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You looked at her, surrounded by well-wishers, side by side with her newly-announced fiancé. By your side, Vlad leaned against the wall, his eyes on the tall frame of the principal as well. He was the one that broke the comfortable silence.
– She looks so happy.
– No, she doesn't.
– What are you on about, look at her smiling away and showing off her ring.
– It's a fake smile. Obviously.
– What do you even mean?
– How is it possible that you don't see it? Look at her eyes. When she's really smiling, her eyes crinkle up, and her nose scrunches up a little and you can almost feel the joy coming off of her. There's nothing of that sort now. She looks...hollow.
– Are you sure you're not an empath?
– Don't be a dick now, Vlad. You know perfectly well I am a no-show, the only normie in a family of outcasts. The only reason why they let me here at Nevermore is because of family traditions. And I managed to snag the history teaching position pretty soon after I finished uni, luckily, so I came back.
– You might be a late bloomer.
– Or I might actually be able to see what's plainly in front of my eyes. Whatever the reason she's doing it, it's not because it makes her happy.
– Okay, maybe you are not an empath, maybe you are just obsessed with your boss.
– I...am not! I look up to her, that's all.
– Darling, we all look up to her, the woman is like six foot something. But when you do look at her, your eyes are basically heart shaped. Now that is plain for everyone to see.
– Fat lot of good it does now, doesn't it? She’s going to get married soon anyway. It’s not like I’m going to confess to her on her wedding day.
*
You closed the door behind you, letting your eyes travel over her.
– You look...beautiful, – you murmured, hating how your voice broke a little while saying it.
She really did look glorious, her wedding gown hugging her frame, leaving her creamy shoulders bare, her collarbones decorated by a simple necklace. Her hair was coiffed in a similar updo to the one she usually wore, enriched by the lace veil cascading down her back from where it was pinned to the back of her head. Beautiful didn’t even start to describe Larissa Weems on her wedding day.
And then she looked up at you from her sitting position and your breath caught in your throat at how her splendid blue eyes were bright with unshed tears.
Not the tears of nervous happiness one could expect of a bride about to get married: those were tears of heartbreak. Without thinking, you rushed by her side, kneeling beside her chair, your hand finding hers and curling around it. It was cold like a corpse's.
– You don't love him.
It wasn't really a question, but she still shook her head, mutely.
– And I bet he doesn't love you either, does he?
She shook her head again, pressing her lips together, as if to prevent herself from talking.
– Then why are you doing this?
As the first tears broke the barrier of her lids and started rolling down her face, she looked away, unable or unwilling to answer.
Resignation.
– Larissa, there's always other possibilities. You don't have to.
– It's for the good of the school. – she whispered, brokenly.
– But what about your happiness? Do you really want to be stuck in a loveless marriage of convenience?
Something must have struck a nerve, because she bristled at this, hurt and anger and frustration mingling in her tone: – I'm doing this to protect my Nevermore family. And that includes you.
– Don't you dare tell me you are marrying him because of me. I'm sure there are other ways to solve this issue. Ways that don't condemn you to a life of regret.
– Why do you even care?
– I love you.
The words were out before you realized it, but even if you could, you wouldn't take them back. She needed to know.
Her eyes snapped back to you, wide open, as she pressed her hand to her mouth. The tears kept streaming down her cheeks. In the silent room, you could hear the muffled sob that she was trying to hide.
– I cannot bear to watch you marry him seeing how unhappy it makes you.
Her hand left her face, coming down to grip yours in a bruising hold. You could see her lips quivering as she struggled for words.
– I wish I had known...I couldn't dare to hope...
– Hope for what?
– My feelings to be returned.
Her voice was the faintest of whispers, but it struck you with the force of a thunderclap. You were still reeling from it when her lips were on yours, soft as you had always imagined them, but almost timid in their movements against your mouth. You kissed back, your tongue running against her mouth, tasting the saltiness of her tears before she allowed you entry, her hand coming up to cradle the back of your head, pulling you in even more, her movements now almost desperate. As if she wanted to commit the sensation to memory.
You pulled away slightly, whispering against her lips, in a prayer: – Don't marry him. Let's go back to Nevermore, regroup there. We'll find another way. We can make it work.
Her hand fell away from your nape, and she straightened up, putting distance between the two of you. You could see the pain, raw on your face, and you knew what she was about to say before her lips moved.
