Adelaide Upset (29 page)

He stood upright, his tall
frame towering over me as he paced around my kitchen. Emotionally
there was nothing to feel, but I thought on some level he must be
agitated.

“
Why won’t you just tell
me?” I asked, a pleading note to my voice.

He stopped, turning to
look at me from the middle of the room. “You won’t believe
me.”

Didn’t I know better than anyone about
preternatural powers? “You’d be surprised,” I told him. “Please,
Luke, trust me. I’ll believe whatever you tell me, I swear.”

He resumed his pacing,
boots planting hard against the linoleum in slow, heavy steps, only
this time words spilled out while he walked. “I told you that I
wasn’t always like this. When I was younger I used to be hotheaded,
easy to anger, that sort of thing. My father was an ugly drunk, so
I guess being short-tempered just runs in our blood. Elaine’s
family knew it. They saw me push her once. I don’t remember why I
did it, we’d been arguing, we were always arguing, but when you’re
young the drama only makes things better. So I shoved her and she
should’ve dumped my ass, but she forgave me straight away. Her
family never did though, and they never forgot it
either.”

He rubbed the back of his
neck, gearing up for the next part. Whatever Lucas was about to
say, he was sure I wouldn’t believe him.

“
Elaine’s family, the
Morneaus, have a long history. They came over from France before
the revolution, settling in New Orleans for a few centuries before
moving up north to the Smoky Mountains. Their reputation followed
them. I always thought it was a lot of superstitious nonsense, but
people liked to gossip, calling them cursemakers, or sometimes
witches. I dated Elaine for years, and not once did she try to
convince me the rumors were true, not until it was too
late.

“
Elaine waited tables to
save up for college, and one night after work she was hauled right
off the road and raped in some dingy back alley.” I gasped, but
Lucas didn’t hear, too caught up in his own story. “She staggered
home after it was over, bruised and bloody. Her family must’ve
questioned her, no doubt asking if I was involved, but Elaine was
in shock, unable to answer, and they jumped to all the wrong
conclusions.”

“They thought you did it?”

“
Her great-aunt Esther
thought we’d been arguing again, that things got out of hand and I
forced her,” Lucas said flatly. “When I heard what happened I
rushed over to see Elaine, but her family stopped me at the door
and Esther came forward. She said that I felt too much, too hard,
my emotions needed checking. And then she cursed me, saying I would
never feel again.” He stared at me then, hard eyes probing. “And I
don’t, Adelaide. I don’t feel anything at all.”

Yes, I was shocked by his
story, and angry. I was angry at the injustice of his curse. But
mostly I was sad, sad because I knew what came next. And while my
emotions roiled within me, I saw their reflection on Luke’s
face—the stunned look, the deep hurt—it was all there. I had my
answer.

The curse that left Lucas
a void of emotion must’ve made him a vacuum, because he siphoned my
excess emotions and sucked them right up. I watched worry lines
form in his face, knowing he could feel it coming.

“
You
are
breaking up
with me,” he stated.

“
Yes,” I cried, hunching
miserably over the table. “But not for the reason you
think.”

“
You don’t believe me,” he
said, still as a stone and rooted in the middle of my
kitchen.

“
I do, Luke. I believe
everything. Except I know you feel, just a little
sometimes.”

“
I thought maybe the curse
was failing...” Lucas shrugged, uninterested in knowing the reason
for his change.

“
It’s me,” I explained.
“Somehow I’ve been sharing my emotions with you.” It was time I
told Lucas my own secrets. “I’m an empath,” I put plainly. “That
means I feel what other people feel... well, everyone except you. I
was intrigued by that at first, fascinated that I couldn’t feel
your emotions, but I guess I always thought you had some. I mean, I
didn’t think you were...”

“
Empty,” Lucas said, his
voice startling me for some reason.

“I don’t think of you like that.”

“But you still want to break up,” he said,
and it wasn’t a question.

