Nick and Lilac Page 27

  “You’re never going to get away with this!”

  SLAP.

  The crack of a hand against a female’s cheek.

  Tears.

  The sound of betrayal.

  Karla.

  ****

  The sound of someone knocking on her door woke Lilac, who curled in a ball on the floor next to the door.

  “Lilac, it’s me, Jason.”

  She didn’t speak, didn’t even rise from the cold hard floor.

  “I just want you to know that…”

  She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “We’ve uncovered evidence that links Karla to Nick’s attack years ago. She’s the one gave the attackers his whereabouts that night.”

  Another painful pause and Lilac pulled her knees close to her, wrapping her arms around them.

  “Nick’s at the hospital for post-traumatic shock.” Jason’s voice became harsh. “I know he’s done unforgivable fucked-up things to you, Lilac – but he really loves you. He fucking loves you to death.”

  The Twenty-First Encounter

  Rain splattered on the sidewalk as Lilac ran for cover, holding the largest of her books over her head. Her phone vibrated insistently inside her pocket but she ignored it. Lilac quickened her pace, and when the rain came pouring down, she made a dash for it. By the time she reached the doors of her dorm, she was already soaking wet and trying to catch her breath.

  “You forgot your umbrella again.” Norma, the resident head, shook her head resignedly.

  She smiled sheepishly, about to apologize for creating yet another wet puddle in the lobby when her phone buzzed again.

  Lilac took it out.

  An unsaved number flashed on the screen.

  She had just changed numbers this morning, and Nick Christakos already knew what it was. She deleted the message without reading it.

  New number, new house, new life---she did not want anything that would remind her of…him.

  ****

  Another week passed and the thunderstorm that cast a dark shadow over the entire state, dampening everyone’s spirits, still hadn’t left. The nights were too chilly outside now, and only Jason’s promise of afternoon tea at a historic home that was not open to the public had made Lilac brave the cold.

  On her way out, she passed the calendar she had tacked to the wall, a limited-edition design with different Regency scenes featured for each month. Twenty-two…

  It had been twenty-two days since she had last seen Nick.

  She shouldn’t know that. It shouldn’t matter. But her mind and her heart weren’t hers anymore, no matter how much she tried to block every memory of Nick out.

  Jason was waiting outside her dorm, holding an umbrella and dressed once again in jeans. But this time, instead of just a plain shirt, he was also wearing a striped sweater over it.

  She made her eyes go wide. “I thought…you were too…macho…to feel the cold.”

  “I’m Greek,” he retorted. “Not English.”

  She laughed, and he kept her entertained throughout the ride. But when the scones and tea were served, Jason said quietly, “I have to talk about him, Lilac.”

  Jason’s words made her slowly put her cup down, her entire body going cold. She had been enjoying the occasional meals with Jason under one explicit condition: that they were not to talk about his brother.

  She said flatly, “No.”

  “None of this is working. It’s not helping either of you.”

  “I don’t know…what you’re talking…about.”

  “My brother’s not eating, not working---he’s just fucking existing, waiting for your call.”

  “I don’t…want…to…know.” Lilac sobbed the last word out, her own tears catching her unawares. She turned away from Jason, willing the tears to stop from falling.

  “I’m not telling you any of this because of Nick,” Jason said harshly. “I’m telling you because I can’t bear seeing you fade away. It’s you I’m worried about the most, Lilac. You’re lifeless.”

  She shook her head. “It takes…time t-to b-be happy.” She said the last word fiercely. “B-but I w-will b-be happy again.”

  “Will you?” Jason shot back. “Do you really believe that?” He reached out to hold her face, forcing her to look at him.

  “W-what?” She was crying now.

  “Look at me. Look at me really hard, Lilac.” When her eyes went to him, he asked tautly, “Who do you see?”

