"Neither did I."
"I waited for you to come back."
"I didn't know exactly where you got out. Not until Ricky told me the next morning."
"Bullshit."
"I had other things on my mind, Olivia. All I registered was that you got out of the car."
"Which was such a relief that nothing else mattered."
Again his jaw worked, nothing coming out until he said, "I would never have intentionally left you there. No more than I'd actually let Ricky stay your first night here. I would have realized my error soon enough. I will ask you to spend the night at your apartment."
"No." I headed for the house.
"If you think that will force my hand and make me stay--"
I laughed. "Make you stay? Seriously? The moment you want to leave, you will, and there'll be no way to get you back until you decide you want to come back. You'll ignore my calls, my messages, my texts. You'll tell me not to come into work. You'll freeze me out again, and I can't put up with that. I just can't."
"So why do you?"
I stopped. Just stopped. It was like when he laughed at the thought we were friends.
Why do I put up with him? Why did I keep banging my head against this wall, knocking myself senseless trying to get through to him, and then raging and crying because I'd hurt myself.
Why did I put up with it?
Because I loved him. Because I was such a damn fool.
My eyes filled with tears, and I think that was the worst. As humiliating as if I'd said the words out loud.
Gabriel saw those tears and recoiled. And that was the worst.
This was the man I kept tying myself up in knots over? The man I couldn't quit even when I had a solid, stable, amazing relationship with Ricky? Instead, I wanted the guy who would shut me out if I crossed invisible boundaries? Who'd walk away if I challenged him on it? Think me a fool if I stayed? Think me weak if I cried?
I could tell myself I'd made my choice with Ricky and this with Gabriel was just friendship, but that was bullshit. A few signs of kindness from Gabriel, signs of consideration and caring, and I was right back, like Ricky's hound, desperate for scraps of attention, some hope that maybe, just maybe...
Maybe what? Even if I got him, what exactly did I get? A man who'd walk away at the first sign of trouble. Who'd slam the door and mock me if I followed. Who'd withdraw if I showed any sign of actual emotion.
I stumbled toward the house. I heard him call, "Olivia," and heard the first thump of his footsteps and I raced up the steps, eager to get inside, just get inside and bolt the door and collapse behind it and--
I tripped going up the stairs. I tripped, and Gabriel was right there, his hand going to my shoulder. In trying to duck his grip, I fell sideways, my head bashing the wrought-iron patio fence, and it wasn't enough to knock me unconscious, just to make the world dip and fade and spin as I fell to...
Rock. I tumbled heels over head off the embankment, my head striking rock as I fell, and when I came to, someone had me, a face over mine, a voice calling my name, hands gripping me, the voice sharp with worry. When my eyes fluttered open, he backed off fast, stammering an apology, explaining that I'd fallen--as if I wouldn't realize that. Even with pain shooting through my head, I had to smile at the thought that he needed an excuse to be caught holding me.
Typical Gwynn.
I started as I thought the name. Or the part that was me did, because even though I consciously recognized Gwynn's fair hair and face and voice, I saw and heard Gabriel, in his gestures, in his apology, perhaps not stammered, but the intent the same--to be certain I understood that there was a valid reason I was waking in his arms.
Gwynn awkwardly shifted me onto the grass, his hand lingering under my head.
"Can you move, Mati?" he asked.
What if I pretend I cannot? Might I get a few more moments of your care?
My lips quirked at the thought, as I brushed it off. Other girls might try that ploy. I would not, as tempting as it was.
"Well, that will teach me to watch where I'm going," I said.
"It was my fault for talking," he said.
"Yes," I said, mock-serious. "You really shouldn't do that."
I smiled at him but couldn't suppress a wince as I did, and he said, "Hold still. You've cut your lip."
He reached into the picnic basket, brought out the wineskin, soaked the corner of a cloth, and reached to clean my lip. As he did, I watched him, so close and so intent on his task, and I thought, I could kiss him.
Kiss him and, yes, he might jump back like a cat with its tail on fire, but I had just struck my head and could not be held accountable for my actions. Of course, it might hurt, kissing with a split lip, but that was really the least of my concerns.
