Immortal Mine (34 page)

I’m in the paddock with the horses when
Niahm and Stacy come home from school, laughing together. It feels
like years since I’ve seen Niahm smile like that, even though it’s
only been a few days.

They don’t see me as they disappear into the
house. I can hear them in the kitchen through the windows Jean
opened to let a fresh breeze in. They are banging around in the
kitchen, clearly preparing to cook something or other. I hope it’s
cookies or pie or anything sweet—then realize I may not get to
taste whatever they’re making if Niahm is still peeved with me.

I move closer, Bob at my heel, to spy on
them. Just then, Niahm opens the doors and calls Bob’s name. She
stops abruptly, one hand still on the door handle when she sees
me.

“Hi,” I say, unsure of how to proceed.

Bob bounds forward and jumps up on Niahm,
happily nosing her neck and chin. She turns her attention to the
dog, scrubbing him behind the ears and talking her nonsense to him
that he loves. She glances back up at me.

“Hi,” she finally says as Bob drops down and
pushes past her into the house.

“Bob! No!” I hear Stacy scolding him. I grin
at the sound, and Niahm does as well.

“You’d think he’d know better than to
aggravate her,” I say.

“Well, she hasn’t been around much lately,
so I guess he’s forgotten.” I see the pinch at the corner of her
eyes as she says it, can feel the guilt she’s suffering with. I
share in that guilt. I’ve been happy to monopolize all of her time
without a thought for how it might be affecting her
friendships.

“That’s my fault,” I say, and she shakes her
head.

“It was my choice.”

I can’t help but notice she said
was
.
Stacy comes to the door.

“What are you doing out her, Vee? Your
terror of a dog is out of control without—Oh, hi, Sam,” she says
upon spying me. She sounds friendly enough. I realize how much
I’ve
missed Stacy, my comrade in arms when it comes to
taking care of Niahm. She glances between Niahm and myself, and
finally says, “Wanna come in and make cookies with us?”

I’m as surprised by her offer as Niahm
apparently is, if the look on her face is any indication.

“Um, well, I... yeah, I’d like to...” I
pause, trying to read Niahm, but I’m too far away. “But maybe I
should—”

“Come on,” Niahm says, standing back and
opening the door wider. “It’ll be fun.”

“The Three Musketeer’s ride again,” Stacy
says with a laugh, stepping back and turning to chide Bob once
again, who looks at her in abject innocence, his nose covered in
white flour. I follow them in, and Stacy shoots me a cryptic look,
sideways from beneath lowered brows and I suddenly wonder if Niahm
has told her. Does she understand the danger this puts Stacy in?
More than ever I wish I had the freedom to walk over to Niahm and
take her hand.

The two of them make the dough, and I find
I’m only in the way. It’s clear they’ve done this many times
together, each doing their part without even talking of who will do
what. I retreat to the table and watch them, smiling at their silly
laughter. At one point Stacy turns on the radio which is playing an
old, upbeat song from the fifties.

“Ugh, horrible music,” Niahm moans.

“What? You’re crazy, this is amazing music,”
Stacy argues. I have to agree with her.

“Come on, Sam,” Stacy laughs, taking my hand
and pulling me up. “Let’s show Niahm how great this music is to
dance to.”

I admit I’m showing off a bit as I twirl her
into a swing dance—which she manages to keep up with, apparently
having been taught by her dad. That memory is front and center. The
entire time, I’m listening to her, watching to see if Niahm has
given her any information she shouldn’t have. I skim over memories
that aren’t related to Niahm, go a little slower whenever Niahm
makes an appearance. Finally I reach their interaction of the past
few days, and see that Niahm has kept our secret. I’m a little
surprised by Stacy’s acceptance, and her advice to Niahm to keep
the secret. It comes completely from a place of love for Niahm.
That’s something I can relate to.

“Whew!” Stacy exclaims as she drops onto one
of the chairs. “You should give some of the boys around here
lessons. Where did you learn to dance like that?”