  Confusion flitted over her face. “You. J-Jason---”

  “But I’m Nick’s twin. I’m Nick’s identical twin, Lilac. But you don’t see that. And you have to fucking open your eyes to the truth – to accept what that means. There is no one like Nick in the world, no one else you can love---”

  “NO!” She covered her ears.

  He pulled her hands off. “When was the last time you daydreamed?”

  Her head shot up. “W-why---”

  “I read your files, remember? I know about your daydreams and how they’re almost always because you’re happy.” Jason’s eyes bored through her. “So when, Lilac? When was the last fucking time you daydreamed?”

  Twenty-nine.

  The number popped out of nowhere, and she didn’t question it, knowing what it stood for. She started to cry. Twenty-nine days since the last time she and Nick had made love, twenty-nine days since she had last dared to dream.

  “I d-don’t w-want t-to l-love h-him anymore.” Tears clogged her throat.

  Everything in Jason made him want to reach out for Lilac, but he couldn’t. Because there was no point and Lilac had to realize that. No matter how much she cried and wished it was otherwise, she could only love one person in this life and the next.

  ****

  Thirty-four.

  The numbers fluttered in her mind at the oddest times, like daydreams compressed into just two digits.

  Thirty-four days had passed since she had last spoken to Nick, and the number popped up in the middle of her baking demonstration for a Hands On event. Lilac froze, holding her whisk mid-air.

  Dorothy nudged her, muttering under her breath, “Lilac?”

  The crowd of mostly teens gazed at Lilac with confused expressions on their faces.

  Feeling her cheeks turn red, Lilac lowered the whisk to the bowl. After a pause to pull herself together and collect her thoughts, she switched the whisk on. “We set it to…medium – anything stronger and…we’ll end up…with a face cream…literally.”

  Her audience laughed, and she drew confidence from it. Readjusting the lapel microphone, she continued, “You only stop…whisking…after the texture is…creamy.” She did her best to speak loudly and clearly, a necessity since she was just one of the twenty presenters simultaneously holding demonstrations at a local park near Christopoulos University.

  There was also the fact that she had to compete with the usual noise that typically came with having a primarily teenage audience who liked to talk, text, and tweet all at the same time. There were also their parents roaming around, chatting and laughing as they checked the products and services offered by the concession stands of local businesses who had agreed to participate in the event.

  Lilac was the worst candidate for public speaking, but for Hands On demonstrations and workshops she was willing to risk losing face. It was one of her favorite charities among the ones that the SAC supported because through it she was able to directly contribute to changing the lives of those who needed help, liked seeing the light in teenagers’ faces as they realized there were things they could do to make a living, change the world and above all – that they had the power to make themselves and other people happy.

  As she continued with her demonstration, Lilac had an uneasy feeling of being watched, which of course was ridiculous. Of course she was being watched – this was a demonstration prepared for fifty registered teenagers and that wasn’t counting those who had dropped in late and the other volunteers in the audience.

  Her demonstration ended at twelve sh
arp. Lilac made sure of it, knowing her teenage audience would appreciate the promptness as well. Jason had texted her about having lunch and on her way to the parking lot, she heard it.

  “Thank you for giving me a chance to become a part of this.”

  Lilac froze at the familiar voice.

  “You all know why I’m here, and I know why you’re all here.”

  She stumbled around, her heart in her throat.

  “When I was sixteen, I was raped.”

  Lilac could no longer move. She could only listen, her heart breaking as he recounted every painful second of his ordeal.

  Nick’s voice was strong and clear, his emotions lending impact to his every word. “It made me feel unworthy of anyone’s love. And because I trusted the wrong person, for years I pushed away those who really loved me…I kept a part of myself protected by isolating myself, by pretending to be tough.”

  Nick swallowed, and the sound was made audible by his microphone. “My fear of being hurt again made me distant with the people who truly love me. My mother, my brother, my friends – the girl I wanted to marry.”

