Out of the Box 10 Page 3

  I didn’t know what to reply. The truth was, I shouldn’t have come at all.

  “Anando?” She rested an elbow on the table and leaned her chin against her fist. “I’m beginning to wonder if you’re being entirely truthful. I’m not used to you lying to me.”

  “I’m not—” I didn’t need to defend myself, I realized. Instead, I had to make a cleaner break between us. “I can’t give you what you want. You’ve got to see that.”

  Her eyebrows rose, and her mouth curled in the ghost of a smile. I couldn’t see what was so amusing.

  “Oh, I do know that,” she said, leaning back on the bench. Her eyes sparkled with mischief.

  “You do. Good.” I looked around, hoping to flag down the waitress. I hadn’t expected this reaction from Virginia. After her visit, after what she had said, what she had written… Had she just given me my answer?

  “I know you never give me what I want,” she said again, her smile deepening a little. “I asked for you not to bite me, and you made me beg for it. I asked that we keep things only sexual, and…” She shrugged helplessly. “Well, that didn’t work either, did it? You never gave me what I wanted, Anando. You always gave me what I didn’t know I wanted.”

  They were just words. A few quiet words, delivered with a smile. I didn’t know what she expected they would bring her. I wasn’t even sure she thought anything at all would come out of it. She was just telling me how she felt.

  And I… I didn’t know how I felt anymore. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know if I could deny myself the hope I hadn’t wanted to give her. I shouldn’t have come back to Haventown. Or I should never have left. I should…

  “I should leave.”

  Without looking at her, I stood and took a few steps away. A warm hand clasped my wrist before I could get any farther. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t.

  “I’ll be back here tomorrow night,” she said urgently. “If you want to talk again.”

  With that, she let go of me and I left.

  I started walking, straight ahead, not really seeing where I was going or how far. I walked on, echoes of conversation bouncing through my mind. Not even a full day had passed since Leticia had forced me to take a hard look at my own past. Not even a full day, and I was more lost than I had been in a long time.

  Human lives passed so fast; it was normal for humans to be confused about what or whom they wanted. I didn’t have that excuse. I knew myself. I knew what I wanted, and what I needed to be happy. I knew, or at least by now I should have known how to keep myself safe from harm. I knew where the lines were in the sand; I had put them there myself.

  Virginia had danced over one of those lines, blurring its shape, and now I wasn’t sure anymore—how far from me was it supposed to lie? Was it straight, or a little crooked? Could it be bent? Could it be erased? Could it be redrawn closer to me—or further away—or simply forgotten, left there to disappear under our feet as we walked side by side?

  My body stopped a few seconds before my mind did, and I belatedly realized where my steps had taken me. Despite myself, despite my jumbled thoughts and dilemma, I laughed. While I was busy arguing with myself, my subconscious hadn’t taken me back to the hotel, or back to the club. It had taken me home. I was standing on the curbside in front of what had been my house for the past six years. What probably still was my house, in fact. The ‘for sale’ sign was still in the middle of the front yard.

  I only thought for a second before drawing my cell phone from my pocket. I dialed the real estate agency’s number, and left a message asking my agent to pull the house from the market and to meet me at the hotel the next morning.

  * * * *

  It didn’t strike me that night. It didn’t strike me either the following day when the agent returned my keys, or when I arranged for the storage company to deliver my things back to the house later that day. No, it was only when I drove there, in the late afternoon, when I walked around the empty house, as empty as my life had become, that I finally realized it. It seemed I would be staying in Haventown, after all.

  By the time night fell, the furniture was in place, the moving boxes in their respective rooms waiting to be unpacked, and the pool’s water clear as crystal. My mind, on the other hand, was murkier than ever; my thoughts, all over the place.

  I was staying in Haventown, that much was clear, but beyond that, each step was taking me onto unknown lands. I wasn’t sure how long I would stay, or what I expected would happen. I wasn’t even sure I would be going to the club that night.

