The Heart-Shaped Emblor (The Ewlishash Series) (9 page)

“Need-to-know basis, remember? This isn’t something you need to know yet.” His laugh was deep and his demeanor curious.

I rolled my eyes lightheartedly. “This way.”

I led Alexander to the nearest bus stop. Luckily, we did not need to pass the bead shop again or wait too long. By the time we boarded the bus, my fingers were completely numb.

We sat next to one another, speaking with only our eyes. When my fingers began to thaw, the burn consumed them. I had gotten far too cold in the old brick building, and the chill made my teeth chatter.

“You okay? I can get closer if you want. I’m not cold at all.” The way he offered to warm me up gave me gooseflesh.

“No.” I shook my head, allowing him to see the pink in my cheeks. “It kind of… hurts to touch.”

“Ah.” Alexander nodded and sat a little farther back.

“Don’t you want to know why I say that?” I could feel my eyes narrowing.

“Nah.” He met my eyes briefly. “It’s an energy thing. No worries.”

Alexander avoided looking at me for the rest of the ride to campus. I didn’t know if it was because he assumed I was a nut job, or if he too had felt the pain and just couldn’t go into it yet. Either way, he remained silent until we were off the bus and he was about to make his exit. Finally, he turned to face me, hands nervously in his pockets again.

“I’ll try to keep my job. Now that I’ve met you, that is…”

“Thanks.” I looked at my feet sheepishly while I spoke. “I actually tried to see you several times after the art show, but literally two months have passed, and I haven’t seen you once. I was beginning to think…”

“You don’t have to finish.” He bit his lip. “I’ve been avoiding you.”

“Why?”

“As I said, it was hard to see you with Cooper.” Alexander met my eyes intensely as he spoke, causing my breath to catch in my throat.

“Well, that’s over now. I just wish I’d met you sooner, that first time I saw you. Then maybe your contract wouldn’t be ending so soon.”

Alexander shook his head. “I’m not leaving anytime soon, Aislinn. My contract is open ended, and now that so many professors have seen the effects of instant connections to everything, most of them have asked for updated wiring too. I will be here a while longer. As long as I get back to work now, that is.” His radiant face glowed as if light touched every contour.

“See you later, then.” I offered a little wave as I headed toward pottery to hand in my final. After that, I was off to Hope’s.

CONFIDENCE

A
s I pulled out of the parking lot, I felt lighter than I had in a long time. I rolled down my windows, going against all reason, and let the frigid air rush into my face.

I breathed it in with ease, letting the coolness fill my lungs to the point of stinging. The breeze smelled fresh and new, like my current mood. Speaking with Alexander, letting Cooper go, these things freed me. I hadn’t realized that holding on to someone who didn’t love me would cause the one for whom I had been waiting to keep his distance.

I slid several times on the icy roads on the way to Hope’s house, but I didn’t care. I needed to speak with her. Upon arriving, I had to pry open my door. It made a sharp crack, as the ice broke free.

Hope stood on the deck, waiting eagerly for me. She had her arms crossed, impatient. I couldn’t help but beam.

As we exchanged smiles, I got the impression that I wouldn’t need to tell her very much. Somehow, whether through Austin or her guides, she already knew a lot of what had happened. I could tell by the hint of pride behind her eyes. We were speaking without even opening our mouths.

I grabbed my backpack and trudged through the snow, stomping when I reached her porch to dislodge the chunks of ice from my shoes. I looked up at Hope again, still radiating my feeling of freedom.

“Okay…” She tilted her head, as she seemed to be contemplating my mood. “This isn’t exactly the state I expected to see you in. I thought you’d be either bawling your eyes out or a raging bull, but you look quite happy.”

“Yes, I would say so.”

Hope led me inside. The coziness of her house was much more relaxing than I remembered. In the kitchen, Tellah and Samara were cooking. The smell of tomatoes, basil, and oregano made my mouth water.

“Hey, ladies, dinner will be ready in a couple hours. You are eating with us, correct?” Tellah looked at me from over her shoulder.

“I planned on it,” I replied. “If that’s okay.”

“Please. You haven’t been here in so long we were beginning to think you didn’t want to come back over.”

I chuckled and looked down. “Sorry, I’ve been a bit pre-occupied. But that’s over now, and you should be seeing me a lot more.” I bit my lip and glanced at Hope. “That is, if she’s here anyway. Hope and Austin seem to be spending a lot of their time elsewhere as well.”

“Tell me about it.” Tellah rolled her eyes.

I laughed as Hope and I made our way upstairs. We both plopped on the bed.

“So, what do you know already?” I wanted to skip as much as possible, so as to not rehash the last few months on her. I was sure Austin had filled her in on all the stuff with Cooper, but I had no way of knowing if my guides had discussed my recent conversation with Alexander.

