WUTHERING NIGHTS: A Wuthering Heights Teen Fan Fiction

WUTHERING NIGHTS (chapter twenty-two: Reunion)

       As I approached the house, Hareton Hall was lit up like a Christmas tree. I felt a pang of…envy, jealousy as if I didn’t know how I’d react if I saw you. Kate, for the first time in my life, after what had just happened, I didn’t trust myself around you. I was determined to demand your whereabouts from Harrison if you had been, as I believed you were…sent back to Switzerland. I’d already contacted the school after I returned to our empty bedsit, but they gave me nothing, because they weren’t allowed to tell me anything. Then they suggested you might be at The Hall. I thought maybe Annabelle had told someone… that we planned to run away together…’

   ‘No,’ Kate said, ‘she was loyal to us both…’

   Heath continued…

   ‘When I finally saw the inside of that house, through the big lower floor bay window where you always used to sit and read, I saw Hunt’s face, and Annabelle’s, laughing. There was a puppy in your arms and you looked happy. Harrison and Frances seemed so… self-satisfied on the couch. Harrison was playing the “good husband” and talking amiably to Frances. I could hardly contain my…rage when I saw your beautiful, smiling face in the corner room looking outside.’

    ‘I was looking…for you.’

    ‘Well…I’m glad you didn’t see me.’ Heath said resignedly.

    ‘I’m not glad.’

    ‘When I saw Hunt come over and hand you a gift, something inside me, changed.’

    ‘It was Christmas…tradition…’

    ‘I gathered that. But it was unbearable to me. He…kissed you.’

    ‘The party was celebrating my recovery. I could hardly walk after the ski trip. I’d been in a coma and I’d woken up…and you had been missing for so long.’

    ‘I know. But the gloating look on Harrison’s face and Hunt’s obvious attraction to you, made me angry. I felt like… killing him... You kissed him back, Kate…’

    ‘I was acting. I had no choice.’

   ‘I think you were happy with them… with the security Hunt provided for you in that moment …like that. It seemed to be what you had always wanted.’

   There was a long silence that hung between them like ice.

    ‘I vowed revenge.’

     Kate nodded slowly.

    ‘I have since thought… I may have been…partly…responsible. Heath, I called everywhere asking for you prior to the day of my marriage.’

    ‘I was… not fit for company after that moment. I stayed watching you in the shadows, my anger slowly submerged into whatever is left of my soul, along with the happiness on your face.’

   ‘Like I said, I was pretending. You must have turned away before Hunt carried me to the dining room table. But if you hadn’t, you may have realised why I couldn’t walk there myself. My foot was bandaged. It had nothing to do with love.’

     Heath said, ‘I thought you had made your choice.’

    ‘Never, I spent days in the bedsit crying over you before Greta came and found me. I was whisked away to Switzerland that weekend, it’s true. But I planned to find you the moment I could walk again.’

     Kate looked down at her muddy boots. The horses, sheltered, were ready to move again.

     Kate stood up.

     Heath grabbed hold of her wrist.

    ‘Leave him. I cannot be without you.’

    ‘Nor I you,’ Kate said. ‘But I have made a promise and I cannot just walk out on that promise. Not right now.’

     ‘What about your promise to me?’

     ‘You left me. I can’t just…abandon the family who have been good to me.’ She paused, ‘Please, will you come to dinner tonight? We can talk after Hunt has gone to bed. He knows I think of you … fondly.’

    Heath laughed.

   ‘Hunt will do anything, at the moment, to please me.’

   ‘Anything? Why?’

    He looked at Kate’s face.

    Kate blinked and sat down.

   ‘I must have stood up too quickly,’ she said.

     He studied her more closely, blood rising in her cheeks. He’d seen this look before. A girl he’d hung out with in New York, a waitress who became a friend and worked in one of the clubs where he’d played had been dating a guitarist. After they left the club they got married and she had a child six months later. 

      Perhaps Heath knew Kate so well he knew before she did.  She reached out her hand to him and pulled him close to her. His hearing had become extremely good since he’d turned. It was one of the advantages of becoming immortal. He sunk to his knees and pressed his head into her chest. He could hear conversations through walls so why not babies through skin? The two heartbeats pounded his ear as she slumped into him - Kate’s and the heartbeat of her unborn child. He felt sick to his stomach and twice as betrayed as she attempted to take his hand.

     ‘Please, come to dinner at The Grange. I have to see you again and I can’t put off the dinner party I promised Annabelle we’d have. She will be thrilled that you are to be the guest of honour.’

     He flinched and moved away from Kate as she moved closer.

    ‘Annabelle? Is she still living here?’

    ‘Yes, The Grange is half hers, Heath.’

    ‘Oh,’ Heath said, disinterestedly.

    ‘She’s finished her Art Course and has her first commission to paint some houses in this borough. She’s staying with us for a few months.’ Kate added.

    Heath backed away from the woman he loved more than himself, with a blank expression. He wasn’t ready to give her up.

    ‘I’ll be over in the car at about eight,’ he said dispassionately. ‘After all, Hunt should meet his new neighbour.’