I scrubbed my face. If I
didn’t want to make a mess of things then I had to get him to
understand. “Luke, you don’t feel anything for me, not really. All
your feelings are just an echo of mine. And while I never expected
you to fall instantly in love with me, it at least needs to be in
the realm of possibility.”

“
Do you think it only goes
one way, the intrigue, the fascination?” He began to pace again, my
agitation and upset swirling through the room. “I think of you
constantly. I want to be with you constantly. I find you extremely
alluring, if not in my heart then in my head. That has to count for
something,” Lucas argued.

“
It’s not enough!” I
exploded. “Finding out that I’ve been driving us all along, you my
own little puppet, me unwittingly pulling the strings, it makes me
sick! I can’t go on like that, always manipulating your emotions,
it isn’t right.”

“Who cares?” Lucas asked. “I don’t
care.”

I was furious at my
position, having to be mature and break things off, when what I
really wanted was to put the blinders back on and continue our
relationship. Why was he making this so hard for me?

In frustration I
retaliated. “Of course you don’t care. Finally, after years of
nothing, you get to feel again. No wonder you didn’t question
it—you knew it was too good to be true.”

“You think I’m using you?” Lucas asked, and
I could taste the bite of my own anger.

I was doing it again, controlling the
conversation’s tone with my emotions. I was instantly doused, upset
smothered under a creeping sadness.

“Elaine does,” I finally muttered.

“Who gives a fuck about Elaine,” Lucas said,
but my mood had deflated the argument, and his words seemed to
sweep themselves away, lost in our silence.

“Lucas,” I finally said, lifting my head to
look at him. “I was falling in love with you. I wish— I wish
th—”

He strode to the door, cutting off my words
with his abrupt departure, only he stopped at the threshold. “I’m
sorry,” he said quietly.

After all that he still didn’t get it.

“
No, Luke,
I’m
sorry.”

The door clicked shut, and
I was alone. My first relationship already over. It hurt. I
collapsed into a heap, my body wracked with spasms and sobs. They
wrenched their way out, one by one.

At one point, without
really thinking about it, I called out for Smith. I don’t know why.
I guess I just wanted comfort and he was so reliable, always there
for me. But this time he didn’t come, and so, I was forced to face
another hard truth, one that I’d been carefully
avoiding.

Smith might never come again.

Loneliness was quiet. The
stillness of it seemed to seep in, stealing over my body and bones,
holding me prisoner. I didn’t move at all toward the end. Things
took on a dreamer’s edge, hazy, slinking in and out, unlatched from
time. I didn’t feel pain or fear, indifference numbing them out. I
didn’t even feel hope, nor hope’s more sensible cousin—nostalgia.
My mind quit wandering toward my family, or happier times with
them. I thought of without them. I thought of being alone, and how
I had learned the true meaning of the word.

The clouds choked up the
sun, and deep inside my chipped out tunnel the dirt grew cool and
damp. It was setting in, the darkness of death. The tunnel seemed
to grow, the walls turning from brown to gray, then black. I felt
myself floating, bobbing aimlessly, unsure. My life had been short,
this was the first thing I would face alone, without guidance, and
how ironic that it should be my death.

“
You’re not alone,”
came a static hiss from behind me.

Feather light movement, a
whispered touch, something was moving in the dark with me. How
could that be? I remember, I remember I was dying.

“
Not dying, just broken
my peach.”

I searched the darkness,
and as my eyes adjusted the dirt came into focus, gritty and veined
with orange clay. Where did it come from, that voice?

“
We’ve changed this memory of yours, but
I was never in it. I’m in your head.”

There. Movement in the shadows, I squinted.
Feathers for nails, a hard leather hand, reaching, it was reaching
for me!

I screamed and reared back, slamming
hard.

I was still screaming, my
arms scratching the air as I thrashed about on my living room
floor. I sucked in air, feeling winded, scared, disoriented.
Wildly, I looked around, wondering why I wasn’t in bed. Then it all
came crashing back, heavier and more horrible than my nightmare had
been.

