Chapter Thirteen
Rosalie
Henry's awake when I get home, pacing in the kitchen while pretending he isn't, nursing a cup of coffee. There's a dirty pan in the sink and plates on the table, two omelets. He's wearing only his pajama bottoms, hair mussed with sleep, wearing his glasses which is a rarer sight than not these days. When I open the door, he pauses beside the dining table as if startled, narrowing his eyes for only a second before a weary smile stretches his lips. "Hey," he says. "Did you get my text?"
I pat my pocket, confirming that my phone is on my person, but don't remove it. "I haven't looked. Why?"
"Someone came by this morning. Woke me up, said they were a friend of yours."
No wonder he's so disheveled. Emily wouldn't come by this early, and she wouldn't draw such a reaction from him. "Who?"
"You tell me, Rosalie."
I pause with a hand on my bag before tossing it on the couch and taking a seat at the table. He follows my lead, putting the mug down with so much force that the liquid threatens to spill over. "Did they give a name?" I ask. "Maybe someone from work—"
"You're coming home later every day."
I pick up the fork, trying for nonchalance, but my voice is thin. "I told you, I stop for breakfast sometimes."
"I make you breakfast."
"Am I not allowed to—"
"Allowed? You're allowed to do whatever you want, but I'd like to be clued in. Especially when people that I don't know are knocking on my door at five in the goddamn morning."
It's my door too, but I don't say that. "Okay. Sorry."
He exhales, not quite satisfied by the apology but unwilling to argue further and risk it becoming messy. I wish he'd scream. "Emily wants to go out tonight," he says.
"When doesn't she?"
This earns me a tiny laugh, soothing the lingering edges of the conversation. "It might be good to get out of the house. Loosen up a little, you know?"
He's the one that wants to loosen up, and it won't be a little, but pointing that out would prompt a whole different fight. "Sure." I take my time chewing, first on the eggs and then on the impending question, searching for the most delicate way to phrase it and deciding to just be direct. "What did they look like?"
"Who?" He glances up from his plate, glasses precariously balanced on the very edge of his nose. They're probably not even the right prescription; he hasn't gotten a new pair in years, opting for contacts instead.
Andrew would tell me I'm looking for a reason to be annoyed, hypocrite that he is. Was.
"Trying to find a hump on a camel," he'd say. Then he'd lean in close enough for me to smell the breakfast on his breath. "What's really bothering you, Rosie?"
I say, "The person who came by."
"I dunno. Red hair. A little taller than you. Leather jacket." He stabs at his eggs with the fork. "It was still dark, but she had sunglasses on, so that was weird I guess."
"Oh." I take a slow sip of coffee. "Maybe she had the wrong apartment."
"She asked for you by name."
"Maybe she had me confused with someone else."
"Yeah." His fork scrapes against the plate, filling his pause with an awful screech. "Maybe."
I'm the last of our group to head to the bar. Henry left early to pick up his brother, so I walk alone. It's not far from our apartment, and the weather is mild enough for me to shed my jacket and drape it over my arm. Emily would've chastised me for showing up in jeans, so I scavenged a black dress and my only pair of heels out of the back of my closet. The hem rides up when I walk, and the material is a bit thinner than I'd like it to be, but I manage.
The jacket is Andrew's, a green bomber with more pockets than I have things to put in them. It doesn't smell like him anymore. I wish I'd worn it less.
There's no moon tonight, and the city is too bright for stars. With only the streetlights and the shadows they cast for company, I find myself scanning the sidewalk ahead for— ghosts, I suppose. It's not that I'm hoping that Theodore shows up, and I don't have a way to contact him even if I did want him with me, but it wouldn't be the worst thing if he happened to be around. If he'd fill the silence with that infuriating, melodic voice. If he'd slide up next to me, too close to be casual. If he'd smile and draw out my own. If he'd parry my quips, offer a riposte, dodge and dance. The victory isn't in landing a blow but in the ring of wit against wit, the shock of a sword hitting another.