I'd seen signs lately, lingering looks, and then blushes when I caught him watching me, indications that a kiss might not be unwelcome. That I might win the prize I treasured above all others.
I closed my eyes and leaned forward and--
"Cach!" Gwynn said, which was not exactly the response a girl hopes for, and my eyes flew open to see him, staring up at the sky. When I followed his gaze, I saw how dark the clouds had gotten. Then lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, and Gwynn helped me to my feet. When my ankle buckled, he scooped me up without a word and started to run for a path winding up the cliffside. The skies opened and rain fell--not in a pleasant shower, but sheets of driving rain.
"Cach!" he swore again, and I said, "Agreed," though the wind whipped my words away. I raised my voice to say, "Let me down, and I'll walk as best I can," and he pretended not to hear me and ran through the rain until we reached a cave in the cliffside. He bustled me in, and I realized it wasn't so much a cave as a shallow opening in the cliff, just big enough for us to hunker down and watch the rainstorm in relative dryness.
When I shivered, he leaned against me, and I took advantage of the excuse to settle against his side. He put his arm around my shoulder, gingerly, as if I might throw him off. I snuggled closer and may have exaggerated my shivering and chattered my teeth until his arm tightened around me.
"It is not the place for a picnic," he said. "But...wine?" He lifted the skin.
I chuckled. "Mmm, not sure I should take wine from you, my lord prince. How can I be sure you'll not use it to enchant me?"
He blushed at that, his fair skin turning ruby red, and I took a moment to enjoy that flush, that sign that his mind must have leapt to thoughts of love potions. Then I released him with, "I'll drink it if you promise it won't turn me into a frog," and he gave a sharp laugh and relaxed, his hand rubbing my shoulder.
"Are you sure?" he said. "This seems the perfect weather for a frog."
"True, but no."
He uncapped the wineskin and handed it to me. "What would you be, then, Mati, if I could indeed work such an enchantment? Temporarily, of course."
"A cat," I said without hesitation. "So the next time I tumble off a cliff, I'll land on my feet, not my face."
He laughed then, a glorious sound, and I nestled against him, handing back the wineskin and--
"This was a crazy idea," a young man said, in a tone that suggested by "crazy" he meant "good." Slang from a more modern era.
He continued, "It'll be a kick. I'm glad you suggested it."
"I've always wanted to try hunting," another young man replied. "You seemed the right person to teach me."
"I am indeed," said the first voice, the accompanying laugh a little boastful, a little arrogant.
I was in the forest, the voices floating over me. When I made my way toward them, I caught a glimpse of my own sneakers and the legs of my jeans. Back to myself, then, but still caught in some vision. I continued toward the voices.
"I really am glad you asked," the first said again. "I know you and I haven't always seen eye to eye, but you're Alice's friend. I get that."
A noise from the second young man, a grunt that could be agreement, and the first continued, "I mean it. You two h
ave been pals since you were in diapers, and I've told her that's fine with me."
I finally reached them and peered through the trees to see that they were more boys than men. Maybe sixteen, seventeen. Dressed in hunting jackets and ankle-rolled jeans that put me in mind of the fifties. The boy in the lead was handsome--blond and burly in that captain-of-the-football-team way. The one behind was smaller, dark-haired, with a quiet intensity about him, and I knew, without another clue, who I was looking at. Another Arawn and another Gwynn.
I knew that, and yet...
These felt like relatives of Arawn and Gwynn, but distant. Very distant. I did not see Arawn and Gwynn in these two the way I saw them in Ricky and Gabriel. Another iteration, but a poor one, the connection weak.
"Did you hear me, Peter?" the blond boy--Arawn--said, glancing over his shoulder
The reply was a quiet, "Yes, I did."
"I said it's fine with me. You being pals with my girlfriend."
The blond boy clearly expected gratitude for his largesse, but Peter only nodded.
The blond boy's eyes narrowed. "I could tell her to stop seeing you. She'd have to. She's my girlfriend."
"I'd like to see you try, Carl," Peter said, his voice low.
Carl's face screwed up. "What's that?"
"I said that I'm glad you let her be my friend."
