Haeven

Chapter 13

We slowly walked away from the theater and I was indeed thankful for the tissues. The final act echoed in my mind and I choked up more than once while we made our way down the sidewalk back towards the car.

Herrik had his hands thrust in his pockets and stared straight ahead as we moved along. "Are you disappointed?" he asked and I couldn't help thinking he was reluctant to hear my thoughts.

"I'm not sure if disappointed is the right word. It was beautiful...and thought-provoking. I can't imagine what she must have felt – living with all that uncertainty; her heart broken and with a child to raise. I wasn't prepared for the way it ended and..." I sniffled, "maybe I'm just a little disillusioned." Then I added with a touch of humor, "All the stories I've read have had such happy endings!" I started to smile but when I glanced up and saw Herrik's reaction my heart sank. He looked so...so...remorseful.

"It was a far better representation of life than most stories are, Emily. Things seldom end as well in fact as they do in fiction."

There was something in his voice that made me wonder if there was another reason Herrik had brought me to the opera that night; if there was some meaning he wanted me to discover and take away from it all. Before I fully considered it I blurted out, "What kind of man would..." and suddenly my thoughts returned to a night I had nearly forgotten. I remembered Herrik telling me about his wife; that he didn't love her. He confessed how he had cheated on her and in doing so became what he was. It ruined not only his own life but hers and their son's and countless others as well.

I stopped and reached out to force him to face me. "Is that how you see yourself, Herrik? Is that who you think you are; how you think I see you? How could you even imagine such a thing? You are nothing like that man!"

He met my eye for a moment then anxiously looked away, "I need to get you home, Emily."

I knew he wouldn't accept what I said and that he still hadn't forgiven himself for all that he had done. A flood of determination ran through me. I needed him to understand, I wanted to understand but he began leading us towards the car again. It made me so angry, it felt so dismissive and I berated him with a series of questions.

"This was our last night together wasn't it? You're not planning on taking me out any more? Why?" my words hung in the silence between us. I thought I knew the answers but had to hear them from Herrik in order for them to hold any truth.

"You've grown so much, Emily, since you came to us. Artur and Avery and Penny have molded you into such an exceptional young woman. You are beautiful and smart and sophisticated; so polished and so...alive...in here," Herrik laid his hand over my heart, "and here," he kissed my forehead. Seeing how much the opera meant to you...watching your emotions so raw and so beautiful as they washed over you! I suspected...and now I'm certain...I'm falling in love with you Emily...and I can't let that happen! Our worlds are as different as the two people's you saw tonight and there is no way it will end other than badly for us...for you especially."

Herrik started walking again and I hung back a few feet before I reluctantly began to follow.

He astonished me. I had always loved Herrik but I thought it was the kind of love that came from knowing one another so long; from being close and having so much in common. I never suspected that he loved me back or that it was anything more than a strong, mutual admiration. Something was nagging at me, though, telling me that I was wrong. I realized I deliberately clung to the idea that my feelings were nothing more than friendly so I wouldn't have to face the fact that he didn't love me.

"But he does!"

My blood stirred with the sudden awareness. It was a very strange sensation. Somehow it remembered him, was a part of him and his bloods was a part of me and those parts were longing to be reunited. It was all I could think about; how much I loved him and I knew I would never be able to stop. No matter what he did to me that part of me, the part of me that was also Herrik, would always remember. Herrik paused long enough for me to catch up and stood with his back to me.