  Of course I wanted to see Virginia. I wanted it too much, in fact. Seeing her again had shaken my resolve, and it had crumbled beneath my feet, leaving me on unstable ground. After roaming restlessly through the house, opening a box here, unpacking an item or two there, I felt like my mind was on fire. I was burning with too many thoughts, too many emotions. I couldn’t think anymore.

  The water of the pool welcomed me like the cool embrace of an old friend. As I swam back and forth from one end of the pool to the other, taking long backstrokes and watching the stars twinkle to life above me, confusion slowly washed off me. My thoughts quieted down. Water had always had that effect on me, ever since I had been a child playing innocently in a stream that sparkled in the sun, unaware that there were such things as vampires; unaware that women could be more dangerous than the fiercest wild animals prowling through my native land’s forests.

  When I slipped out of the pool, my mind was focused on only one thought: Virginia had said she would return to the club. I owed her to at least meet her and… well, I’d see what else when I got there. All I knew was that I couldn’t let her wait for me all night. I got dressed and took the car, thinking only of her

  Nine o’clock on a Saturday night; the club was packed. That discovery shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did, along with irritating me. In my mind, it had been Virginia and I, no one else. Instead, so many people crowded around the bar, at the tables, in the booths, even on the catwalks that I knew I wouldn’t catch her scent if she was there. As for finding her…

  She hadn’t said at what time she’d come. For all I knew, I thought, annoyed with myself, she wouldn’t be there for hours. A woman passing in front of me looked at my face and started in obvious fear before hurrying away, making me realize that I was scowling. I’ve been told I can look quite frightful when I am angry.

  Passing a hand over my still damp hair, I tried to reach again for the calm I had found in the pool. It proved difficult, however. In the whirlwind of emotions that had caught me in the past day, I had neglected to feed. All my senses were now reminding me that I was surrounded by hot, flavorful blood only waiting for my fangs to free it. I had to feed before finding Virginia, I decided, or I might not be able to make rational decisions when the time came.

  I pushed my way to the counter of the bar, purposefully choosing the side further from where Leo was officiating. I didn’t need any more reminders to how much I had hurt Virginia when I had left Haventown. The barmaid was smiling when she asked me what I wanted. She nodded once when I asked for blood, and I absently watched her cross to the other side of the bar for the cooler that was near Leo. His eyes flickered in my direction, and he leaned in to tell the barmaid something. I didn’t have much time to be curious; as she came back and placed my glass on the counter, she inclined her head toward the booths at the back of the room.

  “Your glass is already paid for,” she said. “First booth in the corner.”

  My throat tightened. I froze. I didn’t need to ask or even look at who sat in that booth. I didn’t need to wonder any longer when or where I’d find Virginia. She was just a few feet away. Waiting.

  And I wasn’t ready anymore. Instead, I was acutely aware that I still didn’t know what I would say to her. I brought the glass to my lips with a slightly shaky hand and drained it, the blood’s flavor never reaching my mind. Then I caught the barmaid’s attention again. Only after she had refilled my glass did I make my way to the
back of the room and the curtained booth where Virginia waited for me.

  Except that it wasn’t Virginia. When I tugged the flimsy curtains open, I could only gape at the blonde woman I found there, a book open on the table in front of her, a half-filled glass of wine beside it. Lisa looked up and smiled. I glared at her.

  “You too?”

  Her smiled vanished, and she frowned at my harsh tone.

  “I didn’t have enough people trying to interfere in my life,” I continued, my voice rising in anger, “you had to do it, too? I don’t need advice, not from you or anyone else!”

  She blinked very slowly and closed the book she had been reading, linking her fingers together on the table. “I just thought I’d welcome you back,” she said calmly. “I’ve got no advice to give or opinion to voice.”

  She gestured for me to sit across from her. I let a few seconds pass before I complied, still suspicious. A smile slowly returned to her lips, self-deprecating rather than amused.

