Unforgiven (23 page)

Must be a joke.

But then she stopped herself. What a depressing first instinct. What if it wasn't a joke? Why couldn't she be happy like every other girl at school? Why couldn't she accept that Ike Ligon liked her song, that he thought she had real talent, instead of suspecting that someone was playing a trick on her? Why did Lilith distrust every good thing that came her way?

A tear landed on the screen of Cam's cell phone, bringing her back to the arcade. Lilith turned away and stared down at the gum-encrusted carpet.

Bruce came up beside her. “Are you okay?”

When she lifted her head, Cam was watching her. “What is it?”

She held out the phone. “Ike Ligon just sent you an email.”

He scratched his chin. It was a sore subject, Cam sending in her lyrics, and Lilith could tell he still felt guilty.

Lilith swallowed. “He likes my song.”

“There was never any question that he would,” Cam said.

“I won.” She didn't know what else to say. Before Cam, music had been an escape, passion a daydream, love an impossibility. Since his arrival, all three of those things felt connected, like she had to
use
them to become a different kind of person.

It scared her.

Cam tossed Bruce a quarter and pointed at the arcade game on the other side of the air-hockey table. When the boy had scurried off, Cam stepped closer to Lilith. “This is a big deal.”

“I know,” said Lilith. “The Battle of the Bands—”

“It's bigger than the Battle of the Bands.”

“Please don't say it's bigger than prom,” she said, teasing a little.

“Of course not. Nothing is bigger than prom.” Cam laughed, but then his face grew serious. “You can have anything you want in life. You know that, right?”

Lilith blinked. What did he mean? She was poor, she was unpopular. Yes, she'd made a few friends recently, and yes, she had her music, but overall, her life still sucked.

“Not exactly,” she said.

Cam leaned in close. “You just have to want it badly enough.”

Lilith's heart was racing. The arcade suddenly felt like it was a thousand degrees. “I don't even know what ‘it' is.”

Cam thought for a moment. “Adventure. Freedom.” He took a breath. “Love.”

“Love?” she asked.

“Yeah, love.” He smiled again. “It is possible, you know.”

“Maybe where you come from,” she said.

“Or maybe”—Cam patted his chest—“right here.”

They were so close now that their faces were practically touching. So close that the tips of their noses nearly met, and their lips were almost…

“What are you guys talking about?” Bruce asked, not looking up from his arcade game as he fired another hundred rounds into an army of monsters.

Lilith cleared her throat and stepped away from Cam, embarrassed. “The Battle of the Bands,” she and Cam said at the same time.

Cam reached for Lilith's hand, then Bruce's hand. “Come on, let's go celebrate.”

He led them to the snack bar back in the main room of the bowling alley. He hoisted Bruce onto a red pleather stool and flagged down a waitress with poufy blond hair.

“A pitcher of your finest root beer,” Cam said. Root beer was Lilith's favorite. Had she ever told him that? “And a gigantic bucket of popcorn, extra butter for this guy.” He jerked his thumb at Bruce, who pumped his fists.

Cam pulled out his phone and started typing something quickly.

“What are you doing?” Lilith asked.

“Spreading the good news to Jean and Luis.” A few seconds later he showed her a text he'd just gotten back from Jean. It was all emojis—fireworks exploding, bouquets of flowers, guitars, treble clefs, and, inexplicably, a samurai sword.

Lilith grinned. Her friend was truly happy for her.

“What are the odds?” a familiar voice said behind them. Lilith turned to see Luis with his scrawny arms spread wide, waiting for a hug. Lilith slid off her stool and into his arms. She squeezed him tight.

“Hey, don't make my lady jealous,” Luis said, stepping aside to let Karen Walker and a couple of their friends into the circle.

“Luis just told us your good news, Lilith,” Karen said, and smiled.

“So lucky that I came to meet Karen and could be here to toast you,” Luis said.

“Is that what we're doing?” Lilith laughed, blushing.

“Of course,” Luis said.

“You deserve it,” one of Karen's friends added. Lilith didn't even know her name, but she recognized her from Mr. Davidson's open mic. Before this moment, she would have assumed the girl hated her, like she assumed the rest of the school hated her. “Your music's really good.”

“Thanks,” Lilith said. She was overwhelmed with happy shock. “You guys want some popcorn?”

Cam had already poured root beer into enough cups for everyone. He raised his and smiled at Lilith. “To Lilith,” he said. “And ‘Somebody's Other Blues.' ”

“I'll drink to that,” Bruce said, and chugged his drink.

As Lilith sipped her root beer, surrounded by surprise friends and her brother and Cam, she thought about the lyrics to her song. She'd written them in a grim and lonely state. They'd poured out of her as a kind of purge, the only therapy she could afford. She'd never dream those sad words might lead to something as happy as this.

And they never would have if Cam hadn't believed in her. This moment was proof that Lilith should believe in herself.

Maybe Cam was a little forward. Maybe he pushed her buttons…frequently. Maybe he'd done some things he shouldn't have done. But who hadn't? He wasn't like anyone she'd ever met. He surprised her. He made her laugh. He cared about her brother. When he stood next to her, he made her stomach churn—in a good way. He was here with her, celebrating, now. And all of that together made Lilith sway where she was standing. She gripped the barstool to steady herself and realized:

This was what it felt like to fall in love with someone. Lilith was falling for Cam.

Approximately 1000 BCE

T
he sun didn't rise over Lilith anymore. Moonlight no longer spilled into her dreams. She drifted through her days, still wearing the embroidered wedding gown, now soiled with sweat and dirt, collecting nervous glances from others in her tribe.