  “Sometimes, the people you hurt can’t forgive you right away. Maybe they never will. But it doesn’t mean you should give up. You should continue loving, continue trying---you never stop loving the people you love just because they don’t love you anymore. By loving another person, by opening yourself to all the joys and pains of love---that’s the only way you can become whole again, the only way you stop becoming a victim and start fighting back. You go beyond surviving. You start living.”

  When the applause started, tears were streaking down Lilac’s face. She started to walk, but soon it wasn’t enough. She ran.

  But of course he caught up to her.

  “Lilac.”

  Oh, oh, oh God. It hurt. It fucking hurt.

  He turned her around to face him, and Lilac let him. The sight of Nick made her inhale sharply. He was gorgeous, so much more beautiful than she wanted to remember. He was thinner, too, with dark circles under his eyes. But he was still Nick. Still…Nick.

  Digging her fingers into her palms, Lilac managed a smile. “Nick.”

  Dio!

  To have Lilac smiling at him again…Nick was dazed by it, like a blind man seeing sunlight for the first time. Swallowing, he said, “You look…beautiful.”

  Behind Nick, she saw Jason stepping out of his car, and their gazes met.

  Nick looked over his shoulder, following her gaze, and his heart constricted. “Lilac, I---”

  “No.” All her courage, every little bit of determination to see this through and pretend she was fine--- all of it left her and to Lilac’s horror tears pricked her eyes. “I have to…go.” She tried to push past Nick, but he caught her wrist, spinning her around to face him.

  “Please…let me…go.”

  “Please don’t go.” Nick sounded broken.

  The sound destroyed Lilac’s flimsy control, and the tears fell. She couldn’t even manage to resist as he pulled her close. She just…cried, as if the tears she had ruthlessly kept in check for thirty-four days needed to be let out.

  Lilac’s silent tears ravaged him. “I’m sorry. Dio, I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I love you.”

  She could believe he was sorry. She could believe he was a good man even, that he didn’t mean to hurt her. But it was not enough. It would never be enough because he didn’t love her. He had only pretended to love her---he had fucking said so himself.

  “Stop…pretending!”

  He flinched at the agony that made Lilac’s voice tremble and turned her eyes glassy. “I’m not pretending. I was never pretending. I was just fucking blind and stupid---”

  “I don’t believe…you!”

  “Then I’ll wait until you do!”

  Cruelty borne out of pain forced Lilac to say the words that would hurt the most. “There’s no point…waiting. I love…Jason.”

  For a moment, all Nick could do was stare at Lilac, like a man who had been shot, but the knowledge of receiving a mortal wound hadn’t yet reached his brain.

  The words sank in.

  Nick’s face whitened.

  Her entire body shook with pain. Even now, she hurt when he hurt.

  The ground under his feet had disappeared, leaving him with nothing to hold on to.

  Lilac loved Jason.

  He had known they had been going out, but he had never thought…

  How stupid, how fucking stupid he had been, to think that he still had a chance.

  “Jason was the one…” His voice was dull. “He was the one who told me about this event.”

  She looked away, unable to bear seeing the effects of her cruelty. But still she heard herself continuing the lie, her heartbreak working like some kind of poison in her system. “He doesn’t…know…I had fallen…in love…with him.”

  When he didn’t speak any longer, she couldn’t stop herself from looking back. Sobs rushed to her throat as she saw him staring at her, the bleakness in his eyes devastating. He was gazing at her like it was the very last time he would see the sun, like it was his last moment to live.

  “I’m sorry,” Nick whispered. “I don’t expect you to forgive me when I can’t even forgive myself.”

  Lilac bit her lip hard, the sobs wanting to explode past her lips. She did not want to be fooled again, did not want to be hurt again.

  All around them, people stared and talked, but it was as if she and Nick were inside a glass house, seen but unheard – the pain they shared making them unreachable to everyone else.

  It hurt to look at Lilac, it goddamn hurt because every second that he did, he remembered the thousand and one ways she had showed him how much she loved him, and all those thousand and one times he had taken her for granted.

