Second Fate

22

"Why can't you see how this plays out?", he threw at me in frustration.

"Because you've protected me just fine until now!"

"Nina, I won't be able to be around 24/7. I can't protect you from them every second of the day."

"Then I'll learn how to fight and to protect myself", I shot back irritated. I'd never intended to stand by his side like a doll and make him take the punches for me.

Vine didn't budge in the slightest. "Doesn't matter. Sooner or later, they'll find an opening, and they're going to kill you. But if you're not with me, then they'll have no reason to come after you. You can live a full, long life without having to look over your shoulder all the time."

The astonishment was taking over as I understood that he was intending to let Meredith Montgomery win.

"So, you want to give up and just do whatever they want? Be their scapegoat?"

"If that's what it takes", he said so sternly, that I was rendered speechless. He was, in fact, prepared to be Meredith's punching bag for as long as she lived if that meant he wouldn't endanger anyone else.

"I don't want to be the reason for that, Vine."

He looked me straight in the eye, his jaw tensed up. "But do you want to live?"

"What? That's beside the point."

"Answer my question."

"Of course I do", I said begrudgingly. I knew he was going to make some strange point out of this.

And really, he said: "Then don't fight me on this and don't make it harder than it has to be. Allow me to end this before you get hurt again, or worse."

I felt a burning clump form in my battered throat and swallowed. I wasn't one to cry in front of people who were giving me the break-up speech. But this was different; it felt less like a separation and more like giving up.

He didn't want to let us go; I didn't believe that for even a second. But Vine was throwing his chances at happiness away because he couldn't bear the thought of living through another tragedy.

For a torturingly long moment, neither of us was speaking. My whole body felt numb and cold and I wanted to wrap my arms around him so he'd be forced to stay. But I remained standing uncomfortably far from Vine in this clinically sterile room, while he kept staring through me.

"Listen closely, Nina: No matter what you or I do to make it work, this isn't going to make me happy", he said, and that simple statement took all the words from me which I'd planned to convince him with.

Instead, the question he'd given me on that day in the forest resonated in my head: Are you happy?

And while I heard him repeat those words over and over in my memory, I watched the current Vine hang his head and leave.

*

Word of how things were between Vine and me must've gotten out, because on the day of my discharge, Cara showed up with a warm smile and absolutely no questions about what had occurred. Vine, his name and the events after the club night were treated by her like a taboo zone, and I didn't mind it. It gave me the chance to focus on something other than the cycle of self-destructive thoughts: Had I done something different, would he have had more faith in us? Was the fate bond one-sided?

Because no matter how long I'd thrown myself from one side to the other at night, I couldn't understand how he could leave us behind if he felt the bond like I did. There was no doubt in my mind that I would think of him every day for the rest of my life; he'd be in what was missing from other people's touches and what I couldn't find in their company.

And the longer I thought about his decision to abandon us, the angrier I got. He wasn't the only one being denied fulfilment if we let this go.

"... and they followed us from the club all the way to my apartment", I rambled on, while my hands were busy folding the snail pajama. "How did they even know we'd be there? And weren't the hunters on their tracks?"

Cara stared at me like I'd just told her I'd be flying into space. "You went where?"

"We went dancing", I repeated in confusion. "That's not what's strange about this. Vine is 26, not 60."

Her bright eyes darted through the room, looking for invisible spies, before she replied in a quieter voice. "That's not what is strange. It's just that people ... like us ... we smell and hear better than humans. Which means that a club is the last place most of us want to be at."

"It stinks, and it's loud as hell." Suddenly everything made sense; Vine's unwillingness to go inside the venue and his subdued enthusiasm throughout the night. Even though I was burning-with-hellfire mad at him, I felt a pang of guilt. "Why didn't he say anything?"

"Maybe he didn't want you to worry. He probably wanted to experience what you do at night without you holding back."

My dark eyebrows shot up. "Me? Worry?"

"You act as if you don't care – but we all know you do, Nina."

Now Cara had accomplished something rare: I was turning red.

"Whatever", I said, entirely thrown off my balance. "It doesn't matter anymore."

Those few words of mine managed to shut down the conversation between us and for a couple of minutes, we were packing and getting me ready to discharge in silence. When I came back from the bathroom, where I'd grabbed my toothbrush, Cara was picking something up from the floor.

"Did I forget something?"

"Oh no, someone left his jacket on the drawers and ... I didn't want to spy but it fell out." She was turning a sheet of white paper in her hands. At second glance, I could see that it was actually an envelope. "Did you write Vine a letter, Nina?"

My lips had already gone in position to say a hearty No when I remembered the only visitor whom I'd had.

"Give it to me."

She followed my command but raised one of her wheat-blond eyebrows. "Is it important?"

"I don't know yet."

"Then why–"

I grabbed the envelope and stared at the name written on it in black ink: Vine.

"I think he lost it when he was here." Here to break up with me like a martyr, I added sourly in my thoughts.

With Cara's judgmental eyes on me, I ripped open the white envelope to have a look at the contents. If Vine didn't want me to read his letters, he shouldn't be leaving them around my hospital room after breaking up with me.

There was a greeting, three lines of text, and a signature, nothing more. But the name at the bottom of the page made my blood freeze before I'd even thought about the letter's meaning.

It was signed by Meredith.

*