– I... We can't, I’m sorry. I…
Screams coming from the assembled people outside interrupted whatever else she had been about to say, but her answer had been clear already. She would choose unhappiness with someone else, even if she returned your feelings. You had lost your only chance.
You could feel your heart breaking all over again, even harder now that you'd allowed yourself to hope for a handful of seconds, for the time of a kiss. You stood up, feeling unbalanced on your own two feet.
The terrified screams weren't stopping, echoing the despair you were feeling.
Larissa went to the window, trying without much success to understand what was going on, leaving you with your pain. As she made to move towards the door, you stopped her with a hand on her arm.
– Wait here, I'll go check. Wouldn't want your future husband to see you before the ceremony, right? That would be bad luck. – You didn’t feel guilty at the bitterness in your tone, but it pained you to see her physically recoil hearing it, as if stung.
You opened the door, eyes scanning the garden where the wedding was supposed to take place. You had left it an idyllic set-up of white flowers and chatting guests with soothing live music coming from a string quartet in the far-out corner, and in the small lapse of time you had spent indoors, it had turned into chaos. The chairs had been thrown each and every way, there were people running and screaming, the decorations flung on the floor, or hanging sideways from their original places. Where the band once stood, dark, acrid smoke was rising, tainting the clear morning air. And in the middle of it all, a horribly familiar, bulbous shape, flinging its claws around.
– Well, it seems that young Mr. Galpin has heard of his father remarrying and he’s not happy about it.
– WHAT?
– You stay here, Larissa. Stay safe. I’ll go help out.
You had learned your lesson from last year’s near-disaster. That morning you had thought about leaving your trusted taser gun home (who brings one to a wedding?), but you had felt naked without its comforting weight in your pocket and had decided to hold onto it.
You made your way towards the beast, weaving your way through fleeing people, upturned chairs and fallen debris. The smoke stung your eyes, but you could still clearly see the groom-to-be trying to talk to the Hyde while still aiming his gun at the beast. You couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the Hyde was slowly getting closer to him, leaving a trace of destruction, forcing the sheriff to scramble back, behind the altar. Luckily this allowed you to arrive close enough to the both of them without the Hyde noticing you. Quickly, you took the safety away from your stun gun, and fired it to its muscular back, hoping it would spasm and lock up, incapacitating your enemy.
You weren’t so lucky.
It looked like the shock hadn’t affected the monster in the least, except for making it even angrier, and alerting it to your presence. It turned towards you, its horrifying face contorted into a growl, its arm tangling up in the thin metal wires that connected the darts to your gun. You held onto your weapon, delivering another shock: it seemed to at least cause the beast more pain than it did the first time, if the loud yelp that left its mouth was any indication. However, its flailing movements to get rid of the darts caused it to yank with inhuman strength on the cables, sending you careening through the small distance that separated you, and crashing against the monster’s chest, smacking your heads together.
It felt like hitting a brick wall. Pain bloomed in your forehead, and your vision swam, tunneling on the bulbous, horrible eyes in front of you. Everything felt like it was running in slow motion. For an interminable second, both you and the monster reeled from the hit, unable to make sense of what had just happened, and looking at each other in the eyes unblinkingly like a pair of lovestruck teenagers. Then the Hyde roared in your face, and as its fetid breath hit your face, you felt a pang of sorrow at the thought that its fangs would probably be the last thing you’d see in this life.
You blinked.
The gunshot rang in the suddenly silent garden. Was it silent? It felt silent, but you thought you could still hear some far away screaming. It almost felt like it was your name being called. How ridiculous. Why would anyone scream your name? You turned towards the sound, seeing Larissa, still clad in her wedding gown, a firearm clutched into her shaking hands.
Even then, she looked beautiful. How was that even possible?, you asked yourself as the Hyde collapsed on its shattered knee, taking you down with it. You fell on top of him as he slowly returned to his human form, unconscious due to the pain. The horribly disfigured face morphed back to the well-known one of young Tyler, who had prepared your coffee for years before trying to kill you and all of your students. Even seeing the change first-hand it was still difficult to think he and the beast were inhabiting the same body. You kept staring as the bulbous, grey skin turned back to its human, supple state, the muscles shrank, and the claws retracted back into his fingertips, pulling out from where they were plunged into your abdomen.
Oh.
You rolled on the side, looking at the puncture wounds in a sort of dream-like, detached way. The blood was only now welling up, soaking through your shirt, red blooming bright on the light cloth like a giant flower.
