Lessons Learned

Part 5

I quickly called Zayn, bringing the ringing phone to my ear as the Liam boy stared at me.

"Vas happenin Liam? Is she awake yet?"

"Hi Zayn."

"Annabelle?" Confusion coated Zayn's voice. "What are you doing?"

"Am I the first non-Nephilim to ever call you?"

"Well yeah."

I beamed at his answer. I liked that I was making this whole 'limbo' thing different for everybody. "I just wanted to say sorry for the things I yelled at you before I left. I didn't mean any of them."

"The why did you say them?"

I didn't know how to put it into words. It wasn't something you could describe to other people, unless they had experienced it themselves. "There's a voice in my head, constantly telling me I'm not good enough. And sometimes it just comes out. I can't control it. Everything just becomes too much and I feel like shit and I just don't want to live anymore. It was the worst on the day I killed myself. It encouraged me to go on with it, to move on to somewhere better."

"It's wrong you know. You aren't worthless. You are amazing."

"Thanks Zayn," I whispered. "Thanks for everything." I pressed end on the call and silently handed the phone back to Liam.

He took it and slipped it into his pocket, his deep brown eyes staring straight into my soul. I broke our eye contact, deciding instead to focus my attention on our surroundings. We were standing on a brick patio next to a pool. There was a large house behind us and somewhere in the distance I could hear the crashing of waves on a shore.

"Where's the limit?"

Liam didn't seem to understand my question so I rephrased it. "Where can I go without imploding?"

"Oh," his face lit up with recognition. "Pool and patio only, sorry."

"Fine," I walked over and sat at the edge of the pool, dangling my feet in the crystal clear water. It was a gorgeous day out and the sun felt nice on my face. "Can I get a tan in the limbo?"

Liam shrugged as he made himself comfortable at my side. I tried not to focus too much on his bare chest, but his six pack was a little distracting. He was absolutely gorgeous in a way that was less obvious than Zayn. But without a doubt he and Zayn were the two most attractive people I had ever seen.

"Figures," I muttered. "All the hot boys exist in a weird limbo world that is not quite death and not quite life. What kind of sick joke is that?"

"Hey," Liam protested. "We were this attractive once in real life too. Being a Nephilim doesn't make you fit."

"The girls must have gone wild for you," my attempts to stop eyeing his body were proving futile. "Especially when you took your shirt off."

Liam blushed a little but I could tell from his satisfied smile that he had worked hard to look as good as he did. "We did pretty well with the ladies back in the day."

I kicked my feet through the water, sending a spray of drops dancing across the cloudless sky. "So, you gonna teach me a lesson or not?"

"Well I thought we could talk first if that's all right with you."

"Talk? About what?"

"You and what lead to your," he looked a little uncomfortable as he searched for a word that would insult me, "reason for being here."

"You want to know why I killed myself."

"Pretty much, yeah."

I eyed him suspicious, "What are you like a shrink or something?"