Carl turned back around, leading the way through the forest. "You're welcome. But I would like you to back off a little. Hanging out at school is fine, because I don't go to hers, but no more of this going for sodas in the evening and picnics on the weekend. That's for boyfriends." He glanced back. "Get it?"
Peter's voice cooled. "I have never made a move--"
"Course not, because you know you wouldn't get to first base. She's got me now. You don't stand a chance."
"Then you shouldn't be concerned." Peter's voice had gone ice-cold.
"I'm not." Carl resumed walking. "I'm just saying it looks bad, and other guys talk. I don't want that. You can be her school chum. That's it. You don't like that?" Carl waggled his rifle, his back still to Peter. "Remember what a good shot I am."
"Is that a threat?"
"Only if it needs to be, Petey," Carl said with a smirk in his voice. "But you know your place. And it's not with Alice." He glanced back. "Not ever with Alice. Remember that. As long as I'm around, she's mine. I'll never let her go."
"Yes, I know," Peter said.
"Good lad."
They continued walking. I could feel Peter seething as he watched Carl's back. They went another ten paces. Then Peter said, "Is that a deer?"
Carl stopped and surveyed the forest. "Where?"
"Up there, to the left."
Carl waved for Peter to stay where he was and crept forward, his footfalls silent. When he'd gone about five steps, Peter lifted his rifle and aimed it square at Carl's back.
"No!" I said, stumbling forward through the forest.
Peter pulled the trigger. The shot hit Carl between the shoulder blades and he flew face-first into the dirt. I heard a voice shout, "No!" but it wasn't mine, it was another, a familiar, deep voice, and I tumbled through into the garden, hitting the concrete of the patio, my cheek against the cool stone, hearing Gabriel shout, "No!"
SPOKES ON A WHEEL
Gabriel whiplashed back to the present. He could feel the cold patio beneath his hands. He could smell burning leaves in the air. He could hear Olivia saying his name. All that told him he was back, and yet his mind stayed trapped in the forest, the shot looping over and over.
Standing there, watching a boy he knew was supposed to be Gwynn--supposed to be him--shoot Arawn in the back. It sent him tumbling into memory, of being in the abandoned psychiatric hospital, when Ricky had been knocked out in the belfry. He'd been hanging there, wounded, as the voice in Gabriel's head whispered.
Look at him. He's barely hanging on. He's bleeding badly. It's a four-story drop. The fall would likely kill him, and if it didn't, he'd bleed out before help came. All you need to do is stay right where you are. Or better yet, walk away. No one knows you were up here.
Gabriel knew now it had been Tristan, trying to convince him to abandon Ricky. Let him fall. Let him die. But Gabriel could never shake that first impression. In his memory the voice was Gwynn. And Gwynn was him.
And what was worse, there had been--for one second that seemed in his memory to stretch to an eternity--a moment where he'd considered it.
Ricky gone. Olivia yours.
That guilt--that incredible guilt--was like nothing he'd felt before. There had been a moment where he'd thought of Ricky dead and been glad of it. Now he'd seen it happen to another Gwynn, another Arawn. A Gwynn without his Matilda, unable to bear seeing her with him, convinced that if he was gone, the path would be clear. Opening that path with cold-blooded murder.
Gabriel dimly heard Olivia saying his name, felt her shaking him. But it was as if she called from another dimension, one he could not reach because he was trapped in that forest, seeing the boy shoot over and over, and thinking,
That could be me.
Yet there was also the beginning, when he'd first fallen into Olivia's vision, when he'd been Gwynn. Running to her after she fell, his heart pounding, the relief when he saw she was all right. In that moment, there was no barrier between Gabriel and Gwynn. It'd been him running to Olivia, because that was who he saw, who he heard, in Matilda's voice and her words and her smiles and her gestures. Olivia as Matilda, as much as he was Gwynn, feeling exactly as he felt when Olivia was hurt.
