I refused to believe that. He had been hurt one too many times in the past and was allowing that to be the driving force to his lack of faith in happiness; but I wasn’t going to let that persuade the way I thought. Knights in shining armor did exist, and so did true love. I had experienced it with Davin, and if even for a short time, at least I got a taste of what it felt like. I was bound to experience it again at some point.
“Well, I think what happened Friday night was enough to count as a whole lifetime of luck for the both of us. Especially you, Sully.”
He laughed looking out the windshield. “You’re right princess, I think it was. I stand corrected.” He sat up, reaching for the door handle.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to go home for tonight. I don’t want you getting sick of me too fast. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Plus, your parents are on their way home.”
“How do you…?”
Just then my phone beeped with a text message from my mom.
On our way home see you soon.
“I’m a vampire, that’s how.” He winked, closing the car door behind him.
Santo and Johnny’s Sleepwalk emanated through my speakers when I pressed play on my iPod, infiltrating my room with the melancholy instrumentals. Leaning back in my furry pink desk chair, I closed my eyes, surrendering to the sudden solitary confinement of my room. For the first time in a long time I was alone, and it felt amazing.
A presence standing above me brought me to, from the sleep I had unintentionally drifted into. “Davin?”
My eyes gradually adjusted to the blurry figure I was gazing up at. Soft moonlight cast through the crack in my drapes, gleaming off of Xander’s beautiful olive skin. His soft wavy brown hair fell over his eyes that he flipped to the side with a jolt of his head. I jumped up quickly almost falling backwards in my chair.
“Oh my God -- Xander is that really you?” He nodded with a huge smile across his face. “But how… why? You’re dead!”
His smile faded as he came to kneel in front of me. I scooted back, unsure if I could trust him or if I was even really seeing him here in front of me. I had watched him die gruesomely before my eyes. Maybe I had finally gone stress-induced crazy.
“I’m here, Adelay. I don’t know for how long, but for right now I am here.”
The beam of light flicked across his neck for a brief instant when he moved in closer to me, showing a strange purplish mark on his neck. With two fingers I shakily touched the raised wound that was the entire width of his thick muscular neck where he had slid the knife across to kill himself. A small imperfection was all that was left from his self-mutilation. He closed his hand over mine.
“How did you come back?”
“Because I couldn’t leave you without saying goodbye.”
“I miss you so much.”
Warm sticky tears spilled down my cheeks. He wiped them with his unusually cold hands, but it wasn’t the same cold I felt when Davin touched me, a dense physical touch; no, this was more like when a cold breeze brushes across your skin, you feel it, but there’s no solidity to it.
It was because he wasn’t a human being, or even a werewolf anymore; he was some form of apparition that I was somehow able to wrap my arms around. Throwing my body into him I lay my head on his chilly shoulder, crying in his chest. His cheek rested on the top of my head.
“It’s okay Adde, I am here.”
“I’m so sorry, Xander! I tried so hard to keep you out of harm, but I was too late.”
“It’s not your fault, Adde. Dalton intercepted any means of communication as soon as he knew I was coming to see you. He came to Colorado looking for me, and threatened to hurt my family, as well as you and Kat, if I didn’t come with him. I had to go. I had to become like him.”
“But it’s because of me that he even knew who you were! If he hadn’t have been after what’s in my blood, he would have never gotten to you.”
“Yeah, about that blood of yours…who knew my best friend is half angel?”
“I’m not half angel, Xan. It’s just some stupid curse that has completely violated my life, stemming from some angel fornication.”
“You’ve always been an angel in my eyes.”
I looked up at his cerulean eyes that sparkled like sapphires from the watery tears that filled them not quite spilling out yet.
“I wish I could’ve saved you like I did Sully. I would give anything for that chance.”
“You did save me, Adelay. You saved me from myself. He was controlling my every thought, every movement; but something in your voice, and your love for me, was able to break his hold even if only for a short moment. I took my life so that I didn’t take yours, and for that I was spared being damned for eternity. From what I became I’m not an angel yet. I still have to do something more to prove myself to the hierarchy; so, I have been sent back with you for when that time comes.”
“So, does that mean you’re here until then?”
He shook his head. “I can’t stay Adelay, but I will be back -I promise. I love you, I always have.” His body faded into a translucent silhouette and then he was gone.
“I love you too, Xan,” I whispered into the empty room.
All my questions weren’t answered, but I knew
