I bowed my head, hiding my burning face. I ran my fingers over the well-worn cover. Its pages were stained and dog-eared. “It looks like you’ve been using it as a coaster,” I observed, flipping through it, noting the crooked, sloppy script in the margins where he had taken notes. Underlined passages.
Then something fell from the pages. I bent to pick up the folded piece of paper.
“Here,” I said, trying to hand it to Bastian.
“Actually, that’s for you too.” It was his turn to look shy. “I wanted you to see that those art supplies were being put to good use. Well maybe not good…but use all the same.”
I opened up the paper, expecting to see the sunrise I had told him to draw.
Instead…
“You drew a picture of me?” I looked up at Bastian in surprise. I was flattered. And a little taken aback.
Did I really look like that?
Bastian had obviously spent a lot of time in recreating my face. The detail was amazing. He had drawn me standing at the gate. It was clear the perspective was from the outside. Bastian had drawn as someone looking inside. It was such an uncanny likeness that it almost seemed like a photograph.
“Baz is an amazing artist. Though I’m sure he’ll tell you he’s the worst.” David gave his brother a small smile.
“Wow, it looks just like you. It’s beautiful,” Anne exclaimed, staring at the portrait with wide eyes.
“You’re not the easiest to draw, you know. It’s hard to capture what I see accurately.” Bastian gazed at me earnestly.
I wanted to ask him what he saw when he looked at me, but I didn’t have the courage. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of his work. I hadn’t properly looked at my face in years. I almost forgot what I really looked like.
We were taught to turn our backs on vanity, so I purposefully avoided my reflection.
It was like finding an old friend.
“I thought you were going to draw the cliffs,” I rasped, hardly able to speak.
Bastian’s eyes never left mine. “When I put pencil to paper, you were all I wanted to draw.”
Anne cleared her throat and David shuffled uncomfortably. I had almost forgotten we weren’t alone.
I quickly tucked the picture back into the book, tapping the cover with my fingers. “Thanks for this.”
“Sure. It’s no big deal.” Bastian waved away my gratitude.
“Don’t believe him for a second, Sara. Baz takes that book everywhere with him. Says it’s his security blanket.” David teased his brother. I liked seeing warmth between them. Like yesterday at the waterfall. It was something more than Bastian holding David up, caring for him, tending to him. That all seemed so one sided. As if David’s emotions had been burned out of him, leaving nothing behind. I liked these moments when I could see the affection that must exist there. I liked how happy it clearly made Bastian. How it changed his entire demeanor.
Bastian punched David in the arm. Not hard, but playfully. “Shut up, Leonardo.”
I frowned. “Leonardo?”
David glowered. “Don’t you dare.”
Anne was grinning. Higher and wider than I had ever seen before. “Now, we have to know,” she stated.
Bastian glanced at David out of the corner of his eye. “It may have something to do with my big brother’s past obsession with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Or the fact that he refused to wear anything but his Leonardo PJs for six months when he was seven.”
David groaned. “You had to bring that up.”
Bastian and David were laughing. Anne was smiling.
I felt compelled to join them. It was impossible not to.
It felt almost…normal.
Then it dwindled away leaving the perpetual quiet in its wake. A tide receding and we couldn’t follow.
Anne’s lips turned downward. David’s shoulders slouched again. But Bastian…he still smiled.
“I appreciate you letting me borrow your book. I’m not sure I’ll have time to read it though,” I felt it important to add.
“I know, you and your super busy schedule. Just keep it. Read it when you can. If it’s possible in this crappy lighting. Then you can tell me what your personal legend is.”
“My personal legend?”
“Yeah. It’s—well, just read it. Then we can talk about it.”
“Like a book club?” I chuckled.
Bastian’s face lit up. “Yeah, like a book club.”
“Oh, I want to read it too,” Anne jumped in.
I clutched the book to my chest, not wanting to hand it over. “Wait in line, Landes.”
Bastian positively beamed. I liked making him look like that.
His good mood was infectious. It erased a little of why I had been so despondent. His joy at something as simple as a book soothed me in a way I had never experienced.
Bastian Scott was frustrating. He pushed and prodded when he shouldn’t. He talked about things best left silent.
Yet he made me smile.
He made me feel good.
“Okay then, I’ll read it.” This small, insignificant thing felt like defiance. And I went with it. I was doing that a lot lately. I put the book underneath my pillow so my mother wouldn’t see it.
“Thank you.” I meant it. I really did. Bastian was looking at me. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. With my body. I fidgeted restlessly.
“No thanks necessary,” he replied. “I look forward to talking about it with you.”
“Me too,” I responded. And I was being sincere. He could tell. His face softened, looking pleased. There was an odd buzzing in my chest. A buzzing that had started yesterday at the waterfall and only gotten louder. My heart beat just a bit faster. My eyes lingered. I realized I had stopped noting his physical flaws. Now I found him to be quite good looking. Even if his presence shook me in ways I didn’t entirely understand.
“You look nice this evening, Anne” I heard David say softly. I turned my attention to the other two people in the room.
