After the Turning [c o m p l e t e d]

Chapter 20

Chapter 20: Drink

Adan gracefully leapt out of the window and left me with black dust, charred furniture and a useless letter that didn’t mean much at the moment. I glanced at it and saw the large heart-shaped sticker that was roughly slapped onto the envelope—it was easy to tell that Adan wasn’t gentle about it because the sticker tilted to one side.

I shoved it in my pocket and assessed the situation. It didn’t look salvageable at all. What was I supposed to tell my mother? Well I could just compel her. But it didn’t seem appropriate. Adan and Hollie were quite rich right? After all, they had a few thousand years to accumulate wealth and had a huge underground castle.

They could replace my furniture right?

Though it didn’t seem right to use their money since I was the one that destroyed my room in the first place.

The empty room made thinking clearer.

The guilt slowly seeped in. It wasn’t okay for me to blame Adan, since this mess was my fault, and the blob was due to my annoying birth-prophecy-trouble-thing. I was still mad about Adan for lying to me about the prophecy and for trying to use me, although he couldn’t help it that I was his mate, but I decided to apologize the next day for scolding him.

I stroked my temples and walked down the stairs to the living room. The couch looked warm and fluffy. It had velvet suede coverings too—despite being as old as I was. I sighed and lay down on it. It sank nicely. Sleeping there for the night didn’t seem that bad.

I pulled out the letter from my pocket and thumbed the sticker. It looked cute. 

“Don’t worry about your room. Easily fixed.” Hollie’s voice almost made me jump out from my seat. She was still so quick and silent—I had enhanced hearing too.

I recovered from my shock as fast as I could. “Thanks.”

“Maybe what Adan said was right.” I looked up and saw Hollie sitting on the rest of the sofa, right above where my toes were. “Maybe his powers don’t work on yours because he isn’t allowed to harm you.”

It did sound logical now hearing it from Hollie’s mouth. I was just too angry at Adan to listen to anything he said. Anger does that. It made me drown out all reason.

I shrugged. “Maybe. I’ll apologize tomorrow.”

A smile crept to Hollie’s lips. “And I’ll get your room settled tomorrow.”

“Hollie you can’t, I can’t bother you guys any further.”

She gave me an amused look and tried to hold back her laughter. “You’re troubling us? We’re troubling you more than anything else.”

Point taken.

“Okay fine then. I’ll see that the furniture is settled tomorrow.”

When I didn’t get a response from her I looked up, and was surprised to see that she was no longer on the couch.

Boy was I glad she was nice. I didn’t know what I’d do if she were the enemy and ready to kill me. I wouldn’t stand a chance.

I glanced down and stared at the letter that Adan had given me. I didn’t want to ruin it, so I carefully teared the sticker from the paper. It was difficult since I had super strength now, but I managed, save for a small ugly tear on the edge of the envelope.

In the envelope was a piece of plain white paper. Nothing fanciful. I unfolded it and saw his handwriting. It was surprisingly incredibly neat and was a beautiful cursive. The strokes were… elegant. No wasted lines. None too long or too short. Almost perfect.

Dear Evelyn,

I don’t really know why I’m writing this letter, or whether I should give it to you in the first place. Do you even want me to continue calling you Evelyn? Or would you prefer Jane? I remembered once where you said that you hated me calling you by a name you didn’t understand. I’d do that. For you.

I guess what I really want to say is that… please forgive me. It really sucks waking up at night knowing that you hate me more than anything else in the world. I’d give up anything for you. It’s just those stupid emotions that I have to deal with when you have a mate. But now I understand that I have a mate and that  I should cherish her.

I’ve spent centuries living alone. And now I’ve finally found you. I know, it sounds cliché. Maybe the reason why it's so cliché is because that’s how people really feel like when they find their soul mates. Like they’d do anything for their other half. Like finally, they are complete. Perhaps that is why I decided to write this letter for you; to tell you the feelings that I’m experiencing right now. It feels so dark and empty when your mate has rejected you. I’d never want you to experience that. Though you probably won’t have to, since you have both Jason and me to run to…

I’m writing out of topic right now. I think I’m rambling.

Just come back to me Evelyn, or Jane, or whatever you want to be called.

With love,

Adan. 

His spitefulness was evident in the letter. It was comical, in an endearing kind of way. I stroked its creases with my fingers and read the letter over and over again. It made my emotions for Jason sway. But Jason didn’t really do anything but get pissed at me after the incident did he?

I was so confused.

“Evelyn?”

A small voice broke me away from my thoughts. I lifted myself up and looked over the couch. It was Angie.

She was holding a cup with a Mickey Mouse cartoon printed on it. Her hands were shivering and it looked like she was going to fall.

I pocketed the letter again and rushed up to her. “Angie? What are you doing up so late? Shouldn’t you be with Hollie upstairs?”

“I thought you might like this.” She avoided eye contact with me and bit her lip as she talked. It was slightly suspicious, but I assumed that it was simply her being nervous. I was still a stranger to her.

I grabbed the mug from Angie and steadied her. “Thank you.”

She glared at the mug, almost as if with murderous intent. “You should drink it.”

I laughed. She was acting so weird it was adorable. “Sure.”  The cup contained a white liquid, although its color looked slightly off. I sniffed it. It didn’t smell weird. Angie probably added something into the milk to make it taste ‘better’. Little kids liked to invent things.

I smiled sheepishly at her, slightly reluctant to drink it after noticing its color.

“It’s to make you feel… better after just now,” she said. Tears were starting to well up into her eyes. Was she hurt that I didn’t drink her concoction?

I nodded my head. “Thank you, I really appreciate it.” And then I quickly poured its contents down my throat. It tasted oddly delicious, almost like vanilla with milk. Whatever the girl put in there, it was tasty.

I turned around and strolled to the coffee table to set the mug down.

When I looked back at Angie, tears were rolling down her eyes. “It’s not working,” a soft mumble escaped through her lips. What wasn’t working? Was she expecting me to jump up for joy after drinking her milk or something?

I tried to comfort her. “It was great. It worked—“

And then I realized what she meant.

The ringing in my ears was so loud that I felt like my brains were about to explode. I held my hands against my ears, trying to stop the loud noise. It made me collapse to the ground. A blurry vision of Angie was all I could make out. I shook my legs and rolled around, like thrashing was to make the pain go away.

But it didn’t.

“ADAN!”

It wasn’t long before I passed out.