Without Cam, her world was bleak.

In the gray and misty dawn, Lilith was meandering near the river when a hand touched her shoulder. It was Dani. She had not seen him since the day Cam left, and it hurt to see him now, for he was part of the world she associated with being in love. Dani did not belong in this emptiness.

“It's like looking into a mirror,” Dani said, his gray eyes brimming with concern. “I never knew it could hurt this much for someone else.”

Lilith had always liked Dani, but he could be a little vain. “They said you had returned to your tribe,” she said.

He nodded. “I'm only passing through.”

“From where? Have you—”

Dani frowned. “I don't know where he is, Lilith.”

She closed her eyes, unable to pretend that that was not what she'd intended to ask.

“I wish I could tell you it gets easier,” Dani went on, “but when you truly love someone, I'm not sure it ever does.”

Lilith squinted at the blond boy before her, seeing the pain in his eyes. Liat had been gone only one month longer than Cam, yet Dani spoke as if he'd had centuries of heartbreak.

“Goodbye, Dani,” she said. “I wish you happier days.”

“Goodbye, Lilith.”

Still wearing her dress, she dove into the river. The chill of the water reminded her that she was alive. She rose up, then floated on her back and watched a pair of starlings cross the sky. Before she knew it, the current had carried her around a bend, and Lilith found herself before a familiar bank of wildflowers.

This was where she'd first held hands with Cam, first felt his touch.

She waded to the bank and climbed out of the river, wringing water from her hair, feeling the sodden dress weigh down her steps. The carob tree's branches stretched toward her, familiar as an old lover.

This had been her place before it had been hers and Cam's. She pressed her hands against the tree's rough bark and felt around for the recess where she'd stowed her lyre. It was still there.

She left it where it was.

Thunder rumbled, and the sky grew ominous. A sharp, cold rain began to fall. She closed her eyes and let the pain of missing him swell within her.

“Take my love with you when you go.”

Lilith opened her eyes, startled by the way the song had snuck up on her, like it had been borne in the rain.

The song was raw and haunted, just like she was.

She sang the words aloud, changing a few notes of the melody. Applause came from above her. Lilith shot to her feet and looked up at a boy about her age sitting on a branch.

“You scared me,” she said, pressing her hand to her chest.

“My apologies,” the boy replied. He had a square face, wavy amber hair, and brown eyes. He wore a camel-skin cloak, like most of the men in her tribe, but beneath it Lilith noticed strange, coarse, blue pants that were tight around his ankles, and bright white slippers tied in an elaborate crisscrossing fashion by thin, white ropes. He must have traveled from a village very far away.

He swung down to a lower branch, watching her. Rain shone in his hair. “Are you a writer of songs?” he asked her.

Tucked behind her lyre was the parchment book her father had given her as a harvest gift. It contained all of Lilith's songs. “I used to be,” she said. “Not anymore.”

“Ah.” The boy leapt down from his branch. “You are suffering.”

Lilith was unsure how this boy seemed to know what she was feeling.

“I can see it in your eyes,” he continued. “All great makers of music have one thing in common: heartbreak. It is where they draw their inspiration from.” He leaned forward. “Perhaps someday you'll thank Cam for the inspiration.”

Lilith's pulse quickened. “What do you know about Cam?”

The boy smiled. “I know that you still long for him. Am I right?”

In the distance, Lilith could see glimmers of her peaceful village. She could hear her sisters' voices.

“I believe my heartbreak to be very deep,” she said. “I hope it
is
the deepest, for I would not wish this pain on anyone.”

Lilith closed her eyes and thought of Cam. He had been everything to her. Now everything was gone.

“You deserve an explanation,” the boy said as though he could read her mind.

“Yes,” Lilith found herself saying.

“You want to see him.”

“Desperately.”

“You want to convince him that he's been a fool, made the universe's greatest mistake, that he'll never find love like yours again?” His hazel eyes glimmered. “I know where he is.”

She stood, aching. “Where?”

“I can take you to him, but I must warn you: The journey will be long and dangerous. And there is another thing. I will not be passing back this way.”

He waited a moment as his meaning sank in. She looked toward her tribe once more and imagined never again hearing the rustle of the grain harvest, the tinkle of well water, her sisters' laughter. Was it worth it to see Cam again?

“When can we leave?” she asked.

“Shall I spell out my proposal?” the boy said.

Lilith was confused. “Your proposal?”

“I shall take you to see Cam.” The boy brushed his hands together. “If the two of you reconcile, then you shall stay together. But if your true love denies you…” At this, he took a menacing step forward. “You will stay with me.”

“With you?”

“My world could use a touch of beauty, a little inspiration—your voice, your poetry, your soul.” The boy twirled his finger through the chain around his neck. “I can show you places you have never seen before.”

Lilith wasn't interested in seeing the world. She was interested in seeing Cam. She wanted to reconcile, to revive their love, and then, later, when it made sense again, marriage, a family—just as they'd planned.

She glanced at the boy before her. She didn't even know his name. Something about him made her uneasy. And yet, if he could lead her to Cam…

She reached into the carob tree for her lyre and her book. Would this be the last time she would stow her music in her favorite tree, the last time she would look upon the glittering water at this bend of the Jordan? What about her family and her friends?

But if she stayed here, she would never know what might have been.

She closed her eyes and said, “I'm ready.”

The boy took her hand and said in a low voice, “You have yourself what will someday be known as a ‘deal.' ”