Chapter 16
When Alexandria saw that I wasn’t going to do this in front of an audience she spun on her heel and went outside. I followed feeling tired. I would have liked to avoid this, or at least postpone it but Liz had had other ideas.
I noticed that she didn’t have her car when we finally got outside. I wondered why to distract myself. She didn’t need the car but I knew she liked the car just because she could drive fast.
“Care to explain what she was talking about?” Alexandria asked quietly. I risked a look at her and judging by her expression she was barely containing her anger. I tried deciding what I should say and but was unsure. “I take it that your silence means what she said was true? You were looking into what I’m doing? You don’t have the right to know if I don’t want anyone to know,” her voice escalating into a shout.” She sighed and closed her eyes focusing on calming down.
“I’m sorry. I just had a feeling that whatever you were involved in wasn’t good,” I replied. “That one day that your friend Nicole was over I heard some of your conversation. I know there is something you’re keeping from me. You were talking about things I don’t have the right to do? Yeah well, you don’t have the right to keep secrets from me when I’m involved.”
“I am only trying to keep you safe. What does it matter if you don’t have the specifics of everything I’m doing?” she sighed.
“You can’t decide what I know or do not know. If I’m in danger or something I need to know. I need to be prepared.”
“That’s just it! You can’t prepare yourself for this. You’ve never dealt with anything like this. Telling you would only make you worry,” Alexandria snapped. “Out of anyone I should be the one trying to save you. I know the most about this situation you’re in. you can’t do anything to save yourself. You don’t know enough about this to do something helpful.”
“What are you talking about,” I yelled. “I’m sick of all the damn secrets people keep from me. Jeremy kept secrets from me and you saw how that ended up.”
Next thing I knew my back was pressed against the wall of the house. Alexandria’s eyes were very dark, not really purple anymore, mostly black. She had a hand placed on my chest keeping me against the wall. Her canines were elongated, glinting dangerously.
“Are you implying that I’m like Jeremy? That I’ll betray you in the end?” she inquired threateningly. “There’s nothing that I would get out of stabbing you in the back by keeping a secret from you. I can’t believe you would accuse me of something like that.” She stepped back giving me space. The wind blew moving her hair into her eyes but she didn’t care to fix it. I could have sworn I saw hurt flash through her eyes.
“Of course not, I’m just saying me getting hurt in the process of keeping things from me to keep me safe may not be your intention,” I blurted out before I realized that wasn’t wise. But my anger was quickly overpowering my logic. “Nicole doesn’t seem like she thinks keeping things from me is a good idea, neither does Gabriel.”
Alexandria looked up sharply, her eyes narrowed. “When did you talk to Gabriel?” she inquired but she seemed to make the connections quickly. “You went to see him that night that I picked you up and drove you back here. How did you…Erik….he helped you spy on me with magic?” she spat out the word as if it disgusted her. “Unbelievable. If you don’t trust me this much then why did you still want to be with me?”
“I do trust you I just-” I began.
“You just what, want to know about every little thing I do? You want to know what I’m doing and where I am at every moment of every day?” she cut in. “They have a word to describe that, a few actually, like demanding, controlling, possessive, that your pick.”
“We can work through this; we just have to get past this problem.”
“That’s where I think you’re wrong,” she replied softly. “The problem isn’t me keeping one secret, it never really was. There are bigger, underlying problems that prevent this, us, from ever really working.”
She shook her head and I knew what she was going to say but I couldn’t say anything to stop her. I was still going to try though. I walked towards her and she tensed. I went to grab her hand but she moved it away.
I took a deep breath. “We can fix it, I know we can.”
“You’re delusional. I know what’s wrong here and you do too. You just can’t admit it to yourself. So, I’ll do it for you.” She had been avoiding my eyes but now she was meeting my eyes. “This relationship was doomed from the start; I’m not part of your world. You should stick to dating humans.”
“W-what are you saying?” I stammered.
Alexandria frowned and was about to answer when Gabriel appeared beside her. He ran a hand through his windswept hair and smirked at me before turning to Alexandria. He was wearing black jeans and a black sweater and I couldn’t help but wonder what he was up to.
“We should get going,” he told Alexandria quietly. Alexandria nodded but rolled her eyes at him. I noticed her eyes lightened up and now looked purple, even if her eyes were still dark. I could help the jealousy that swelled up as I tried to figure out what about Gabriel made her loosen up and relax.
“You have horrible timing. I’m almost done here.” I didn’t like how she said that. It seemed to final. As if I wouldn’t see her again, ever. I hated the fact that Gabriel had to show up. I hated feeling pathetic in front of others. “I’ll meet you there,” she said.
Gabriel laughed. “Alright, but don’t make me wait too long. You do have a problem of never getting anywhere on time, even when it’s important.”
The corners of Alexandria’s lips lifted up and she tilted her head as she regarded Gabriel. Gabriel eventually caught on to the fact that she and I both wanted him to leave and he nodded. When he looked at me that irritating smirk resurfaced. Then he was gone.
“So what are you and him doing after?” I asked feeling pissed off.
She raised an eyebrow. “None of your business,” she answered. “Anyways I was going to saw that we’re over.” she rushed the last few words but not to the point that they were incoherent.
“Just like that,” I whispered. “I don’t think we should just give up this easily.” I didn’t understand how I had gotten from spending the night with her and feeling happy and content to watching everything crash and burn.
“I think a clean break is best,” Alexandria stated. “You should just accept it. It’s not a bad thing that it didn’t work out, at least we tried. Unfortunately it just was never meant to be.” She took a few steps back.
“Don’t go,” I said.
“I have to, Gabriel is waiting for me. Plus, clean break remember?”
Just like that my anger appeared again. “Oh yeah, don’t want to keep him waiting, it’ll drastically hurt your chances of getting back together with your ex,” I replied bitterly.
“Damien,” she said softly before walking towards me.
“No,” I shook my head. “Stay back, clean break, remember,” I threw her words back at her. “I don’t want to see you again. I think I might just go back home, our paths will probably never cross again, even if we’re in the same city.”
“Actually I’m not going back. A few people I know are going to British Columbia, I’m going with them,” Alexandria explained. “There’s nothing for me back there. Not to mention I do move around a lot and its way past when I would have changed scenery. So I guess you’re right, we’ll never see each other”
My mind annoyingly decided to bring up thoughts that even if we did meet again we would never be the same. I would be older, yet Alexandria would be exactly the same. Her hairstyle may be different and her clothes might be updated but her face would be untouched by age and her body was unchangeable by the years it’ll endure.
I would likely recognize her right away but would Alexandria even notice who I used to be when present with an older version of me? Probably not. I guess our relationship always had issues; I just refused to see them.
“What friends? Gabriel?” I laughed humorlessly. Alexandria’s face fell and she looked like she pitied me. She didn’t answer. “That answers my question,” I sighed. “I really hate you right now,” I informed her trying to get some kind of reaction from her. I knew I was being mean but she brought this on us in the first place. Alexandria flinched.
“Good bye, Damien,” she murmured. Then she too disappeared. I didn’t move for quite some time, I only tried to get use to the feeling of not being able to breathe normally.
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I feel really bad right now about Damien and Alexandria. she didn't even tell him the secret she's keeping, least she could do after hurting him so much.
I wrote this chapter because mid terms are coming up and i'll likely not have time to write, if i'm smart i'll be studying (not procrastinating) but we'll see. if i don't end up writing a chapter in the weeks that i'm supposed to be studying (otherwise know as procrastinating) i'll write one after my last exam. which is around the last week of october. a long time yes i know but there's nothing i can do.