Destined

Day Seventy-Four

Why I had agreed to this eludes me. 

Honestly, I think it had something to do with the fact that my brother called and asked, and our temporary alliance when we'd had to deal with my father had influenced my decision immensely. Regardless, I lecture myself silently with every step I take from Tristan's car to the front door of Mom and Henry's home; I glance over my shoulder and smile at my friend blandly while he rolls his eyes, "You're hitching a ride back with your brother?" 

"Yes." I answer him contritely, know he's in no mood to playing games with me. 

"Fine, call Godric," Tristan remarks shortly. 

I swallow hard, "Goodbye Tristan." 

Tristan gives me the finger before driving off hastily, obviously in a huff, and I sigh, putting my hands into the pockets of my jeans as I watch him go. He's pissed at me because he has ridiculous powers of observation, though even a blind man could have noticed how much distance I was trying to put between Godric and me. A week ago, we were practically joined at the hip always touching and always talking with our heads close together, completely inside our own little bubble. After our sex-scapade and my realization that he didn't love me and probably couldn't ever love me, I need space to breath. Godric, however, won't let me avoid him and remains ever-present in my life even though I won't touch in any way that can be perceived as sexual, talk to him alone, or have discussions on serious subjects (I walk away anytime he tries to bring up something remotely resembling our one-time sex thing, me becoming a vampire, or what the hell is wrong with me, which is pretty much how he begins most of our not-conversations). It worked fairly well, all things considered, and helped keep my emotions in check so he can't get a read on the ones I don't want him to find. 

The only problem is that my body cries out for him, especially if the all-night, every-night sex dreams about him are any indication, and despite the fact that the action was taken to prevent myself from losing my heart to him, I only seem to hurt worse. I miss him like he's a part of me that someone ripped out, like there's a big gaping hole in the middle of my chest. And as much as I want to go running back to him, I can't because I'm dying, and I don't know if I can handle being tied and bonded a hell of a lot tighter to a man I'm in love with who can't love me back. It's burden I'll have to carry for thousands of years, and one that I doubt I'll be able to hide that long, especially given Godric's persistence. 

However, I'll have to figure everything out soon because Godric seems to be on the verge of hitting his breaking point with me. It's more than obvious that he's resigned to giving me space to come to grips with everything on my own, but it's clearly frustrating for him to watch me incite and promote the deterioration of our friendship, though he's gritted his teeth and allowed me to take time. However, I didn't think I could push him much further; he was nearly at the end of his rope when I'd blatantly spent a whole night putting distance between us so he couldn't touch me (and break my resolve), but I'd seen how close he was to his breaking point when I'd hit the back of my hand on a door knob-and a massive bruise had blossomed to cover my whole hand-then refused to take his blood. I'd known for a while that the cancer had started coming back. I'd felt weaker and more tired, plus I'm pretty sure he'd guessed something was wrong when he'd drunk my blood, but I wasn't mentally strong enough to take anymore so soon. I needed to make sure that I could hold my own against him-willpower wise-before I took anymore of Godric's blood. 

Henry greets me at the door and tells me that Mom wants to talk to us all in the kitchen before we start. I nod just before my phone rings, and I tell him I'll be there in a minute, stopping to pick it up, "Hello?" 

"Where are you, Lanie?" 

"My mom's," I comment before frowning, "I thought you could track me or whatever."