Promise

As soon as we were home, I stripped my wet clothes off, put on sweats and a t-shirt, crawled under the covers of my bed and sobbed. He doesn't love me. He never did. I mean nothing to him. The phrases chanted in my head like a sick mantra. When my stomach and chest hurt too much to sob anymore, I just lay there, tears streaming silently. I don't know when I fell asleep or for how long, but when I woke up, it was still dark and I was still crying.

As the new day dawned, I realized it was the first day of the rest of my life without Tristan. Without love. Without hope. When the tears didn't come, anger did. Anger at Tristan, anger at my mother, anger at myself.

'How could he do this to me?! Why would she let him?! How did I fall for it?! ' I screamed at the walls and the ceiling. I beat on my pillows and bed, letting them take the wrath, and finally broke down into sobs again…then silent tears…then exhaustion.

Sometime in the late morning there was a knock on my door.

'Go away!'

'Alexis, I need to talk to you,' Mom said through the door.

'I said to go away!' I turned over on my side, facing the wall, my back to the door in case she came in anyway, but she didn't knock again or say anything else.

Later that afternoon, I quietly slipped to the bathroom, relieved Mom didn't catch me. When I came out, though, she was waiting, a look of deep concern on her face. I glanced past her, into the living room, and saw the familiar sandy-brown hair over the top of the couch. Fresh tears sprang into my eyes.

'Leave me alone,' I muttered and rushed back to my room. I swung the door closed, but she caught it. I crawled back into bed, my back to her.

'Alexis, please let me explain,' she said.

I turned over and glared at her. 'Why? It's all just bullshit lies.'

'That's why. So you can understand the truth.'

I sat up and hardened my eyes. 'You mean the half-truth—no, not even half, the partial -truth. You two never tell me the whole truth. The only two people in this world who I thought I could trust. Why should I believe anything now? It's all lies !'

'You have to believe he really loves you, Alexis.'

I glared at her. 'And that is the biggest, bald-faced, bullshit lie of them all !'

I heard heavy footsteps, then the front door open. Mom looked over her shoulder toward the door and then back at me. 'You're killing him, you know.'

'Good! He's already all but killed me. In fact, I would have been better off if he had killed me when he wanted to.'

The front door slammed shut. He'd heard that. I was glad. Not really . No, not really, but I wanted to be glad.

Mom came over and sat at the end of my bed. I scooted myself away until my back pressed against the broken headboard, a casualty of my anger fits.

'You know what really gets me, Sophia ?' I fumed. 'You knew all along. You let all this happen. You're supposed to be my mother .'

Her eyes narrowed. 'That's exactly why you need to listen to me, Alexis. I am your mother. I would not let anything or anyone intentionally hurt you. Do you really think I would have let this go on with him if I didn't believe he truly loved you?'

'Wasn't that the plan ?' I spewed.

'You don't even know the plan. You're all worked up about something you don't understand.'

I crossed my arms over my chest. 'So educate me. Tell me what I'm missing here that makes the lies okay.'

Mom studied my face, took a deep breath and blew it out. 'Over eighty years ago, when I went through the Ang'dora , we thought our bloodline would die out and the Amadis would collapse. Remember, the Amadis is a society. Our family started it and continues to rule it. It'll fall apart without us. I was the last in our bloodline and I'd had no children. Since no one had ever reproduced after the Ang'dora , your conception and birth seemed like miracles to us. Realizing there was hope for us to continue, it was decided it'd be in our best interest of survival— possibly our only chances of survival—if you joined with the strongest, most powerful male with original Amadis blood….'

'Tristan,' I spat.

'Yes, Tristan. A child from the two of you would guarantee our survival for many centuries. I can't tell you what it means for the Amadis to survive, but perhaps you can understand if you remember the Daemoni are our enemies and, well, let's just say it's not good for them to be left without us.'

I nodded reluctantly. I knew where this was going.

'So where does this farce of a relationship and love come in?' I demanded. 'Haven't the Amadis heard of in vitro fertilization?'

Mom shook her head. 'Just back up a bit here. When you were born, I took you to the Amadis and that's when the council made its final decision…the plans for you and Tristan. I adamantly opposed it, believing it would not turn out well. Tristan opposed it, too. He thought it wasn't fair to you. But the council was settled.

'The council, in general, believed the two of you were meant for each other and you would be true soul mates. They tried to convince Tristan and me, but neither of us believed it possible. We both eventually agreed to the decision, though. For the next eighteen years, he went his way and I took you my way. I figured at some point, when you were much older than you are now, the two of you would find a way to make it happen and then go your separate ways.

'After waiting and brooding over this for so long, though, Tristan became curious. As soon as you turned eighteen, he came looking for you. He's told you the rest from there.'

I stared at Mom. I still didn't get how the last nine months had anything to do with it. 'So it was all just a set-up. Why did he have to lie about loving me, though? How can you justify that?'

'I don't believe it's a lie, Alexis,' she answered quietly. 'I feel it's the truth. I've felt it since the day I came back from that trip and saw how happy you two were together. I just didn't want to feel it then. But not wanting it doesn't make it go away. I believe the council was right and you two were meant to be together. You belong together.'

My eyes hardened with my heart. 'I don't buy it. He came here to complete his little assignment so he could get on with his long, miserable life. I was just a responsibility and he wanted to get it done and out of the way.'

'You're being ridiculous, Alexis, and you know it deep down in your heart.'

I shrugged. I didn't want to know what hid deep down in my heart because it meant pain ( love ).

'Whatever,' I finally muttered. I punched my pillow and lay back down on my side, facing the wall again.

'Alexis, you love him, don't you?'

I ignored her. She eventually got the message and left.

She was right. I did love him, to my core. If I wasn't sure before, the intense pain I felt now proved it. But he didn't really love me. He had to play through the whole thing so he could get used to being around me without wanting to kill me. After all, we couldn't create a kid if he murdered me in the process. He just needed to make it seem real to keep me around long enough. Even went so far as to propose…

I broke down in tears and then full-body sobs again. When the anger followed, I mostly directed it at myself for being so damn stupid. A part of me knew it all along…the part still protecting my most vulnerable, intimate areas…the part that knew he really was too good to be true, that it never was real. I cried through another night.

The next few days consisted of crying, anger, staring at the walls and restless sleep. I didn't eat and had to force myself to even take a shower. No school, no Tristan…no reason to care. My future, my whole life was over. Not over, as in I wanted to kill myself. Just over as in that chapter ended and I couldn't find the beginning of the next one. So many unknowns loomed in my future, and the one thing I'd finally become so sure about—my anchor—was gone. I didn't know what to do with myself anymore.

I lost all track of time. He came by the cottage several times, but I stayed in my room and refused to acknowledge him. He could only be there for one reason—to explain himself and end it in person. I couldn't deal