Andrew understood it best, the thrill of a well-choreographed conversation. He thrived on it, sought it out even in the worst moments, even when he could've just spoken plainly and saved us both mirrored headaches. Maybe that's why we were drawn to each other, not just because I was able to keep up but because I was willing to dig through the references and double-meanings to get to the fragile heart of his words, and then I buried mine under the same. Maybe he should've just told me how he felt.
"Oh thank god." Emily is waiting for me outside with her arms crossed, tapping her toe against the pavement. Her hair is slicked back into a ponytail that whips around behind her when she struts towards me. "Henry and James just got here, and they're already sloppy. It's not even midnight!" She pulls me through the door before I can protest.
The bar is crowded, it being Friday night. Waves of bodies swell and crash around us as we muscle our way towards Mike, sitting next to a red-faced and rambling Henry. The lights paint our skin purple, dim enough to hide the stains on the floor that make my shoes squelch with every step. I don't know the song they're playing, only that it's loud enough to blend in with the buzz of conversation that surrounds us.
I tug Emily to a stop. "You want to dance?"
Her eyes light up the way I knew they would. "You don't want a drink first?"
"I'm not drinking tonight," I say with a pointed glance towards Henry.
She shrugs.
I know I'm not the subject of the attention we're getting, but Emily ignores everyone around us, throwing her hands around my shoulders as we sway together. I close my eyes and let the music work through me, the bass pounding like a second heartbeat, so loud that it's not loud at all. Henry has disappeared from his spot near Mike, but keeping track of his location among the hordes of sweating bodies is beyond me. I'm sure he'll make his presence known eventually, probably in the form of being thrown out by the bouncer for making a scene when he's inevitably cut off.
Emily presses her lips against my ear. "Don't make it obvious that you're looking, but that guy keeps staring at you."
She spins me to the beat, keeping my chest pressed against hers. I scan the room, careful not to snap my attention to where she indicated.
It's too sharp to be relief, the feeling that washes over me when my eyes catch his. Like an exhale after a held breath, a return to a rhythm so intrinsic and necessary that I was unaware of its absence until it returned.
He's wearing a white button up beneath a suede brown jacket. The top button of his shirt is undone, shadows catching on his collarbones and lining his throat, making his features more severe. In the dim light of the bar, his hair looks more indigo than black, untamed curls flashing blues and purples as he tilts his head and raises his glass in salute. Though he's halfway across the room, the challenge in his smirk is as clear as if he was standing right in front of me. I wiggle out of Emily's hold. "I'll be right back."
Her stare burns into my back. She won't look away until I give her the all good sign: my index finger and thumb curled into a circle. We developed the gesture when we were kids, when older girls would shove me in the hallways. In absence of the sign, Emily shoved back.
With the way he's looking at me with such unabashed delight, I hold off on giving her the signal, stopping just short of the table he's claimed. It's too much space for one person, or it would be if his presence didn't suck up all the air in a five mile radius.
"Are you following me?" I ask, only half serious.
His eyes, bright blue, flash with something that I decide not to name. "This is a public place, is it not?"
"I didn't think this was your scene."
"It's not," he admits, tapping a finger on his glass—still full, like he hasn't even taken a sip. "I'd wager that it's not yours, either."
"My friends are here," I say as if that's explanation enough. "Henry is here."
He averts his eyes. This close, I watch them darken to the navy of the starless sky, a transition so abrupt that if I didn't know any better, I'd dismiss it as a trick of the light. "Ah," he murmurs. "Would you like me to leave?"
"No," I say too quickly, earning a curious glance. "Public place, remember? I'm just surprised to see you here, that's all."
"Good surprise or bad surprise?"
I dare another step towards him, looping my thumb and index finger behind my back. My hips dig into the edge of the table, the only thing separating us. "Depends." He straightens, watching me move like he's memorizing every inch of me. It's intoxicating, like I could tell him to leap backwards off the nearest building and he would fall without question.