“Thank you, David.” Anne craned her neck to look up at him. She was small, shorter than I was. And David was incredibly tall. They moved closer together. Anne could easily fit under his arm if they dared touch each other.
Bastian was watching them as well.
“Can I walk you to dinner?” David asked my friend. He flexed his hands as if they pained him. His shoulders were tense, his jaw rigid. He seemed to be preparing himself for a blow. The man who had joked about wearing Teenage Ninja Turtle pajamas was nowhere to be seen. He was replaced with a sad man. A broken man. But a man who looked at Anne Landes as if she were infinitely precious.
A twinge of sorrow shot through me. For Anne. For me.
This could go nowhere…
It could only end in heartache…
But sometimes the risk was worth the agony.
“Yes. I’d like that,” she told him, giving him another one of her smiles. Soft, sweet smiles I so very rarely saw. It lit up her whole face.
And the way David looked at her made the breath catch in my throat.
His shoulders relaxed. His hands loosened.
And his smile was just as luminous.
I wished I could see only the beauty of it.
Instead I saw unbearable certainty.
Bastian’s expression changed slightly. It became what I wished mine could be.
Hopeful.
“You guys go on. I’ll walk with Sara,” Bastian said.
Anne looked to me for confirmation that it was all right. Her loyalty to me would make her stay if I needed her to.
Yet she deserved something better. Even if I knew, deep in my bones that ultimately none of this would matter. Still, I liked to see her truly happy if only for a while.
“Go on. I’ll be right behind you,” I assured her.
David held the door open for her. He closed his eyes for a split second as she passed by, inhaling deeply. As though drinking her in.
And in the end, all that matters are thos
e moments we allow ourselves to be whole…
The door closed behind them with a click. And then it was just Bastian and me. The tiny room felt even smaller.
I grabbed my sweater and jammed my arms through the sleeves. “We’d better get going.” I sounded too bright. Insincere.
I started to pull open the door to follow my friend when Bastian put his hand on my arm. I wanted to fold into him. To let him hold me tight and never let go.
I wanted it so, so much.
“Okay, David was somewhat right earlier.” Bastian’s gaze met mine. “I was worried about you.”
I tried to swallow. My mouth and throat were parched. As if I had been walking through the desert.
“Why would you be worried about me? You barely know me,” I scoffed. I tried to sound indignant. Unbothered. I had the sense that I wasn’t fooling him in the slightest. Because I should pull my arm away. Because I shouldn’t let him touch me.
It wasn’t his right.
But I didn’t move. We stayed locked together. His hand around my wrist.
Bastian’s fingers curved. Not restraining me. But expressing something he couldn’t quite put into words.
The buzzing in my chest vibrated throughout my entire body. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He was very, very serious.
“I know you, Sara.” He was insistent. His gaze held me captive. “I know you’re kind. That you put everyone and everything before yourself.” He pulled me closer. Hardly a breath of air between us.
“I know that you think you have to live this way. That you have some pre-ordained fate that you can’t escape.” He ran his hands up and down my arms. Warming me.
Making me shiver.
“Bastian…”
He leaned in and kissed me. Only the second kiss of my entire life but I swear it was the best kiss I could ever have. Soft and insistent. Intense and perfect. His lips molded to mine as though they were meant to stay there.
This time we lingered. A kiss here. A kiss there. We took our time. Even with the constant fear of being discovered, I wanted to savor him. To savor this.
Because it couldn’t last.
Bastian pulled back. I wished he wouldn’t. “You were upset yesterday. You looked scared. I had to know you were okay. That something hadn’t happened—”
I felt myself become instinctually defensive. “What do you think would have happened?”
He frowned. “I don’t know—”
“Stop demonizing us, Bastian,” I spat out, venting my anger, my frustration on him. Because it was easier than placing it where it really belonged.
On myself.
“I’m not demonizing anyone. I’m just trying to tell you that I care about you. That I want to know you’re all right. That what happens to you matters to me,” he implored, pulling my face to his. Kissing me softly.
I let him.
Bastian Scott had become my favorite sin.
“You matter to me too,” I told him.
Why had I admitted that?
I wanted to take it back the moment it had slipped out of my mouth.
But then Bastian’s face became tender and I was glad to have told him.
The regret and guilt that quickly followed was inevitable.
A conditioned response to my happiness.
I pulled away. Knowing that’s what I should do.
Even if it’s not what I wanted to do.
“Sara, don’t,” he whispered.
“Don’t what?” I licked my dry lips. They were cracked from the sun. From not taking care of myself as I should.
We were in perilous territory.
He brushed a strand of hair back, tucking it behind my ear. His hand came up to curl around the side of my neck, his thumb resting over the pounding pulse.
“Don’t pull away,” he answered, his voice soft. Cracking slightly. “I meant it when I said that you’re different. You see more. You are more than the rest of them.”
I opened my mouth to say something. Anything. I had to dispel this wild energy arching between us.
How had it happened? It seemed to come out of nowhere. Or maybe it had been building since that moment at the gate. When I had told Pastor to let him in…
“Sara, are you in here? They’re waiting for you in the dining hall—”
Mom came into our house, full of irritation and ready disapproval. I backed up with a jolt. Bastian’s face shuttered and closed.