At that moment, he'd understood what Olivia meant. What she'd wanted to show him. That the figure he held in his head--the arrogant, thoughtless, obsessive bastard--was not the whole of Gwynn. Not even, perhaps, a significant part of Gwynn. Instead, he'd been a boy, deeply in love, unable even to think of the pact he'd made with Arawn, because if there was even a flicker of hope that Matilda might reciprocate his feelings, then he could no more remember his vow than he could remember to breathe when she turned that smile on him. Foolish, yes. Dangerous, certainly. But that was the power of hindsight. Being Gwynn, feeling what he felt, it was forgivable.
He'd cleaned the blood from her lip, and he'd run through the storm carrying her, and he'd huddled in that cave with her, and she'd teased him and they'd laughed, and it felt like some forgotten memory. Like something he'd shared with Olivia, but had slipped his mind, and now he had it back and he wouldn't push it away again. He'd put it back where it belonged, on a shelf in his memory, bright and shining, ready to be picked up whenever he wanted it. And he would thank Olivia for it. Thank her and apologize, because she was right. This was what he needed. An understanding that there was so much more to Gwynn than he'd realized.
And then came the other memory, of the other Gwynn, the boy in the forest. It took that pleasant memory and shattered it like glass against stone.
Forget the first Gwynn. The second is what counts. That's my future. That's what I'm capable of. The most unimaginable betrayal...not just of Ricky, but of Olivia.
"Gabriel, please. Please."
It was the "please" that snapped him back, looking up at Olivia, then rising onto his elbows, realizing he was lying on the patio floor.
"Did you...?" She swallowed. "You saw it, didn't you? The visions."
"Yes." His voice came hollow, barely recognizable, as if still in that distant, lost place.
"I did not do anything to cause that," she said.
He struggled to focus on her voice against the pull of the vision, threatening to drag him back. When he didn't answer, her voice rose in panic. "I didn't. I wouldn't know how, and I'd never do that when you didn't want to see it."
"I know." He meant it, but with that hollow ring, his voice lacked conviction, and fresh panic sparked in her eyes.
"You have to believe me," she said. "I would never--"
"I know," he said, forcing himself to sit upright. "You fell, and I grabbed you, and that seemed to cause it."
He glanced up
at the house. You did it, he thought, and felt rather foolish thinking it, but he knew that was the answer. The house gave Olivia the visions she needed, and he'd gotten them through her. Because, yes, he needed to see another side of Gwynn. But he also needed to see that side, the ugly and jealous side. To face it.
Face what? The possibility I could kill to win her? Not even to win her, because if I did that, I could never have her. Even if she came to me, I could not be with her, knowing what I'd done.
"That's not you," she blurted.
He looked at her.
"You saw Gwynn and then you saw the two boys, Carl and Peter, right?"
He tried not to flinch at the names. "Yes."
"Peter isn't you. It was different, wasn't it? With Gwynn, you were him, right? Seeing through his eyes."
He nodded.
"And Peter?"
"I was watching from the forest."
"Exactly. An actor in one and an audience in the other." She sat on the patio edge and twisted to face him. "It's like...spokes on a wheel. Gwynn is at the center. One spoke is you. Another is--or was--Peter. You and he aren't connected except through Gwynn. They're...variations on a theme. From the same initial source, like distant cousins of a common ancestor." She peered at him, face drawn, anxious. "Am I making any sense?"
"I'd rather not talk about it."
"But it might help. If we can work this out--"
"No." He said it sharper than he intended. But she didn't draw back. She sunk, as if defeated.
"I need to leave," he said.
"I know." And there was, in her voice, that same hollow note, not distance but resignation.
Goddamn it, say something. Don't run away. You don't need to have this conversation. Just don't run from her.
She'd called him a coward, running away whenever she pulled him toward something he didn't like. It was not so much cowardice as ego, and not even so much protecting his ego as safeguarding the supports that kept it intact.
Success bolstered his ego. Doing what he was good at and avoiding failure in every possible way. He'd first realized that in high school, when he'd dropped out of geometry, not because he disliked it but because he wasn't good at it. Algebra came easily. Calculus was also fine. But there was something about geometry that he could not wrap his mind around. So he dropped the course.
The moment he discovered he did not have the knack for something, he stopped trying to do it. Empathy, friendship, dating, relationships in general. He embraced a challenge only if he knew he could succeed.