He blinks like he's realizing that he's still waiting for an answer. "On?"
Before I can reply, an arm flings around my shoulder. I flinch, pulling away until I see the mess of brown hair. He reeks of beer and sweat. "Do we know you?" Henry slurs, leaning nearly all of his body weight against me.
My entire face heats as those navy eyes narrow, the mischief hardening into something much crueler. I wave a hand between them. "Henry, Theodore. Theodore, Henry."
Theo flashes his teeth in what could be considered a smile, but a chill snakes down my spine. The difference is a light flipped on—or off, more accurately. The pinkish lights of the bar elongate the shadows that stretch down his face, making him look—
Like Death.
But I've seen him kind, and I've seen him funny, and I've seen him scared, so I raise my chin instead of cowering.
"I've heard so much about you," he drawls.
Henry stiffens and turns to face me, eyes glassy and unfocused. He'll have a killer headache in the morning. Hopefully he won't remember this conversation at all. "You know him?"
Theo raises his brows expectantly, the challenge again rising in his smile, softer as he surveys me. As I inhale, I feel the crossroads of fate or luck or whatever hand is guiding us towards whatever end, and I know that my next words will be a stone in still water, sending ripples that will turn into waves that I won't see until much, much later. "We met at work," I say. "He was visiting someone."
My half-true explanation makes Theodore chuckle, but his laugh is cut short by Henry. "If you're done making eyes at my girlfriend, we're leaving."
I grimace. "Henry—"
He twists away from me, nearly face-planting onto the concrete floor. James catches him, hooking his arms underneath Henry's armpits. He scans his brother for injuries, then me, then locks eyes with Theo. "Is there a problem?"
The twinkle of boyish mischief has replaced the cruelty I'd witnessed on Theo's face before. He gestures towards Henry with the hand that holds his glass. "Inconvenience is more accurate a description. Small and easily sorted, but I'll abstain from commenting further in the hopes that it doesn't become, as you said, a problem."
"What the fuck are you on about?"
The commotion attracts Emily, who throws her arm around my shoulders the same way Henry had. Her grip is for reassurance, not stability, so I lean into her. She not-so-subtly pulls me away. "Nice to meet you," she says to Theodore over her shoulder. "Sorry about… Cute outfit, is that vintage?"
Theo slides his attention towards her. I brace myself for the rising anger, malice for the sake of malice, but he only replies, "It is." Then to me, "It was good to see you. Maybe a less crowded place next time, petal."
Emily's eyebrows nearly jump off of her forehead, but I spin her away before she can say something truly embarrassing. Next time, because there will be a next time, because I tossed the stone.
James and I half-carry Henry home. The walk takes twice as long even with the two of us sharing his weight since he insists on mumbling and dragging his feet. James doesn't say a word to me, not even when we get Henry settled into bed and remove his shoes. I refill the water on the nightstand and fish out the bottle of aspirin from the drawer, a peace offering for when he wakes up and remembers tonight's events, and a kind gesture if he wakes up and doesn't. James heads out shortly after without saying goodbye.
I curl up on the couch with a book, flipping the pages without reading the words and occasionally glancing towards the fire escape. Nothing answers my searching gaze except for the moonless night and the occasional rattle of wind against the window.
It's not that I don't care about Henry, because I do. I've existed near him for so long that it would be impossible not to have love for him, but that kind of proximity breeds resentment, especially when his presence is just constricting enough to be grating. The most appealing thing about Henry– the only appealing thing, if I'm being exceptionally cruel– is that I don't have to explain what happened with Andrew. Henry was there. I don't have to rehash my past for him to understand why I'm still awake, lounging beneath yellow lights instead of crawling into bed and letting sleep wash away the stink of the night.
Not a great foundation for a relationship. Not even a fine foundation, but we've been building on it for so long that maybe it'll hold. Maybe it's enough.
