneath that.

  “Oh my, God,” it sings from me rife with disappointment. “You hate me so much you’re tearing up your poems.”

  “I can never hate you, Skyla.” He brushes the back of his arm over his face a moment. “I talked to Dudley.”

  Shit.

  “I will strangle that Sector without blinking if he said something to upset you.”

  A dry laugh bounces from his chest as he circles both his arms around my waist.

  “Don’t hurt him. He didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know—at least not anything my gut didn’t tell me.”

  I suck in a sharp breath.

  “We’re good, Skyla. I promise,” he assures, in the most unassuring way possible.

  “Did I do something that made you this upset, or will I?”

  “No.” He shakes his head a little too eagerly, and I wonder if he’s telling the truth.

  “It’s Logan isn’t it? We’re going to lose him.” The heavy weight of losing Logan covers me like a sheet of lead.

  “Yeah, it’s Logan,” he whispers as if he were merely glomming onto the idea.

  A knock erupts over the door, and Logan pokes his head in.

  “Hey, they’re singing happy birthday to a picture of the two of you. Get downstairs, so we can feed the masses that ball of butter and sugar we worked on.” He eyes Gage’s arms around my waist, and his features soften. The smile melts from his lips as he gives a silent nod. Logan is acquiescing to the idea of Gage and me sharing a future.

  “Just one second,” I say, and Logan closes the door. “Gage, I promise, everything is going to be OK.” Something in me knows this to be true. “I love you so much.” I press a kiss into his neck and squeeze his waist, tight.

  “I love you, too. And you’re right, things will be OK. I shouldn’t let anything get to me.” He sinks a kiss over the top of my head. “Let’s get you some cake.”

  We follow Logan downstairs, and the entire room bursts into Happy Birthday for a second time.

  The enormous cake that Logan and Gage baked sits on the table—chocolate immaculately frosted with a piped blue border and scalloped edges. A giant heart is laid out with the words, Happy Birthday, Skyla scrolled across the top. Gage humbly left himself off the confection, and my heart bleeds for him. He’s so sweet, so perfectly thoughtful—always putting me first, always willing to sacrifice.

  I glance over at Logan with his wide smile as he pulls me in, claiming me as his own if only for a moment.

  Gage and his promise of forever, Logan and his all too brief happily ever after.

  Then a thought comes to me. Why would Gage tear up a book of poems he wrote presumably for me if he were upset at Logan passing?

  Unless, of course, he was upset with me all along. I hurt him, or I will in the future.

  Why else would Gage Oliver lie to me on my birthday?

  His dimples press in as he washes those navy lenses over my body, and I wonder.

  ***

  The party dies down. Most of the people from school have drifted back to Ellis’s where the booze flows freely, and Emma doesn’t chase anyone around her living room telling them not to get any cake on the carpet. Mom and Tad took off, so did Marshall who stayed briefly enough to let me know he was going to “warm the sheets.”

  Logan, Gage, and I are alone in the kitchen with nothing but the dim light on over the sink, the cake all gone except for an outline of frosting. I let them know I’m heading to Marshall’s to hitch a ride to Ahava, and now it’s so quiet, you’d think I had just suggested that Marshall and I were never coming back.

  “You guys bake a mean cake,” I say, trying to fill the awkward silence that’s crept up on us.

  “Gage mostly did it.” Logan gives his nephew an approving nod as if he’s suddenly morphed into his wingman.

  “Oh.” I smile over at Gage and his delicious dimples. “I expect a cake like that every year.” I’m only half-teasing.

  “You got it.” He gives an easy smile, and my heart soars. It felt like I was reeling him in like a four hundred pound fish. I’m exhausted from the effort but so very glad to have him devoid of any grief for once tonight. “I have your gift.” He practically mouths the words, and Logan takes this as his cue to leave.

  “I’ll be out front.” Logan takes off toward the entry.

  “You didn’t need to get me a gift.” It’s true. Gage has been my gift all along, and now I feel smaller than table salt for screwing so efficiently with his heart.

  “Good, because I didn’t.” His dimples dig in deep, and I melt a little at the sight. “I made you something.” He pulls out a neatly folded piece of paper from his pocket and hands it to me carefully as if it were a newborn.

  “What’s this?” Hopefully not directions to Devil’s Peak with instructions to jump off and forget my way to the Transfer.

  I gently peel open the note and sigh with happiness as his neat, boldfaced printing greets me.

  Skyla,

  I love you more than you can ever know. You are more dazzling than the sun—you outshine every star. When God made you, all of creation smiled. Every moment we spend together, I treasure.

  All of my heart forever,

  Gage

  Another piece of paper slips out from behind the note, a poem.

  “I love your poems,” I say before I even read it.

  Touching Eternity

  The silent veil of tomorrow has slowly been revealed.

  No more can the truth of life be ever so concealed.

  In days to come we’ll sail the ocean

  in search of Heaven’s sunny shore.

  Your arms in mine, our lives entwined,

  we’ll be lonely never more.

  His words strain against my heart like a boulder. I look up at him, and my insides seize at how vexingly handsome Gage is. Gage is a god both inside and out.

  “Thank you for this.” I press in a kiss over his cheek, and my lips twitch into his dimple. I turn to go then pause for a moment. “Hey, Gage?”

  “Yeah?” he asks, plucking the cap off the gallon of milk in his hand.

  “Who’s the one touching eternity?”

  Gage looks at me a moment, his eyes riding over each of mine as if he were speaking to me through the silence. “We all are, Skyla.” He presses out a simple smile, but his dimples don’t show up for the party. “Every single one of us.”

  ***

  Outside, Logan waits patiently, leaning against the Mustang. His buffed out frame stands dark as a shadow against the backdrop of night, and the visual unnerves me.

  “I’m off.” I pop up beside him and give him a huge, rocking hug. “Thanks for everything you did tonight
.”

  “You’re welcome.” He warms me with his probing touch, and I soak it in. “I won’t have your gift for a little while. Lame, right? But I have a clue for you.” He reaches into his pocket and produces a long, silver chain with a shiny, mirrored heart attached to the base. I hold it out. Something’s inscribed across the front.

  “Logan! You so do have my gift. I love it.” I crash my lips over his, and I’m not shy about it. I glance back down at the watery heart in the palm of my hand and read the pretty script font. “Whitehorse.” I look up at him puzzled. “Whitehorse?”

  “Ignore the writing.” He pulls his cheek to the side. “They had it marked down because it had some goofy inscription.”

  I belt out a laugh that echoes into the night Ezrina-style, a precursor of who I might become if my mother decides to withhold her mercy from Ezrina and Nev.

  “Bullshit,” I say, blinking into him.

  “OK, you got me.” He presses his fingers into my ribs, and I jump with a laugh lodged in my throat. “You’re a smart girl, you can figure it out. But a part of me hopes you won’t, so I can give it to you like a proper gift.”

  “Fine. I won’t lose sleep over it.” But I think we both know I will.

  Logan helps me slip the necklace over my head.

  “Goodnight, princess.” He flexes a kiss across my lips.

  My stomach bottoms out. “I remember you called me that for the first time at the Falls of Virtue.”

  “You do remember.” Logan grows still. His eyes round out as he takes me in. “I remember that day, too, Skyla. I think I’ve replayed it in my mind a thousand times. It got me through a few rough patches when you were with—” He takes in a breath and gives a long blink. “Goodnight, Skyla. Call me when you get home. I don’t care how late it is. I just want to know you’re safe.” He pushes in a hard kiss over my lips as if he wanted to do so much more but was holding back.