Niahm looks at me oddly, and I can’t meet
her eyes as I tell the lie. “In New York. They gave us lessons one
year in school.”

Stacy nods, accepting my words. “Dude, you
have the warmest hands of any guy I’ve ever danced with. You don’t
have a fever, do you?”

I realize I may have overdone it on the
brain-picking, not quite sure how to answer.

“That’s normal for him,” Niahm says. “He has
hot hands.” Then, blushing at her words and Stacy’s laughter, she
says, “I mean, his hands are always hot like that.”

“Weird,” Stacy proclaims. “I’ve never felt
anything like that before, at least on hands that aren’t sweaty in
the process.”

I look at Niahm, see that she’s watching me,
a thoughtful, questioning look on her face. Thank the heavens the
oven timer chooses that moment to go off, taking her attention from
me. Somehow, though, I don’t think she’s going to forget about
Stacy’s words calling her to the fact that the heat she feels from
my hands all too frequently isn’t exactly normal.



“Stay.”

I look at Niahm, for one second wondering if
she’s speaking to Bob. But she’s looking right at me. Stacy just
announced her intention to leave, after we’ve gorged ourselves sick
on the cookies they baked. I stood to leave also when Niahm speaks
the word. I can only nod, hoping she wants me to stay for a good
reason.

Stacy and Niahm hug, then Niahm closes the
door behind her. She turns to me, an unsure look on her face. When
she hesitates, I say, “If it were possible, I’d probably gain about
forty pounds from the amount of cookies I ate. But it’d be worth
it.”

“You... you can’t get fat?” she asks,
surprised.

“No.” I hope a simple answer is the best way
to keep Niahm from freaking out.

“That seems unfair,” is her only response.
She walks over to the couch and sits down. I follow and sit in the
chair next to the couch. She leans forward, elbows on her thighs,
twisting her hands together in front of her.

“I wanted to tell you,” she begins, not
looking at me. She glances up at me from beneath her lashes, and
I’m struck once again by her eyes. I envy her not having to wear
contacts to cover their strangeness. She still has enough of a rim
for them to appear unusual but not alarming, as mine do. People
tend to cringe away from my eyes, as if they can sense something
isn’t right with me. She takes a deep breath and blows it out. A
trickle of apprehension creeps up my spine. I can’t read her very
well right now. I believe she may be trying to find the words to
break up with me. I decide to give her a break. It’s the least I
can do after everything I’ve put her through.

“Niahm, it isn’t easy knowing what you now
know,” I say. “I’ve had years of learning to live with it, and it
still is hard for me. There isn’t any blame for not wanting to be
part of it. I promise. And you know I can’t lie to you,” I smile at
her. She’s simply staring at me, a ridge of confusion puckering her
brow. “It will be hard to walk away, but I’ll do it. For you. It
won’t change my feelings for you at all. But eventually you’ll be
able to forget about me, and you’ll have—”

I stop when she brings her hand up, palm
toward me.

“Sam,” she says, shaking her head a little.
“Let me finish, okay?”

I nod.

“I don’t
want
to forget about
you.”

A spark of hope ignites. “You... you
don’t?”

“No,” she laughs. “When I told you I love
you, I wasn’t kidding. This is all very weird and sci-fi
channelish, and I don’t know what will happen down the road.” She
shrugs. “Maybe it will be too much at some point, when I’m getting
wrinkles and you’re not, or maybe even before then. I don’t know.
There’s a lot to consider. But for now, for today, I’m not ready to
give you up.”

I slide from the chair so that I’m kneeling
in front of her.

“Are you saying...?” I take hold of her
hands, nearly floored by the wave of feeling she has for me. I can
see the confusion beneath it all, see conflicting thoughts of
giving up her idealistic future including a family, see her fear of
being old and hunched with me next to her looking the same as I do
now. I know I should let her go, so that she doesn’t have to deal
with those fears, but I’m just selfish enough not to.