Mom came up short, her hand on the door knob, eyes flashing as she took in me. Took in Bastian. Took in the two of us. Alone. Could she read the tension between us? Did she know what it meant?
What did it mean?
It meant that Bastian was changing everything about me.
“Hello, Bastian,” she said, her voice low and chilled.
“Good evening, Ms. Bishop. How are you?” Bastian asked, all easy smiles and laid-back confidence. But his eyes were cold. He didn’t like my mother. I was learning to read him well.
My mother’s face was hard as she regarded the young man standing in the middle of her home. “I’m well, thank you. It’s time for dinner. You should go on,” she told him.
Bastian glanced at me, his brow furrowed. I could see the stubbornness. The ironclad will that would only get him into trouble.
Here, that wasn’t permitted. I pled silently for him to give up this fight. Just this once.
“I had planned to walk with Sara, if that’s all right.”
“Actually, I need to talk to Sara for a minute, you go ahead,” she said, her tone firm and unyielding.
Bastian, for once, had the good sense to know that rebelliousness wouldn’t work. Not with my mother. It would only be met with consequences. Argument was futile.
“See you there?” He was gentle and sweet. It warmed me.
“Yes. I’ll see you in a minute,” I answered.
Mom stood there like a stone sentry. Watching and judging. She waited for the door to close behind Bastian before turning to me, her demeanor slightly crazed. Unhinged. Mom didn’t take loss of control lightly. She had always fought hard and dirty to keep me where she wanted me.
On the fringes of her life, but under her thumb, doing what I was supposed to.
“What was that?” she demanded.
I could play dumb. Pretend I didn’t know what she was referring to.
I was adept at denial.
But I couldn’t deny those few moments hadn’t meant something. Because they had. I was falling for Bastian. Slowly and deeply. It was a life changing kind of experience. Like waking up from a dream only to realize that it was your reality.
It was beautiful. It filled me with hope.
Yet, I also felt the shame.
The self-loathing.
I felt as though I was betraying everything and everyone because of that vicious twist in my belly when Bastian was near.
There were only two certainties in my life. One was that I was meant to walk a particular path. My fate was set. I wasn’t meant to question it.
And the other was that the way my insides tumbled and turned when he looked at me would be my undoing. Because those questions I wasn’t supposed to ask bubbled up in my brain with a force that would, without a doubt, destroy everything.
I was eighteen years old and I had never permitted myself to think of anything beyond The Gathering. Beyond The Awakening.
Beyond the unescapable end.
Now my faith was turning on its head. Because of the way Bastian looked at me. Because of the stories he told. Because of the way he wrapped his arms around me, kissing me like I was all he believed in.
I had started to question the very things I had accepted without doubt for so long. Pastor’s word was no longer infallible.
Simply because of him.
I tiptoed toward oblivion.
“Sara Bishop, what are you doing?” Mom gripped my upper arm and shook me. I didn’t try to wrench free. I let her fingers dig into my flesh, bruising me.
“We weren’t doing an
ything, Mom,” I said weakly.
Liar.
“Temptation of the flesh will ruin you, Sara! It will lead you down a path you can’t come back from.” She squeezed my chin between her fingers. Pinching me. “I thought you were smarter than that. More faithful. What would Pastor Carter say?”
My face paled. “Please don’t tell him. There’s nothing to tell, I promise.” I found myself collapsing. Shrinking into that little girl, terrified of her mother’s erratic moods.
“You must stay pure of heart and soul, Sara. It’s integral to the next step of your journey.” The way my mother spoke I knew that Pastor Carter had told her.
Of course he had. She was an elder. He told her most things. But this…I had hoped she’d save me. Just this once.
Yet I didn’t see anything but blind faith in her eyes. This was a woman who would never, ever fight for me. And I was terrified that was way past fighting for myself.
“Pastor wants me to marry,” I whispered hoarsely.
I bowed my head. Demure and non-threatening. I was devout and compliant. I would do as was dictated by Pastor. By the elders. By God.
“And you will do as he bids. You will bare your soul to him. He is the embodiment of holiness. He knows what’s best for all of us. You won’t argue. You won’t fight. You will be the dutiful disciple. You’ve learned your place,” Mom hissed, her rage inherent in every syllable. In every demand. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? I will put you in The Refuge myself. I will lock the door and throw away the key.” Her threats made me tremble. I knew she meant it.
There was a crack in the foundation of trust Pastor Carter had built. A fine tremor that shook the entire world he created.
I was eighteen years old.
And my life was not my own.
I had been raised to believe that it never would be.
Because The Gathering of the Sun gobbled it up and kept it from me.
“I know, Mom,” was all I said. I wouldn’t look at her.
Her fury made me weak.
She let go of my arm but her fingers twisted my chin, pulling my face upwards so I was forced to look at her. “Don’t shame me, Sara.”
I shook my head and was relieved when she finally moved away. She opened the door, ready to go out, I went to follow her, but she stopped me. A hand on my chest, she held me back.