Lucas and I broke up.

No, I broke up with Lucas.
Even worse. I crawled back onto the couch, having dumped myself off
sometime during the dream. The cushions were uncomfortable,
lopsided and loose. But I wasn’t in the mood for my comfy
four-poster, choosing an uncomfortable makeshift bed instead, just
as I had after my initial cry was over. I wanted to cry again, but
the tears were paired with my denial, and I was more into the
acceptance stage now.

For some reason awful
things always seem to tie themselves together, unrelated things,
that have nothing to do with each other. All night my mind replayed
the breakup, conjuring up every word, every gesture and action.
Like Luke cutting off my last words, not wanting to hear them. Or
how he’d looked when he knew I was breaking things off. After
exhausting those memories, after absorbing every painful bit,
random things would then insert themselves into my brain. The
nightmare came in flashes, having retained its power to scare me.
Then my words echoed back, like ringing from a dream. They would
haunt me nevertheless. “Whatever you want,” I’d said. Reed reveled
in that slip of the lip. I cringed to think of it.

These thoughts drove over
me ‘til morning, painful as they were exhausting. So I was feeling
wrung out by the time the first rays of day slipped in through the
big window. But I drudged myself up and went through the
motions.

Breakfast. Shower. Clean
underwear. Mascara.

I must’ve scared Ben,
doing a zombie walk across the Sterling’s parking lot. He jumped up
from the picnic table, intercepting me before I could reach the
office. “What the hell happened to you?” His words were aggressive,
but I could feel that they were tinged with worry.

“
Lucas and I broke up,” I
answered, voice stale and dry.

“Lucas?”

“
My boyfriend,” I said,
annoyed with him.

I didn’t need to jog anything, he remembered
just fine.

“
Stephen’ll be in today,
no more cleanin’ for you,” he said, ignoring the boyfriend comment
altogether. He wouldn’t have been able to help anyway. Romantic
drama didn’t fall into his area of expertise, but then, I couldn’t
think of much that did.

I moved around him,
opening the office door. “You still have to replace the cart,” I
called over my shoulder.

“
Meh!” he grunted,
annoyance clear as the door fell shut, closing off his craggy
face.

I didn’t see him again after that. He must
have slipped away, which was fine by me. My first order of business
was to put in a call to Reed, and for that I wanted privacy. Being
a Tuesday afternoon I didn’t have much trouble on that front.

“Karen speaking, how may I direct your
call?”

“Put Reed on,” I said.

“Who, may I ask, is calling?”

She recognized my voice, I knew she did.

“His wife,” I said, just to screw with
her.

“
He’s not married,” she
lashed back, unable to help herself. Her professionalism continued
to crumble as she went on, “And he’d never marry someone like
you!”

“
Oh, I don’t know. He
seems partial to motel clerks, but not secretaries. He would never
date a secretary.”

Click
.

She hung up! Crazy Karen
was so getting fired for that, especially when Reed found out what
I’d called to say. Seriously, she was toast. I cracked a smile, the
first since my breakup. Had it only been the night before? It felt
like a long time without Lucas. Separating myself from him was
going to be difficult. I missed him constantly, a never ending
ache.

Stephen came in a few
hours later, wandering through the door much like his father had, a
listless sort of drift. I hadn’t thought it was possible, but he
looked worse than me. His eyes were sunken, red and runny, face
leeched to white. Stephen had suffered a shock, that much was
obvious, not some passing cold or flu.

“Shouldn’t you be home,” I said, thinking he
definitely should be. “You don’t look well enough to be at
work.”

“
Neither do you,” he said,
surprising me. Sure, Stephen was observant, but I didn’t think on
this particular occasion he was in any shape to notice. “Besides,”
he went on, “I had to come in. My mom was driving me
nuts.”