“Hmm, let’s see… First, I know Cooper hasn’t been very good to you. Second, I know he’s loved Jaden all this time, and third, I know, or at least figure, that you broke up with him after last night.”

“That sums up quite a lot. Thanks for saving me the time of explaining.” I laughed, relieved, before continuing. “We did break up, although it feels more like I set myself free. Him too I suppose. Now he can be with the one he truly loves.”

“Good.” Hope sounded gruff. She was hiding something, and I could sense it.

“Did you know he cheated on me last night?”

Hope cringed.

“You knew,” I grumbled. “Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

“I didn’t find out until this morning, when I saw Austin. He was so mad at Cooper that he told him not to come home after he took off with Jaden. When Austin confronted Cooper this morning about where he’d stayed last night, he got belligerent. Austin assumed they slept together. Did they?”

“Yeah, they did. But, to be honest, I knew he still loved her deep down. I should have broken up with him sooner.” I shook my head, frustrated with myself for not ending things earlier.

“You sound so calm about all of this. I would have been pissed! How can you take things so lightly?”

“I’m not really!” I huffed, laughing sarcastically. “But what choice do I have? I’m just glad I don’t have to subject myself to any more of his misery.”

“I really like this new side of you, Aislinn.” Hope’s eyes twinkled. “You’re so sure of yourself. Where did this come from?”

“I’m not sure.” I looked around the room. “I guess when I listen to my gut, I feel better. More secure.” I shrugged and dug some potato chips out of my backpack, piling a few in my mouth.

“Did you talk to Jaden?”

“No, I didn’t. Although Cooper told me who rap-” My words fell short as I bit my tongue.

“Aislinn?” Hope dropped her gaze. “You don’t have to hide things from me. I already know.”

“How?” I asked innocently.

“Just like I communicate with my guides about you, I also communicate about others. When I found out about Cooper this morning, I asked my guides for assistance with what to do. It was they who shared the information with me, because they trust me.” Hope’s eyes closed slightly.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “It’s not that I didn’t trust you. I just wasn’t sure I should share. It seemed wrong.”

“It’s okay. But please, know that I’m on your side. I won’t tell any of your secrets. I can’t.”

“What does that mean?” Frustration grew inside me. “Why are you always talking in code? The only one who is worse is Alexander. Why can’t you tell my secrets?”

Hope seemed taken aback by the irritation in my voice. She stumbled over her words. “I can’t tell your secrets because if I do, I’ll lose my abilities for abusing them. Sorry. I just assumed you’d understand that.”

I dropped my shoulders, slumping forward. “I’m sorry, too. You’re not the only one to speak cryptically today, and with what happened this morning, I feel like I’m riding this supernatural rollercoaster. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”

“It’s okay, Aislinn.” Hope assured me. “I understand your frustration. The only reason I speak in code is the same reason you never forced Jaden to deal with her rape. You can’t force someone to deal with something before they’re ready. The outcome of each situation depends on the circumstances leading up to it.”

“What can you tell me then, without messing with circumstance?” My eyes slowly traced up her bed before finally meeting her gaze again.

“Please understand that some things aren’t going to make sense until you’ve chosen your path, despite how I try to explain them.” She took a deep breath and began.

“I know some things about you because I listen, to my guides and my sister.” She shot me a wide-eyed look, waiting for my response, but I kept silent. “For instance, I knew that Cooper wouldn’t make you happy, and I tried to warn you, but you didn’t want to hear it. You kept dating him anyway. Now you see I was right, but I couldn’t force you. You had to realize the truth on your own, to truly see things.

“There is something about you, something that makes you different. It’s the reason for your gifts. Soon, you’ll have to make a choice, and it will be because of one of your gifts. What you choose will determine what, and who, tells you about yourself. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more now, but it could sway your decision. That could have devastating and permanent consequences.” She paused, thinking. “What is it you want to know?”

“What do you know about Alexander? What does he have to do with anything?” My mouth creased with seriousness.

Hope played with her hands, trying to delay her answer. “That’s one of the things I can’t go into too much detail about, but that’s because I only know what I need to in order to help you, nothing more. All I can say is that how you choose to act when you are put to the test soon will determine if he gets to be the one.”

“The one to what?” I asked anxiously, fingers crushing the chips in my hand.

“The one to bring you balance, to be your other half. You would be an inseparable team.” Hope squirmed, probably trying to decide how much she could tell me. “But if you choose the other option, you will end up with someone else, someone to fit that path.”

“What do you mean when you say you get answers from your sister? Or guides?”

“I can’t tell you about Kiera, not yet, but that’s because it’s not my place. She’ll talk to you when she’s ready to share.

