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“Stop making empty promises!”
Barbara freezes at the top of the stairs. Her grip around the railing tightens. She turns around. “What?”
“Stop making promises you don’t intend to keep.” Nomura steps up on the bottom-most stair. Her gaze pierces Barbara. “A moment ago, when you promised me this is the end of the insanity you’ve stubbornly persisted with the past couple weeks, did you mean it? Or did you merely mean to pacify me so I’d drop the subject?”
“Nomura—”
“No. Tell me, Barbara. Tell. Me. The. Truth.” Nomura takes a sharp breath. “I don’t want to hear any more of your excuses, your lies.” She advances up the stairs. “I want to know if tomorrow, while I’m at work or you say you are, you’re going to go out again and find a new warlock who’ll agree to attempt to grant your so-called immortality.”
“Nomura.” Barbara purses her lips. “You don’t understand. I’m going to die and then you—Jim—I can’t leave either of you like that. Yes, there’s dangers to the magic, but if one of the methods works, then—”
“And what if it doesn’t?” Nomura snaps. “Yes, you’re going to die eventually, Barbara. But, you could have died tonight! That ritual, did you even think through what was going to happen to you? If I hadn’t arrived to stop the madness? You want to believe it would extend your life to give us more time together. It wouldn’t have. Do you want me to describe your excruciating death to you in detail? If it’ll stop this insanity, I will.” She marches up the steps. “It would have felt like you were burning from the inside out. The very fabric of your being slowly being ripped apart.” Nomura pauses. “And you would have been all alone. The only one to hear you scream a warlock who only cared that you paid him in advance.”
Barbara trembles. “You don’t know that.”
Nomura inhales a deep breath. “I know it could have happened, and that’s enough.” She closes her eyes. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live in fear that, whenever I’m not with you, you’ll try something like this again.” She shudders. “I can’t live with the dread that every time I leave your presence, the next time I’ll see you is when I’m called into the morgue to identify your corpse.” She looks up at Barbara. Her voice softens. “I know your scared. You’ll grow old. I won’t. Jim won’t. You’ll leave us and it’ll hurt us.” She reaches Barbara. “You know what it’s like to be left—abandoned—and you don’t want to do that to anyone, especially your loved ones.” Nomura cups Barbara’s face in her hand. “I need you to understand. I’m begging you to understand. These things that you’ve been attempting. They’re not going to prevent that future. Maybe it wasn’t tonight and maybe it won’t be tomorrow, but one of them will eventually cause your death prematurely.”
“Nomura…”
“And I can’t bear witness anymore.” Nomura drops her hand off Barbara and turns away from her. “So, if tonight wasn’t the last time, it’s over. I’ll collect my things and go. I won’t come back.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I can’t come back.”
“Nomura, please…” There’s a sob in Barbara’s voice that she’s valiantly attempting to fight off. “Don’t leave me,” she whispers.
“I won’t. You have to promise the same.”
“But if I—”
“You’re not old yet.” Nomura gazes back at Barbara sadly. “We could have many happy years together. Just stop trying to steal them away from us. Please.”
“I won’t. I don’t want to.” The sob escapes Barbara then. “I just. I can’t live knowing that one day I’ll—I’ll be gone and you’ll—it’ll be like when—when he—I can’t hurt you like that.”
“You’re already hurting me now.” Nomura wipes the tears from Barbara’s face. “I promise you. If there’s a way to extend your life without risking it, I will help you achieve it. But this isn’t it.” She pulls Barbara in close. “And, even if we never find a way, that will never be the same as what your ex did to you. It’ll hurt because I’ll mourn you, not because you left me. Okay?”
“Okay,” Barbara replies. She presses her forehead against Nomura’s.
They descend to the floor and sit, wrapped in each other’s embrace, for about an hour after that.