  “Honestly, Anando. Don’t you know me better than that? I’m the last person who’d think to give anyone advice about humans.”

  I put down my glass and crossed my arms over the table. I watched her with remnants of wariness. We’d known each other for a few years, and I had observed her from afar, a little amused, as she had let a human inch his way into her heart when she had claimed that no such thing would ever happen to her. She had returned the favor when I had met Virginia.

  “Why wouldn’t you?” I asked, shrugging. “You live with one.”

  “I do, yes.” She shook her head slightly, and for a moment, her eyes swept the crowded room as though looking for someone. She didn’t explain herself, leaving me confused. When she turned to me again, she raised her glass in a toast.

  “To humans who make our lives so complicated.”

  I raised my glass to meet hers, stopping short when she added, “And so much more interesting.”

  Snorting quietly, I clanked my glass against hers. Just then, I noticed Virginia standing by the side of the booth. She looked uncertainly from me to Lisa and back.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Lisa said as she stood, her book in one hand and glass in the other. “Please sit down, Virginia. I’ll send a waitress to get your order.”

  As Lisa stepped away, however, Virginia remained standing. She was wearing a light blue dress with diamond cut outs that exposed glimpses of silky skin. I recognized it, of course. It was the dress she had been wearing the night we had met. She had worn it again the night she had tried to reset the baseline of our encounters by setting limits on them. It was easy enough to guess what message she wanted to give me by wearing it again now. She was offering me a new start—a third one.

  Third time is the charm, they say.

  “Good evening, Virginia. Won’t you sit down?”

  A flash of relief crossed her face at my words, and she finally sat across from me.

  A waitress stepped to us and Virginia ordered a cocktail. She then turned her eyes to me and looked at me for a little while.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d be back,” she murmured.

  I tried to smile, but I think what came through was a grimace. “I wasn’t sure I would be either.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “To Haventown or to the club?”

  I let out a quick, quiet laugh. “Both, probably.”

  The waitress returned with Virginia’s drink. I watched her cradle the long-stemmed cocktail glass in her palms, avoiding her eyes like she was avoiding mine. After her casualness of the previous night, her almost palpable nervousness was jarring.

  “How have you been?” I asked when the silence between us had stretched to the point of discomfort.

  She finally raised the glass to her lips and took a sip before answering. “It hasn’t been easy, but I got the goodbye I needed to get on with my life.”

  She chanced a look up at me and our eyes met. I tried to hold on to her gaze. “Get on with your life?” I repeated. “Why come here last night, then?”

  Her lips briefly twitched in an almost-smile. “Because I can live without you if I have to. But if I have a choice…”

  She left the end of the thought unvoiced, and it hung like a wispy, silvery thread between us. As she took another small sip, a rosy tint spread through her cheeks. Was it the alcohol putting color on her face, I wondered, or was it a lie? Would she really have moved on if I hadn’t come back? Part of me would be glad if it was true, because I had never wanted to hurt her. Another part—the part, maybe, that was still raw from Leticia’s admission—was a little hurt that I was apparently so forgettable.

  “Are you at a hotel?” she asked, taking her turn at platitudes.

  “No,” I replied without thinking. “I’m back in my home.”

  A blink, a hesitant smile, a sudden, minute change in her scent—I couldn’t miss the sliver of hope rising in her. I wanted to warn her against seeing too much in what was little more than a caprice on my part, but no word came.

  Of course she was hopeful. Why wouldn’t she be? I had come back to Haventown after claiming I wouldn’t, I had taken steps to stay there for more than a few nights, I was here, with her, when I had said it was over…

  Of course she was hopeful. Why couldn’t I accept it? What was I afraid of? I hadn’t consciously decided to renew our relationship, but why else would I have pulled the house from the market? Why else had I come to the club?

