She tasted like honey and smelled like lavender. Her hair wrapped around me in the breeze. I didn’t want it to ever end, this sensation of her lips on mine, her hair caressing my skin, the sun rising. It was completely perfect.
It had to end though.
I turned my head away in shame, guilt washing over me and, most of all, regret. She and Ian were still together, not to mention she had already rejected me not twenty-four hours ago.
“If you’re kissing me out of guilt, please leave,” I whispered, not meeting her eyes.
“I-it’s not…” I could hear the guilt in her voice.
“Isn’t it? You feel guilty I’m going to die. I get it. You're going to feel worse any minute when you get to see the curse spread across my skin,” I replied in a hollow voice, sitting back away from her.
I let my feet sink into the sand as I looked over the pink and yellow horizon, the sun just peeking over the water.
“Time works differently here. I only came to tell you that you can have more time here. That it’s not…”
I could feel her eyes on mine as she chose her words carefully.
“It won't spread like it did in the normal realm. I made this place so I could spend as much time with Ian as I could before I died. Days and years can go by before it’s been a day outside. So maybe we can find another way to…”
It was almost worse to hear that kind of news. She sounded so hopeful, but I could tell from the way she trailed off that she knew better.
False hope wouldn’t fix this. The only thing that would was her.
“Why did you kiss me?” I asked, running my fingers through the sand. It made me wonder if this was what it felt like in real life too, soft and smooth and cool as it spilled between my fingers.
“Because you see me in a way that Ian doesn’t, and it’s…” She ran her fingers over her lips. A small sigh escaped her. “Everything about this is so wrong. A part of me just…wants you.”
“No,” I said, feeling a bit queasy at the thought.
“You want something new and exciting. You think you see something when we’ve only just met.” The words came out bitter as I kept my face turned away from her.
“You’re wrong,” she said, inching forward on her knees, moving her hair over her shoulder to pull it away from her face.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed how it shimmered in the soft early morning sunlight.
“You noticed when I was in pain, even when I’m in denial years later. Ian has no idea…or maybe he doesn’t care. I can’t tell,” Rose said, running her hands over her temples.
“Do you have any idea how frustrating it was to meet you? How confusing? My life was perfect, I had no reason to be miserable and yet, in the end, I started to be."
I traced a pattern in the sand with my finger as I listened.
“Then, when I had finally started to accept my fate and my dreams were a better reality than the brief moments I had awake, you shattered everything." She threw her hands up.
“Well, I’m sorry I ruined your life with my presence. I was just trying to find a way to survive,” I responded, my face becoming sourer the more she spoke.
“You didn’t ruin my life, you just…made me face a truth. I’m unhappy, Raven. I’ve been unhappy for a really long time, and seeing you is confusing. I feel like you’re my way out, but I still love him, and I don’t want to hurt him, and I just—"
I turned to look at her, my eyes searching.
“—I’m confused! Just give me a chance to try,” she finished breathlessly.
“Rose,” I said, putting up a hand to stop her as she scooted forward more. “I am not a way out. I am a human being, and so is Ian. You can’t just try things with me and leave him in the dark.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but I cut her off quickly. “You also can’t have it both ways. And you can’t reject me and then kiss me like that!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not fair to me or him!” I growled, standing up. “I get you have issues, but seriously—”
“Raven, please, I’m doing the best I can.”
“This is the best you can do?”
"Yes! I've never believed in fated ones. When I met Ian, it was forbidden for me to be with him. It’s more complicated than you think.”
I stared at her for several moments.
The sun was now rising above the water, no longer touching its surface. The pain still hadn’t come, so maybe she had been truthful about me having more time… About us having time to figure this out…
It wasn’t the rejection I had first thought it was.
Slowly, I sunk back down on my knees next to her.
She really was perfect. Her lashes seemed to brush against her cheek, the sun highlighting the tips with a slightly golden hue. Her hair looked so unlike my own that I wanted to run my fingers through it.
Despite her being the one with the husband, she was willing to try, and it wasn’t all from guilt. I guessed that was a start. But I didn’t have any experience with relationships.
“Then tell me.”
“It’s a very long story,” she whispered, frowning.
I bit my lip as I reached out a trembling hand to touch hers. Every bit of me was sure she’d reject me and pull her hand away… but she didn’t.
Instead, she lifted her thumb and ran it over the back of my knuckles in a soothing gesture, smiling a bit.
“I’m willing to hear it if you want to take the time to tell it,” I said softly, my cheeks turning slightly pink.