“Thank you,” I whisper, leaning forward to
kiss her. She pulls her hands from mine and wraps her arms tightly
around my neck. My own arms about her waist pull her close to me,
until she’s kneeling on the floor in front of me, kissing me back
with all the passion she has.

“I love you,” I say, pulling back to caress
her cheek with my thumb.

“I love you, too,” she says, kissing me once
again.

On Wednesday, as promised, I go with my
girlfriends to the movie. I’ve been wrapped up in Sam for so long
that I’ve forgotten how much I like just hanging out, being a silly
girl. Sam came back to school on Tuesday after our cookie making
night—and making out night, if I remember right.

I decided that I shouldn’t be so stubborn.
Yeah, what he did was about the worst way he could have decided to
tell me what he was, but I can’t forget how relieved and grateful I
was when he woke up, and I first realized he wasn’t dead. Or how I
felt when I thought he was.

“Someone’s birthday’s coming up,” Hillary
sing-songs. I give her a half-grin in response. I hadn’t ever
imagined I would celebrate my eighteenth birthday without my
parents being by my side.

“Got any plans next Friday?” Heather asks.
Stacy rolls her eyes at me. A few years ago we all decided that
we’d do surprise birthday parties for everyone when they turned
eighteen. At the beginning of the year, the Double-H decided that
if we didn’t speak of it, no one would remember when their birthday
came.

“I’m all yours,” I say, no matter how much I
want to spend the night at home, curled up in a sobbing ball.

“Well, maybe we can go see a movie or
something. It’s your birthday, what do you want to do?” Hillary
asks, I suppose thinking I have no idea she’s setting me up for the
surprise party.

“I’ll let you pick, Hill,” I say, ignoring
Stacy’s smirk. “Surprise me.”

When I get home, Jean is sitting at the
computer in the kitchen again. I’m dying of curiosity to know what
she spends so much time doing on there, but when I asked her once,
she made up some lame excuse that was clearly a lie, so I haven’t
asked again.

“Hey,” I say, stepping into the room as she
minimizes the window she had open.

“Hey, yourself. Did you have fun?”

“I really did,” I say. “I’d kind of
forgotten how much fun it is just to hang out with the girls.”

“Yeah, well, cute boys will always turn your
head, won’t they?”

I glance at her, hearing the slight edge in
her voice. But she’s smiling at me, no malice reflected on her
face.

“You’re calling Sam cute? Since when do you
give him compliments?”

She laughs, shuts down the computer, and
walks over to me. “I don’t like that an immortal is anywhere near
my granddaughter, but... he’s not a bad guy, overall.”

“Huh.”

“‘Huh’ what?” she asks.

“Two compliments. Without any irony, I might
add.”

“Should we change the subject while it’s
still good?” she says with a wry grin.

“Good idea,” I say. “My friends are having a
surprise birthday party for me on Friday.”

“If it’s a surprise, how do you know?” she
asks, looking at me sideways as she opens a cabinet to pull a glass
out.

“They’ve had one for every person who’s
turned eighteen this year. There’s only one more after me.”

“Ah, gotcha,” she says, filling her glass
with water.

“Is that... necessary?” I ask, eyeing the
glass as she tips it up against her mouth.

“What? Water?”

“Yeah. I mean, you can’t die, right?”

“No, I can’t die,” she says sardonically.
“But I can be pretty miserable if I don’t eat and drink.”

“Sam says you can’t get fat.”

“Really?” She sounds surprised.

“You didn’t know that?”

“No, I didn’t. That’s good news. In that
case,” she pauses with her hand above the plate of cookies we made
the other day, “may I?”

I laugh and wave permission toward her.

“What do you want for your birthday, Niahm?”
Her question is casual as she sits at the table, but my stomach
clenches as I prepare my response, one I’ve been thinking about for
a while now. I sit across from her, one foot propped beneath me as
I rock back and forth minutely with nerves.