From the other room, Henry snores evenly, a metronome against my stubborn heart. I could go to bed. I could open a window. The night air might lull me to sleep. Or I could—and this is the most appealing option—make a cup of coffee and stare at the sky until the sun rises.
A soft knock on the door chooses my path for me. Emily never knocks, never needs to, and berating me is not an enticing enough reason for James to return. For a brief moment of cowardice, I consider ignoring it, but I'm not oblivious or stubborn enough to pretend to not know who it is.
When I open the door, Theo shifts to lean against the frame, resting his head on his arm. His curls are scattered like he styled them to look like he's just crawled out of bed, or maybe he had. He's still in the same clothes from earlier in the night, but they're wrinkled. Despite his flippant appearance, his jaw is tense.
"What are you doing here?" I hiss in a whisper, deciding against asking the other, more pressing question: How do you know where I live?
His smile doesn't touch his eyes. "I couldn't sleep."
"You don't need to sleep."
"Yet I wished to, and I couldn't. May I come in?"
"That is not a good idea." I glance over my shoulder towards the bedroom where Henry is sleeping. "It's the middle of the night." But I haven't said no, and he notices.
"Henry won't wake up," he says, pushing his hair out of his face.
"I wasn't aware that grim reapers were blessed with premonition."
"Premonition, no. Telepathy, though…" His eyes drift behind me. "Right now he's dreaming about— chess? And he's losing. Badly."
"I don't know you well enough to tell if you're joking." I move to the side. He ducks under the door frame and struts towards the couch, plopping down like he pays rent.
"You do," he says, adjusting one of the throw pillows, "and I'm not." He scans the room, eyes flicking past Henry’s guitar that hasn’t been used in months, the television carefully balanced on a rickety stand we found abandoned near the dumpster, the gaming console that is at least two generations old, and finally landing on the only thing in this room that is mine: the ever-growing pile of carefully balanced books shoved into the corner. The lack of a proper shelf makes me flush beet-red, but he doesn’t offer any judgment. “You can store them at my place if you’d like. I have plenty of room.”
I doubt that whatever bookshelf he owns has plenty of room, but I don’t doubt that he’d shuffle his own belongings around to make space for mine. Deciding not to open that particular can of worms, I instead say, “Uh uh. No, we’re not brushing past the whole mind reading thing.”
He sighs with his entire body like he actually was planning on brushing past the whole mind reading thing. “I do try not to eavesdrop. And it’s not reading, not really. It’s more like… looking at the stars and finding constellations. Patterns.”
I sit facing him with my legs tucked underneath me. There’s a lightness in the crease of his eyes that wasn’t there a moment ago. “I don’t believe you.”
He turns his body to face me fully. His eyes are that playful aqua again. “Try me. Think about something. Not too hard, though. Don’t strain yourself.”
I smack his arm. His answering laugh is like the glittering sun on a river, the kind of light that warms water to just the right temperature, the kind of light that makes you tilt your head back and hum a song you haven’t thought of in ages. I’d make a proper fool of myself to hear it again.
“If you want me to laugh,” he says, “I’ll laugh. You want me to dance? I’ll dance. You want me to juggle? Swallow a flaming sword? Say the word.” My tongue darts out to wet my lower lip. His eyes follow it, and his voice drops an octave, huskier than I’ve heard it. “Let me perform for you.”
He must be able to hear my heart ricocheting against its cage. “I’ve only known you for a month,” I say, too breathless to be convincing. I clear my throat and try again. “You’ve been around for— how long have you been…” Alive isn’t the right word, but my hesitation doesn’t faze him.
“Three hundred years,” he answers casually, flicking his gaze back up to meet mine and offering a cool, familiar smile. “Give or take a decade. I lost count for a while.”
“Three hundred—! Okay, don’t think we’re not going to talk about that later because we absolutely are, but,” I inhale sharply, “my point is, a month to you is nothing. A drop in the bucket. You shouldn’t say such outlandish things.”
“Outlandish?”
“You know what I mean. The things you’ve seen, the people you’ve met…” I shake my head. “A month is nothing.”