  He had his fucking shot and he had blown it. Now, he had to do what was right, to say what he had come here to say and then let Lilac have her happily-ever-after with the better man.

  “If I ever made you feel unworthy of being loved, I’m so fucking sorry. But you are – you deserve to be loved, to be cherished more than any girl on earth. I was…I am…” Nick’s breath hissed out. “I am the luckiest man on earth as well…because even for a short time, you loved me.”

  Still, she did not speak, did not look at him, and with it the last remnant of hope in his heart died.

  “I…love you, Lilac. I’ll love you…”

  He suddenly laughed, and it made Lilac look at him. Her breath caught, the wry smile on his face doing what it was meant to do – breaking her heart all over again.

  “I just remembered…your favorite song, the one you listen to over and over when you’re doing your stuff. And I fucking get it now, the lyrics…it’s how I fucking feel. I’ll die every day…waiting for you…I’m going to love you…a thousand years.”

  His lips were bloodless with pain. “Fucking corny, right?”

  Yet she still did not speak.

  Ah, God, it hurt.

  “If I could undo things,” Nick whispered. “I would. And then I’d love you the way you deserve to be loved. But I can’t. And now…all I can do is hope that you’re happy with Jason.” He touched her cheek – just one last touch to last him a thousand years of waiting and dying with every fucking day that passed without Lilac at his side.

  “You deserve everything in this world.”

  Lilac wrenched away with a cry, the walls around her heart crumbling. She heard Nick gasp, as if he was being stabbed, and she knew he thought she was rejecting him.

  But still he spoke, the words raw. “Be happy, Lilac.”

  She walked away without a word, and then she was running to Jason, sobbing in his arms. “Are you really going to let him go just like that, Lilac?”

  “How can I…ever be sure…he really…loves me…this time?”

  Jason said quietly, “You know the answer to that. Don’t be like how Nick first was. Too stubborn, too hurt, too blind---I never took you for a coward.”

/>   “I’m…not---”

  “You are if you’re not willing to give him a second chance.” Jason gently released her from his embrace, freeing Lilac even though he remained bound to her. “People make mistakes, Lilac. And Nick’s only human.”

  Be happy, Lilac.

  Oh…Nick.

  What had she done?

  With a sob, she whirled around, her blurry gaze frantically looking for Nick. But she couldn’t see him. She pushed past the crowd of onlookers, fear gripping her heart like a vise. She couldn’t be too late, he couldn’t be---

  “Oh…Nick.”

  Lilac was crying, running to Nick, who had sunk to his knees on the ground.

  His head lifted, and his own hazy gaze mirrored every emotion in her own eyes. He was aghast to see her stumbling, and he rushed towards her, catching her, saving her.

  “Oh…Nick.”

  His hands shook as he wiped the tears away from her exquisite face. “What is it, Lilac?”

  “I. Love. You.” And because there were no more words she could say, Lilac pulled his head down to kiss him, claiming him before the world. Nick Christakos was hers. She wanted him to be hers. Because she loved him.

  His arms went around her, a steely embrace that did not cage but protected, cherishing rather than suffocating. “I love you,” he said harshly before kissing her, claiming her, telling the whole world that she belonged to him, that he loved her.

  Epilogue

  Three Months Later

  “I cannot believe…we’re in Japan!” Lilac squealed the last word out, making Nick laugh as they went past the last of the security checks. She paused, sniffing the air. Oh, dear. Even the smell, feel, sound, and sight of Narita Airport – it was all very…Japanese.

  She looked up at him, doll eyes shining. “Thank you…for this.”

  He sighed, a resigned look falling on his gorgeous face. He really was, she thought giddily, very, very beautiful. And still so perfectly put together, just like a hero straight from the pages of a romance novel. Black-yellow striped scarf, dark gray parka, and the sexiest pair of jeans she had ever seen. Or at least it looked like that for Lilac – everything Nick Christakos wore was sexy.