Chapter 12

“An Inversion of the Chains of Destiny.

Fails the Strength of the Warrior.

Guilt, Pain and Regret.

What is left of one's self when one loses himself?”

- The Prophet of Truth

Sarah woke up with a smile on her lips and stretched languidly. The places that immediately ached made her stop and left her cheeks burning as she remembered the passionate moments they'd shared. And yet, he’d been just perfect, going well beyond her most dreamy fantasies about how a perfect lover might behave. With a renewed smile she sat up amongst the silky satin sheets and looked around with anxious eyes, until she realized she was alone.

Feeling a bit lost, she looked for a clock, since there were no windows in that room that might help her tell the time, and her heart sunk when she saw that the clock on the bedside table marked five am.

Still sitting on the bed, surrounded by his scent, Sarah forced her rational mind to take over, swallowing the bitter knot that had started to choke her.

Don’t be silly! It’s nothing we hadn’t expected, she told herself, making sure she listened to her own words and, suddenly feeling angry, jumped from the bed in search of her clothes.

It was still night outside and he’d left her there, alone! The message was so obvious that it hurt!, she thought pulling her blouse over her head. And if she still had any self-esteem left she’d leave his room as fast as she could. After all, that was his room! And he’d have to come back by daybreak. In the end, no matter how amazing he’d been, it all amounted to the same. The dream was over the moment she opened her eyes. The difference was that at least he hadn’t kicked her out the minute they were finished … and she wasn’t a school girl anymore.

Clenching her teeth, angry at herself for being stupid to the point of not taking heed of her own warnings, Sarah grabbed her pants and slipped her right leg in. However, as she was about to slip her other leg, the sound of the door closing startled her, making her lose her balance. She stumbled, stepping on the pants she was trying to put on, and lost her grip, dropping them. With her cheeks burning for having been caught in such an embarrassing position, she bent down to pick them up but her trembling hands seemed unable to comply with the simplest of gestures.

Alexis stood by the door, for an instant, lost in her image, and a smile stretched his lips at her clumsiness and nervousness. Sure she was far from being what he usually searched for when choosing a female for one of his one-night stands. Short and too skinny, her skin was too pale and her light hair was rarely tidy or combed. She had a strong personality and yet was terribly shy in her intimacy. She was obviously inexperienced in bed and her awkward gestures easily stole away what little grace might have been left in that female body. And yet … why did he found her so delightful? Even there, with her hair disheveled and bright red cheeks, her thin legs stumbling on a pair of pants, she was simply adorable.

With a sigh he put down what he had been carrying and took a step towards her.

“Sarah …? What are you doing?” he asked, bending his head, searching for her eyes since she seemed to want to hide from him, and she jumped on one foot, turning her back on him, almost falling in the process and offering him a wonderful sight of her naked butt that immediately renewed his smile.

“Getting dressed, obviously,” she answered dryly, her hands still fighting against what seemed to be the hardest pair of pants to put on. “I'll just take a second. And you can have your room back.”

Sarah couldn’t tell what surprised her the most, if the sudden anger that echoed all around her, or the arm suddenly wrapped around her waist, easily lifting her from the floor as if she had the weight of a child, forcing her to give up on her battle with her pants.

When he put her down again his arms were like an iron belt surrounding her body, pressing her back against his chest, leaving her heart beating like crazy.

“You want to leave?” he asked in a whisper, unable to mask his anger, and the warm lips that touched her neck left her shaking and confused.

“It’s your room … And it’s almost morning … I just don’t want to impose,” she answered hesitantly and a shudder coursed through her body when he inserted a leg between hers. She hadn’t had the courage to look at him but now knew he’d put his pants back on, the cold, soft touch of the leather against her bare skin making her shiver.

“I asked you to come with me … and you accepted. I won’t let you go that easily,” he declared in a whisper near her ear that he ended up nibbling, and Sarah screamed in surprise when his hand swiftly slid between her parted legs, torturing relentlessly.

“Alexis … stop …!” she still tried to protest, but the words were quickly erased from her mind and her ragged breath filled the room.

“I can’t …” he replied in a dragged voice, tasting her ear in every imaginable way. “You’re so warm and soft … And see how you call for me …”

Sarah moaned as tears filled her eyes. He wasn’t only invading her body anymore, he was taking over her entire being, taking over her heart, and she’d sworn to herself that she'd never allow that to happen again! Because she knew that in the end there was only pain and disappointment waiting for her.