  Frustration tore through me like lightning ripping apart the night sky. I had taken each step back toward her willingly, and yet I felt as though I had been forced, tricked to return. I was on my feet before I knew it. The booth was stifling, constricting. I needed to move.

  Virginia’s eyes widened, and a glint of fear replaced the hope. I spoke before I even knew it.

  “Will you dance with me?”

  Relief washed over her. With a delighted smile, she nodded. She finished her drink before standing, and took the hand I hadn’t realized I was offering her.

  It had been less than four months, but it felt strange to walk down the staircase to the dance floor with her, close enough that I could feel her warmth radiating against me. Her hot hand clasped mine tightly, as though afraid I’d escape if she didn’t hold on to me. Would I, I wondered? Was my mood so shifty and unpredictable that I would flee at the first opening?

  Deep down, I think I hoped she wouldn’t let go.

  Every time we had danced before, I had led her to the middle of the dance floor, in the thick of the crowd. This time, I didn’t want to share her, not even with onlookers. I guided her to the side, closer to the walls padded with silky fabric, under the cover of a catwalk. Our hands remained linked as we started dancing, and, face to face, we followed the beat of a fast-paced song, then another, each tune merging seamlessly with the previous one. She was breathing hard when the DJ switched to a series of slower melodies. We both stilled. I watched as she ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. She looked hopeful, and at the same time afraid to be too hopeful. I knew that feeling all too well.

  My hands came to rest at her waist, as light as I could make them. Her own slid up to my shoulders, just as delicate. We started swaying together, a little awkwardly, a little nervously, as though we had been children at their first school dance, rather than lovers.

  As one song turned into two, then three, the crowd disappeared. All I could see was her, all I could hear was the steady, slightly faster than usual beat of her heart. The world had narrowed down to the two of us and the shrinking space between our bodies. It was in the middle of the second slow song, I think, that she rested her head against my shoulder. I responded by wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her just a little closer. Her warmth was overwhelming. I turned my face toward her head and breathed in deeply. Her hair had a sweet citrus smell, but beyond it, her scent made images dance through my mind, images of naked flesh, grasping hands and intertwined limbs. I was getting hard, and as close as we now were, she didn’t fail to notice.
I felt her shudder against me, and she let out a little sigh.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said, just loud enough that I would hear her over the music.

  I didn’t want to reply, I couldn’t afford to, but the words came out anyway. “I missed you too.”

  She raised her face toward me, slowly bringing her lips to mine, giving me time, I realized, to stop her. I didn’t.

  We stopped rocking to the beat of the music, and just kissed, slow and deep. I could taste the remnants of alcohol on her tongue, but it was her, the way she clutched at my shoulders, her body pressing against mine, the abandon with which she kissed me, that made me lightheaded.

  When we broke apart, her heart was thundering in her chest. She turned wide eyes up at me and said in a hoarse voice, “Please don’t leave again. Please say you’ll stay. I beg—”

  Something tightened inside my chest. Under the right circumstances, hearing her beg was a delight. Now, though, it was painful. “Virginia, sweet Virginia… Please don’t beg.”

  She switched tracks, but I still couldn’t let her finish. “Whatever it is I did to make you leave, I promise—”

  “Don’t make promises, either. Promises always end up broken.”

  “Then what can I say, Anando?” Frustration and desperation colored her words in equal measure. “What words could convince you to stay?”

  Her eyes gleamed in the darkened room, reflecting spotlights. I could see from the intensity of her expression how much she wanted—needed—an answer. Could I give her one? Was there anything she could say that could help me figure out what came next? I had come back to Haventown for one thing—

  “Just the truth.”

  Her brow furrowed in confusion. “The truth about what? I never lied to you.”

  I couldn’t remember wanting to believe anything more than those words. There were a few more, however, that would be even more welcome.

  “The truth about how you feel for me.”

  She gave an indulgent shake of her head, smiling softly. “Do you have doubts, still?”