You heard your name again, this time as if coming from even further away. Hands were grabbing your shoulders, and you slowly looked up into Larissa’s beautiful eyes. Her lips were moving, but no sound was reaching your ears. How weird. Your lids were growing heavier, but you fought against it. You wanted to keep looking at her - she was so beautiful, even with tears once again streaming down her face. You were lucky that your feelings were returned, even if she was about to marry someone else. To have any place in the heart of such a woman was already a blessing.
You raised a hand to her cheek, to wipe away her tears, but each movement felt as if you were struggling against quicksand. You only managed to brush against her skin before your arm fell limply back to your side . She was now pressing both of her hands on your abdomen, your blood painting a stark contrast on the immaculate white of her wedding gown. It would take a lot of effort to take out the stain you thought. Was that the reason for the desperation on her face as she looked at you?
Even with that, her face is a much better last thing to see, you thought as you slipped into darkness.
*
Maybe it would have been better to stay dead. Or whatever you had been, you mused, as you unhappily focused your bleary eyes on the scene in front of you. Or perhaps you had died and for all of your not believing in it, you had ended up in hell itself. Probably kissing a soon-to-be-bride and trying to convince her to ditch her fiancé on the altar was some sort of sin. That would explain your own damnation.
You blinked, hoping the scene would change somehow, but it was still the same: you were lying on a bed, in an unfamiliar, too-white room. The sun was streaming in from the window to the side, illuminating a collection of flower vases on the rickety table in front of it. And near the foot of your bed, impossible not to see, a tall figure who couldn’t be anyone else but the last woman you had seen, the woman that still had your heart, whether you were actually dead or still in the realm of the living. Larissa.
Larissa, her shoulder shaking, her face hidden from view, wrapped as she was into the comforting hug of a grave-faced Sheriff Galpin. Her fiancé. Maybe her husband, now. Your heart hurt as if it was still alive, but that was probably your personal torment in hell: being forced to watch them for all of eternity. Unable to look away, unable to reach out. You had never cared for the salvation of your soul until now.
You wondered if you could close your eyes, and were surprised to find out that you could. As darkness enveloped you once again, you hoped never to see the light again.
But you did, and this time the scene had changed. Larissa was alone, sitting on a chair beside your bed. As if through a dream, you could feel the warmth of her hand on yours, and you could smell her perfume hanging in the air around you. You studied her, wondering what today’s torment would be. She was beautiful, as always, even if her face was tired, her eyes listless as they stared at your joined hands.
Maybe…maybe this wasn’t hell after all.
You tried hard to command your hand to slightly squeeze hers, to get her attention, to show both her and yourself that you were awake, that you were alive. It felt like you were trying to move a boulder with your thoughts alone. You tried again and again, straining against the block inside your head. As you were almost about to give up, you felt the tiniest twitch of your fingers, and you thought you felt a soft gasp coming from her lips, but your vision had already turned black once again.
*
Day after day, you would wake up, and always find Larissa by your side, be it night or day, typing away at her laptop, lost in thought, or asleep. Sometimes Sheriff Galpin would be there too, talking to her in hushed tones, or reading the paper in the other chair. You pretended to be asleep when he was there, trying to ignore the tightening of your chest at the two of them together.
You did spend a lot of time sleeping, anyways. Each small movement was a struggle that wiped you out. It took what felt like ages to be able to talk, and even then the first time you had barely managed to croak out a broken Hi and you had seen Larissa’s eyes fill with tears as she smiled at you. You had looked away, unwilling to see the pity you were sure to find there. You felt so useless.
*
– How long…was I out for?
Your voice still had a raspy, weird quality to it, but you were now able to have small conversations, that made you feel somewhat more human.
– It’s been five weeks as of yesterday. – You could see she was trying to act nonchalant about it, probably to avoid upsetting you.
– …Damn. – You managed to choke out. Whatever you had expected, that was not it. Had it really been that long? Five weeks was a long time to be stuck in a hospital. In five weeks a lot could change, especially in a place such as Nevermore. And how much longer would it take for you to go back to your life? If that was even in the cards? Would you be able to talk long enough to teach? To go through a day without sleeping for most of it?
– Quite. – You counted the small upturn of Larissa’s mouth at your eloquent assessment of the situation as a victory. She looked like she hadn’t had a lot of reasons to smile in the last period. She looked gaunt, tired. Having to be here by your side on top of everything else was probably putting a strain on her.