He runs a thumb over his chin and makes the low sound deep in his chest, almost a groan, that means something heinous is about to come out of his damn mouth. Something like, "The entirety of my existence was spent blind until I met you. A month since or a day, it's irrelevant."
The words hit me in a way that is wholly irrational and despicably thrilling. “Now you’re just being dramatic.”
He leans towards me. A stray curl falls into his eyes. “Do I frighten you, Rosalie?”
This is not a conversation we should be having, not with his face this close to mine, not in the middle of the night, and definitely not with Henry sleeping a room away. Still, I can’t bring myself to pull away, to widen the distance, to take my eyes off of his. “Not in the way you should,” I admit.
His eyelashes flutter against his cheeks. He exhales and pulls back. “This is not why I came here. You’re very distracting.”
"Sorry," I say, out of reflex more than any genuine regret. "Why are you here, then?"
He turns away from me, glancing out the window towards the fire escape. I hate not being able to see his face because I can’t tell if he’s lying when he says, "I wanted to make sure you were okay."
A startled exhale, almost a laugh, bursts from my lips. This close, I would only need to raise my arm to cup his cheek in my palm. Would he lean into the touch, or would he flinch away? With Henry still snoring in the next room, I decide not to find out. "It'll take more than a little public embarrassment to bring me down."
He stands, so suddenly somber that it gives me whiplash. “I know,” he murmurs, pacing the length of the couch. Then louder, “I’m not talking about— Well, I am talking about— but I don’t mean—” He sighs and rubs at his eyes.
I reach a hand towards him, laying it on his wrist and stopping him mid-step. “I’m fine,” I say almost convincingly. “Sit down.” Surprisingly, he obeys.
“Has anyone else been… around? Anyone—like me?”
"I haven't seen Marcella, if that's what you're asking."
"Besides Marcella."
I've never seen him frantic before. "This is about your mother, isn't it?"
Every muscle in his body is wound tight enough to snap. "Of course it is," he mutters to himself. "It's always about my—" His eyes flick to mine. "I had a friend when I lived with Az. She—" He swallows. "Anya was her name. She died." He shakes his head. "That's not true. True that she died, but the passivity of that statement is misleading. They killed her. Az killed her."
My hand finds his like a moth to lamplight. His skin is warmer than I thought it would be. Softer too, free of any scars or callouses that his tone suggests. I know better than to settle for surface appearances. Andrew never looked like he was hurting, either.
Theo stares at where we touch and speaks like he's chewing on each word before it finds its way out. "There are people that might hurt you for being my— for knowing me. I don't want you to be unaware of the risks."
I don't say, It's too late, even though it is. I don't say, I've seen too much of you to run away now, even though I have. Instead of meeting his honesty with honesty, I say, "I don't scare easily." Then, to knead the tension from his shoulders, I add, "You think I'm unaware of the risks of being friends with the grim reaper?"
He flips his hand and curls his fingers, tickling my palm. "Are we friends?"
"What would you call it?"
He glances over my shoulder towards the shut bedroom door and the snoring man behind it. "I don't think you want me to answer that question."
If the color in my cheeks didn't give me away, my thoughts certainly would. I don't chase away the fluttering in my stomach, the pulse in my ears. His fingers sweep up the underside of my wrist in tiny, comforting motions. This close, I can map every freckle on his face like constellations. I wonder what Andrew would say. If he would see it as a betrayal. It definitely is, to Henry at least, but I've betrayed myself so thoroughly for so long that the guilt doesn't come. Only want.
He drops his hand with a pleased smirk.
"Stay out of my head," I say, sliding away from him and crossing my arms.
"Stop thinking so loud."
I make a show of frowning. "You are…" He raises a brow as I search for the word, "impossible."
"I've been called worse," he says, still with that stupid, arrogant look on his face.
"I'm sure you have." I struggle to keep the smile out of my voice and fail. "Go home, Theo."