Xavier didn’t say anything when he saw me standing there; he just turned and walked away, leaving the front door open. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to follow him, but I did anyway. I found him in the kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal, even though it was almost lunchtime. He didn’t look at me.
“I can explain,” I said softly. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Isn’t it?” he asked in a low voice. “I think it’s exactly what it looks like. What else could it be?”
“Xavier, please,” I said, fighting back tears. “There’s an explanation for this, just hear me out.”
“You were trying to give him mouth to mouth?” Xavier asked sarcastically. “You were collecting saliva samples for research? He has a rare disease and that was his dying wish? Don’t play with me, Beth; I’m not in the mood.”
I ran over to him and took his hand, but he pulled it away. I felt sick; this wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. What was happening? I couldn’t stand the distance that I felt between us. Xavier seemed to have put up an invisible wall, a barrier. This cold, detached person was not the Xavier I knew.
“Jake kissed me,” I said forcefully. “And that picture was taken a moment before I pushed him away.”
“Very convenient,” Xavier muttered. “How stupid do you think I am? I may not be a messenger of God, but that doesn’t make me a complete idiot.”
“You can ask Molly,” I cried. “Or Gabriel or Ivy — they’ll tell you.”
“I trusted you,” Xavier said. “And it only took one night without me for you to move on to someone new.”
“That’s not true!”
“You could’ve at least had the decency to tell me this was over in person, instead of letting me find out from everyone else.”
“It’s not over.” I choked. “Don’t say that! Please…”
“Do you even realize how humiliating this is for me?” he said. “There’s a photo of my girlfriend hooking up with some other guy while I was at home nursing a stupid concussion. All my friends have been calling to ask if I got dumped over the phone.”
“I know,” I said. “I know and I’m so sorry, but…”
“But what?”
“Well… you…”
“I’m an idiot, I know,” Xavier cut in. “Letting you go to the prom with Jake. I guess I had too much faith in you. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“Why won’t you listen?” I whispered. “Why are you so set on believing everyone but me?”
“I thought that we had something,” Xavier said. He looked directly at me and I saw that his eyes were bright with unshed tears. He blinked them away angrily. “After everything we went through to be together, you just go and… Our relationship obviously didn’t mean much to you.”
I couldn’t help myself and I burst into tears. My shoulders shook with each sob. I saw Xavier instinctively get up to comfort me, but then he thought better of it and stopped. His jaw was tight, as though it killed him to see me so upset and not do anything about it.
“Please,” I cried. “I love you. I told Jake I loved you. I know I’m hard work but don’t give up on me.”
“I just need time alone,” he said quietly. He wouldn’t meet my gaze.
I ran from the kitchen and out of Xavier’s house. I didn’t stop running until I reached the beach, where I collapsed on the sand and sobbed myself into stillness. I felt like something inside me was broken, like I had literally shattered and nothing could make me whole again. I loved Xavier so much it hurt, and yet he had turned away from me. I didn’t try to console myself; I just let myself ache. I don’t know how long I lay there, but eventually I became aware of the tide lapping at my feet. I didn’t care; I hoped it would sweep me away, toss me around, force me under the water, and pound the strength from my body and the thoughts from my head. The wind howled, the tide crept closer, and still I didn’t move. Was this Our Father’s way of punishing me? Had my crime been so severe that this was what I deserved: to experience love and then have it ripped away, like stitches out of a wound? Did Xavier still love me? Did he hate me? Or had he just lost all faith in me?
The water was lapping around my waist by the time Ivy and Gabriel found me. I was shivering, but I hardly noticed. I didn’t move or speak, not even when Gabriel lifted me out of the water and carried me back to our house. Ivy helped me into the shower, and came to help me out half an hour later when I’d forgotten where I was and just stood under the pounding water. Gabriel brought me some dinner, but I couldn’t eat it. I sat on my bed, staring into space and doing nothing but thinking of Xavier and trying not to think of him at the same time. The separation made me realize just how safe I felt with him. I craved his touch, his smell, even the awareness that he was nearby. But now he felt miles away, and I couldn’t reach him, and that knowledge made me feel ready to crumble, to cease to exist.
When sleep finally came, it was a blissful relief, even though I knew that in the morning it would start all over again. But I was haunted even in my dreams. That night they took a darker turn.
I dreamed I was outside the lighthouse on Shipwreck Coast. It was dark and I could hardly see through the fog, but there was a figure crumpled on the ground. When he moaned and rolled over, I instantly recognized Xavier’s face. I cried out and tried to run to him, but a dozen pairs of clammy hands reached out and held me back. Jake Thorn strode out from the lighthouse, his eyes as bright and sharp as broken glass. His dark hair was slicked away from his face, and he was dressed in a long black leather coat with the collar turned up against the wind.
“I didn’t want it to come to this, Bethany,” he crooned. “But sometimes we are left with no choice.”
“What are you doing to him?” I sobbed as Xavier convulsed on the ground. “Let him go.”
“I’m only doing what I should have done a long time ago,” Jake snarled. “Don’t worry, it will be painless. After all, he’s half dead already. ..”
With a flick of his wrist he hauled Xavier upright and pushed him toward the edge of the cliff. Xavier would have defeated Jake in an instant had they engaged in a physical fight, but he couldn’t compete with supernatural powers.
“Sweet dreams, pretty boy,” said Jake just as Xavier’s feet slipped from the edge of the cliff.
My screams were swallowed up by the night.
The next few days passed in a blur. I didn’t feel as though I was really living, but just observing life from the sidelines. I didn’t go to school, and Ivy and Gabriel didn’t try to make me. I didn’t eat much; I didn’t leave the house; in fact, I hardly did anything except sleep. Sleep was the only way I could escape the pain of longing for Xavier.
Phantom was my only source of consolation. He seemed to sense my distress and spent all of his time with me, making me smile with his antics. He took underwear out of my open drawers and spread them around my room; he got tangled up in Ivy’s knitting and I had to set him free; and he carried an entire packet of Meaty Treats up to my room in the hope of being rewarded with one. These little tricks offered me small reprieves from the interminable silence and emptiness that stretched before me, but once they were over I fell heavily back into my coma of emptiness.
Ivy and Gabriel became more worried by the day. I had become the ghost of a person and an angel; I no longer contributed anything to the household.
“This can’t go on,” said Gabriel one afternoon when he got back from school. “This is no way to live.”
“I’m sorry,” I said flatly. “I’ll try harder.”
“No,” he said. “Ivy and I are going to deal with this tonight.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” he replied and refused to disclose anything else.