– I’m sorry.
– What for?
– For all the trouble. Having your wedding ruined, and having to care for sick teacher on top of finding a substitute… I’m sorry to have piled more stress on you.
– You must be joking. That was the least of my problems. When I saw you there, all covered in blood I thought… God, I thought… – she passed a hand on her face, as if afraid to finish her sentence. You took pity on her and spoke the words she didn’t want to.
– You thought I was dying.
– Yes. And I wouldn’t have been able to forgive me if you did. You…
– I was stupid. I was trying to help, and made… a bigger mess, as always. – You shrugged in a self-deprecating manner. Why on Earth you thought that a taser gun would work against a Hyde, one of the most dangerous outcast types known to humankind, was still a mystery. Such an idiot. And your idiocy almost costed you your life.
– Don’t you dare to say that! – She grabbed your hand, her eyes piercing yours with an intensity you had never seen in those beautiful blue gems. – If it hadn’t been for you, Donovan and possibly other people would probably be dead. What you did was heroic.
Of course she was grateful to you for saving the sheriff’s life. The man she had chosen even if she wasn’t in love with him. Was this something else that had changed in these five weeks? Had the dramatic experience brought the two closer together? Maybe they had developed those feelings that were missing from their relationship. Maybe having you out of the picture had given Larissa the peace of mind to move on.
Like you would have to do, eventually. No matter how painful it was, she would never be anything more than your boss and possibly a friend to you. Close, but always out of reach. You tried to change the subject, swallowing around the knot in your throat, and pretending that your difficulty with talking came from your accident and not from the gaping hole in your chest where your heart once was.
– Well, I guess…congratulations are in order, right?
– What do you mean?
– The wedding. I’m guessing you two… tied the knot as I was out of it. Hopefully it was… less eventful than the last time, eh, Mrs. Galpin?
It hurt. It hurt to call her that, it hurt to think of how she had clung to the sheriff’s smaller frame the first time you had woken up. It hurt just to think of them together, Jericho’s most recent couple, bound in a marriage of convenience.
– No, there…there was no marriage. We called it off.
– Oh. I see. I’ll try …not to die the next time then. Since you… waited for me to wake back up and all. – Your joke fell flat, as you imagined what a torture it would be to once again see Larissa in a wedding dress, to see her walk down the aisle, exchange her vows, and see her kiss her groom knowing how those lips had felt on yours in that one stolen kiss.
– There will be no next time. Donovan and I - we had a lot of time to talk through things. We decided this would make us both miserable. We, we broke the engagement.
– …
Try as you might, you couldn’t find anything to answer to that. You were fighting too hard to squash the sudden hope that had blossomed in your chest at that announcement. That didn’t mean anything, you tried to tell yourself. It didn’t have anything to do with you, or the kiss you had shared. She had probably just realized how dull living with Sheriff Galpin would be, or something like that.
– Aren’t you going to say anything? – Were you imagining it or had Larissa’s face just dropped slightly, were you imagining it or was there disappointment tinging her tone?
– I…I’m not sure what you want me…to say, Larissa.
She bit her lip, and lowered her eyes to where her hand was still holding yours over the hospital bedsheet. When she spoke, her voice was soft and so warm with feeling it almost took your breath away.
– When you were bleeding out, all I could think of was that I had just found the love of my life, and I had been so bloody stupid to let you go. Please, give me one chance, I prayed. I don’t even believe in a higher Being, but I was praying all the time you were unconscious. Once chance and I am going to do my best to cherish the fact that my feelings are returned. –
She snapped her eyes back to meet yours, and if her voice was full of feelings, it was nothing compared to what her eyes were showing you: – I love you. I have been for quite some time, and yet struggled with accepting it. But now I do, and I realized that no matter what my head was trying to do, my heart already belonged to you. And it is yours if…if you’d like it.
You squeezed her hand and held her gaze, trying to put into words how her words had made your heart whole again, how full and how happy your chest felt now. How hope and love were now vibrating in the air around you, composing a symphony that no human ear could ever comprehend.
In the end the only words you could squeeze out were: – I’d…love to.
But it seemed that she had understood all the other words you hadn’t said, because she squeezed your hand as well, leaning towards you until your lips met into a kiss full of promises and reciprocal love.