“I can, however, tell you that my guides are here to help me. Just like you have a purpose, I do as well. I exist to help those like you through the… transition phase.” She eyed me cautiously, gauging my reaction. I threw her a nod to continue. “You are one of my assignments, so to speak. I didn’t know it when I met you, it was only later, when I brought you home and to the vortex, that I finally had an answer. My job is to help you, to give you options, to assist in finding your strengths. If you want my help, that is.

“The only way I can explain this is that you have your purpose, which you will understand soon. But you have two choices. If you go right, it will be one outcome; left will be another. Before you incarnated, your soul wanted to follow the path to your right. So you set up your life to push you in that direction. You chose me to be here—just like Alexander—to help you make the decision your soul wanted you to make. Is this making any sense?”

The funny thing was some of it did make sense, like I had dreamed it all at some point. Something felt familiar. It resonated within me, like when you’re singing along with a song on the radio and your voice reaches the exact same tone as the singer’s, and you cancel each other out.

“But let’s say, for example, that I wanted to follow this hypothetical ‘right’ path. Why wouldn’t I just delete the left path from my life all together? Why is there a choice if I have already made the decision beforehand?”

Hope stared at me like a deer in the headlights. I’d stumped her. “I guess it would be because of freewill.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“Like I was telling you months ago, humans have freewill. If you had just let yourself be born with no preparation, you may end up choosing the path your soul didn’t want to take. Because once you are in the body, you suddenly have choices. You could choose to ignore your gifts, becoming a workaholic who has a nice house and an SUV. Or you could try to see lottery numbers with your visions, and get rich by cheating—which I might add is personal gain, and thus has consequences. See what I’m getting at?”

“I guess. Will you ever be able to give me details?”

“One day, yes. But only if you stay on the same path you are on now. You do have a choice, and you may choose to go a different route.”

I stretched out on the bed. So I had brought both Alexander and Hope into my life—she seemed sure of that—and they had both talked to me about similar things. I also knew, or at least had some idea, where I didn’t want to go with my gifts. Hope had inadvertently given it away during her explanation.

If my soul didn’t want me to walk away from my gifts, there could only be two choices. Use my gifts to help others, or use them to help myself. Since I wasn’t a selfish person, I couldn’t imagine using my gifts for self-gain, but a situation must be coming that will be tempting.

“Hope?”

“Think of more?”

“You could say that.” I bit my lip. “I think there have been many choices. But I’m not sure I’ve always chosen correctly. Maybe that’s why I have a bigger test coming.”

“Very perceptive.” She beamed, pleased with my epiphany. “No one always chooses correctly, so don’t feel bad. That’s how we learn who we want to be, by sometimes hurting others and then feeling that we did the wrong thing. It inspires us to try harder the next time.”

“I think I may have chosen wrong when I told Cooper about Jaden.” I shuddered at the memory of revealing her secret.

Hope’s eyebrows wrinkled. “Why do you think that?”

“Well… In a dream, I saw her jumping from a bridge, and I stopped her in the waking world. I never told anyone. Then I had the vision of the rape, and I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone, but I ended up telling Cooper about both.” Shame made my chest feel heavy.

“There is another way to look at that,” she encouraged.

“What?” I perked up.

“Maybe the problem isn’t that you told her secret, but that you promised not to tell in the first place. What if that was exactly what she needed from the beginning?”

I sat up and crinkled the chip bag beyond repair. Crumbs fell onto my lap. I rolled one under my fingertip, letting the sharp edge of the chip piece dig into my skin. The sensation helped focus my thoughts.

“So do you think telling Cooper was the right thing to do?”

“I can’t say with certainty,” Hope began, “but I think it may have been. It sounds as if they both realized they still love each other. They just needed a little nudge into confessing their true feelings.

“Sometimes, the best answer isn’t always the most obvious. Promising not to tell when something bad has happened to someone may be causing them more pain than if you got them help. Sure she would have been mad, but her healing would have been worth it. This is part of deciding who you want to be. Do you want to help others, or are you more worried about dealing with an angry friend?”

Guilt filled me again as I remembered that day he told me about what Jaden had done to him. What she had made him feel he did to her. Somewhere in the pit of my stomach, I knew he still loved her. Yet I did nothing about it.

“So, if I chose self-gain, like dating a guy when I knew he loved someone else, why are you and Alexander in my life? Are you the ones to help with the path of serving myself?” Concern riddled my voice.

“Well, no, it’s not like that. See, I’m here to help keep you on track, to make suggestions, to nudge you in a direction that will get you where your soul wanted to be.

“Alexander is the result of your decisions. It’s different with him. Because he is here, I would guess you have chosen more selfless patterns in life, but you’re still undecided. Until you know without a doubt that you don’t want any more Coopers, things will not be set in stone.” Just how invested in my future was she? She seemed more concerned than I did about what I chose. Her serious face reminded me of my parents’ numerous lectures to me while growing up.