Krista took the time to help me with any work that I didn’t understand. She remembered much of what she had learned as a senior eighteen years earlier. In fact, she was smarter than anyone I had ever met. We were getting closer and closer as the days wore on. If Adam weren’t already my best friend, I would have put Krista at the top of my list.
Chapter 29
A New Beginning
I received an email from Aaron about two weeks after Adam left. I was incredibly excited to hear from him after our last phone conversation. I had no idea what to expect from the email, but it wasn’t good. He wasn’t the same boy anymore. It wasn’t that much of a surprise. The way he had talked on the phone to me, admitting to me his deepest feelings, had come across as a way of saying goodbye. The email just confirmed it. The Aaron that I had loved was no more.
His family had sold their house in Midvale and had moved to their undisclosed new location. He was finishing school there, not that there was much left to complete. I read the email carefully about a hundred times. There was no “I love you,” not even a single “I miss you.” It was plain as plain could be. This was the end of Aaron and me. I was finally getting what I had wanted all along.
“You okay?” asked Krista behind me.
I looked up from my computer and tried to smile, but my lips wouldn’t curve. Why did it affect me so much? The message was vague and still didn’t say where he was located. Even when I tried to track the IP address, it just led me in a loop right back to my own computer. It was over.
“Yeah, I will be,” I replied and reached up to rub my right eye. I looked down at my fingers and found they were damp with tears that had not fallen.
“It’s amazing how much it hurts,” Krista said softly.
“It was an accident, anyway.” I felt my bottom lip quiver, and I looked away before she could see.
“It may have been, but you still hurt.” She placed her arms around my chest and held me close to her for a few moments.
“It was all my fault, you know,” I told her, feeling the tears coming.
“No, it wasn’t.”
“He wouldn’t have had to leave if it wasn’t for me. I led those creatures to his doorstep. He became whatever he became because of me,” I sobbed.
“I don’t think he sees it that way. I spent a lot of time watching you. I saw how he looked at you. I could read the confusion on your face. You held him close to you, but you wished to set him free. That contract was not created just by you. He offered you his soul, and you had no choice but to take it as your own.” Krista wiped the tears from my cheeks.
“If I hadn’t been so set on hurting Wesley, I never would have made my claim on him,” I said, thinking back to our first date. I had gone out of my way to make Wesley angry. I had thrown Aaron in his face time and time again until he was gone.
“I admit I have never claimed anyone. I don’t know how to do it or what it feels like,” Krista admitted.
I looked at her and saw nothing but innocence. You would have thought that after everything she had been through, she would be dark, brooding and seeking revenge.
“It feels like the world is going to stop if something happens to them,” I told her. “When Aaron was attacked, I felt like my heart was being torn from my body. I saw nothing but colors; it paralyzed me. I hope that nobody ever figures out that the way to disarm a Warden is to hurt their claim.” I glanced at the wall for a second, trying to get my emotions under control.
“I hope I never have to feel that,” Krista said softly. “It was hard enough dealing with the emotional turmoil in Purgatory.”
“It’s worse when the claim is broken. At least, it was with Wesley. My heart actually stopped beating. It was like a piece of me died that day,” I admitted.
“Now that is a feeling that I can relate to,” she said, smiling.
“I’m so glad that you’re here,” I stated.
“I’m so glad that I’m here too.”
*****
A week later I was in the study looking through the stacks of magic books; my father had shipped in when it hit. The heartbreak of a broken contract tore through me. It hit me hard, but not as hard as the first time. I doubled over in pain, with tears streaming down my face. I knew what this meant, and the thought that it was all over made the pain even more unbearable. Aaron’s soul was no longer bound to me.
“Dawn? What’s wrong?” my mother asked, running across the room and forcing me to sit.
I could only look at her with tears in my eyes as the pain worked its way through me. For twenty minutes she held onto me as the pain seared through my heart. When I felt the contract finally break it was a bit of a relief. Though I knew he had changed after the attack, I understood that this was not willingly, and definitely not the way that I wanted it to happen.
I closed my eyes through the slowing of my heart and fought the tears when it stopped beating. After the pain had ended, I felt hollow inside. I had become so used to holding claims that without my being tied to the soul of another; I just felt dead. The void that I had felt when Wesley first betrayed me felt better than this.
“I’m okay now, Mom,” I whispered at last.
“Oh, honey.” She threw her arms around me, and no matter
