“How do you do it? Be normal after something like this, I mean.” I was actually really curious to hear his answer.
“You think I’m normal?” he asked, chuckling and shaking his head. “I think you’re the only one who’d describe me that way.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, as normal as any of us are, anyway. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. Well, you start off waking up every morning thinking about them and being sad and angry that the universe has let such a horrible thing happen. Then you get up and go about your life,” he said, absently tracing the design on the bedspread. “And then the next day you do the same thing. If you do it enough, eventually it starts to hurt less and you find that not every little thing reminds you of what you’ve lost. You never get over it completely, but over time, you create a new normal. And having a good distraction never hurts.”
He made it sound so easy, even though I knew the journey he talked about had been anything but. Still, it gave me hope and also made me feel closer to him. I’d been feeling really alone in what I was going through since I couldn’t bring up my grief to the other Cleri members. With them, I had to be the strong one. But with Asher, he not only understood, but he’d survived. Which also made him that much more attractive to me. Suddenly his offer to make out seemed more inviting.
“In that case, wanna be my distraction?” I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively. The tension in his face relaxed into a sexy smile.
“Absolutely. Anything I can do to help. You know I’m here for you.”
Leaning into him, I attempted to put the subject of our parents out of my mind.
I woke up with a start. A glance over at the empty bed space next to me told me that I was alone. When I’d fallen asleep, Asher had been in bed with me. We hadn’t done much more than make out, but it had been enough to pull me even deeper into whatever was going on with us. This both scared and thrilled me at the same time. I hadn’t felt this way about anyone before, so it was like entering into uncharted territory.
And now I was waking up after falling asleep alongside the guy that I was digging and he was nowhere to be found. I rubbed at my eyes to try to get rid of the sleepies and sat up to look around the room. Nope. Definitely not there. Maybe he’d just gone to the bathroom? Or to the kitchen to get a midnight snack? There had to be an explanation that didn’t involve him ditching me in the middle of the night.
Right?
With only one way to find out, I got out of bed and tiptoed across the room. Slipping out the door, I made my way toward the room where Asher was supposed to be staying and pushed it far enough open to peek inside. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the bed was still made and there was nobody sleeping in it. That meant he at least hadn’t left me to go sleep alone.
Turning around and heading in the opposite direction, I made my way downstairs, being careful not to wake anyone up. People had been crashing all over the house since we’d gotten here, taking any spots that were available. It was sort of first come, first served around here, which meant that some unlucky individuals were always stuck with the floor in the living room or on a row of uncomfortable chairs lined up to make a sort of cot. Since it was crowded enough that everyone was practically on top of each other, I knew that even the slightest creak would wake the whole place.
As I crept past the living room, I glanced in to see who’d been stuck with the floor for the night, but to my surprise, the place was empty. There wasn’t a single person lying on the couch, draped across a chair, or slumming it on the carpet. There wasn’t anyone anywhere.
Now I was confused and getting a little worried. I continued on to the kitchen, hoping to see everyone sitting around, eating and gossiping. Even knowing they were holding a secret meeting without me would’ve been preferable to the alternative.
But there was no one there, either.
I was beginning to freak out when I heard the front door open and close, and footsteps coming down the front entryway. Hoping for some clue to where everyone had gone, I poked my head around the corner.
When my eyes adjusted enough to see who had just entered, I gasped in shock. I recognized the girl coming down the hallway, though I’d never met her before. She had dark hair that hung over one shoulder in a loose braid, wisps grazing her cheeks, which were wet with tears. As she came toward me, her floor-length skirt swished around her legs and then followed behind her with the force of her walk. Her eyes were intense as she turned at the stairs, and took them two at a time until she got to the second floor.
The girl was on a mission.
I quickly went after her, conscious of the fact that I was no longer being quiet. If my hunch was right though, that didn’t matter. She was already gone by the time I made it upstairs, but I could hear her rummaging around and followed the sounds into my old room. I didn’t have to open the door to see what was going on, since she’d left it open in her haste to find what she was looking for.
The girl had pushed the bedside table over to the wall, exposing a slightly dirty and dusty floor. Getting down on her hands and knees, she began to pull at the floorboards, until one of them gave way. I watched as she yanked another plank loose and threw it onto the bed behind her. Her hands disappeared into the hole she’d created and a few seconds later, they popped back out with an extra-large book and something shiny that reflected under the lights.
I took a step forward to try to see exactly what she was holding, no longer worried that she’d catch me. The girl turned away and sat with her back resting against the bed. She propped up the leather-bound book on her knees. I watched as she conjured a quill out of thin air, leafed through the pages until she came to the one she was looking for, and then began to write. The pen moved across the pages with an urgency I’d never seen before. It was as if she couldn’t make her hand move fast enough, and after a few seconds she let go of the pen and allowed it to work its magic alone.
By the time the quill stopped moving, more than five pages had been written. The girl let her legs slowly extend until they were lying flat, like she was exhausted. Taking a deep breath, she reached to her side and grabbed the object that had been gleaming in the light. Inching closer to her, I could see that it was a ring.
As she slipped on the gold band, I was drawn even farther into the room, suddenly mesmerized by the jewel embedded in it. The size of the ruby took my breath away. It was bigger than anything I’d ever seen before, and for a second I wondered if it was fake.
The girl began to mumble words that I couldn’t quite understand, either because they were in a different language or possibly just because she was speaking so fast I couldn’t discern what they were. As I watched, the ruby began to glow bright red and the air around it started to radiate what I assumed was heat. And based on the fact that I saw beads of sweat starting to form on her forehead, I knew I was right. I halfway expected to feel the warmth myself.
Then the intensity went away and I watched as she put everything back in the floor and fit the boards back into place. Tugging at the table until it was once again covering the spot, the girl was careful to hide the treasures she’d taken so much care to keep secret.
“Do not worry, Mother, I will not forget you. The world will not forget you,” she said to the empty room.
When I woke up back in my parents’ room, tears were running down my cheeks. Without looking, I could feel Asher lying beside me and heard him lightly snoring into his pillow. Rolling over onto my side, I tried to process what I’d just been shown. Because I had no doubt the girl in my dreams wanted me to see what she’d done.
It was the first time I’d ever had a dream about Bridget’s daughter, Christian.