Suddenly the sensorial overload was just too much for her to bear and a spasm of pleasure made her shudder, forcing her to clench her teeth to keep her voice in check, rendering her legs weak and wobbly. She would have fallen on the floor if not for the arm around her waist, keeping and sustaining her against his chest. And when he held her face, forcing her to look back, she couldn’t help but obey and allow him to kiss her passionately. For a moment she thought he’d take her again, right there and then. His desire was so intense that it made her feel dizzy. But Alexis released her with gentle kisses, straightening her hair with an annoying victorious smile on his lips. The wave of pure happiness that emanated from him completely erased the anger he’d felt just minutes ago, leaving her surprised and confused. It was almost childlike, she thought. Right then there was no hate, no death inside him. And his strangely bright eyes seemed unable to see anything else but her, as if there wasn't anyone else in the world.

“Come,” he simply told her, holding her by the hand, and Sarah stumbled towards the bed where he made her sit down. Then she saw him go back to get what he’d brought with him and only then noticed he’d been carrying a tray filled with food. “I went upstairs while it’s still night,” he explained placing the tray near her and Sarah looked at it completely stunned. “You must be hungry. You haven’t eaten at all since yesterday, and I doubt you ate anything at the hospital,” he went on and she just stared at all that food. There was bread and sliced cheese, strawberry jam, butter, and two pieces of every fruit in the house. There was orange and apple juice, and a plate with Anne’s special cookies from the jar she kept hidden for emergencies. “Since I didn’t know what you wanted I brought you a bit of everything,” he explained, trying to justify himself as she sat there, unmoving. Since she still didn’t answer concern took over his expression. “Sarah? I can still go upstairs and get you something else, if you want,” he offered, trying to guess the reason behind her silence, and she quickly shook her head, drying the tears that had filled her eyes.

His confusion and concern hammered her brain, making her tears even worse and harder to control. And now she’d ruined it, she thought, as she felt his happiness fade away.

“Don’t mind me!” she told him, wiping her tears again and forced herself to raise her head and smile back at him. “I’m just being silly.”

“Was it something I said or done?” he asked, still worrying, and she shook her head, taking a deep breath to calm herself down.

“I thought … you'd left. And that you didn’t want me here when you returned,” she confessed and hurriedly put on her smile again. “And it was fine!” she added but was unable to face the serious expression with which he was listening to her. “That’s how things normally work, right? And it’s not like there’s any kind of commitment between us, which would be completely impossible anyways, taking that Law of yours and so many other things into account.” She shut up for a moment, aware of what she’d just said, and took a deep breath. “You surprised me, that’s all,” she finally declared, and in the next instant he was sitting beside her, holding her close against his warm, firm body. Sarah closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in the scent of his skin, and the gentle kiss he placed on the top of her head made her feel completely safe.

“Is that what he did to you?” he asked again, his voice soft as velvet, and she was immediately tense and alert. “Ricky Noland.”

The sound of that name sent a dagger straight to her heart, and suddenly the face of the young man she’d been completely in love with floated in front of her eyes. It was the strength of his arms, when he squeezed her harder, that brought her back to the present. And Sarah leaned against his chest, searching for that unwavering feeling of safety that he always offered her.

“Found about that in your research as well?” she asked bitterly, but as he didn’t answer she just took a deep breath. “Ocean was my best friend,” she declared, closing her eyes, and a smile touched her lips as she recalled the smart, gentle expression of the puppy she’d owned as a child. “He was the only one who understood me, since like me animals can be extremely empathic. I’ve always been different from everyone else, for as long as I can remember. Even children rarely say what they really want or feel. The world was a place filled with lies, and for that reason completely strange to me. When that accident happened … when Ocean was run over, I was completely distraught. But still I stood beside him, buried in his feelings, hoping I could somehow help him, maybe understand what he needed, maybe even save him. When he died my mind was completely broken and spent, because back then I still didn’t know how to defend myself, how to close my mind to the emotions around me.”

Alexis placed another kiss on the top of her head and she smiled at that small gesture of comfort.

“As I’m sure you know I spent the next few years in and out of psychiatric institutions. In truth, with Ocean’s death my empathic ability was completely gone, and at that time I thought I'd lost it forever. And yet that’s when I started to capture other sensations. I’d suddenly have this strong feeling that someone needed my help, people that I had never even seen before and that sometimes lived considerably far away from me. And so, because I was too young to be able to go to them, I was constantly punished for refusing to follow the urge to help them. I had terrible headaches that frequently left me bedridden, and no matter how many times I told others that someone needed help on the other side of the city, no one ever believed me. After all, I was just a traumatized child with a serious anti-social problem. Until Selena was born. Somehow, and in a way I still don’t understand, Selena’s presence saved from the constant chaos and helped me put my mind in order, and I started to learn to control the things I felt. By then I was also old enough to move around on my own and I learned to follow those requests for help, that mainly led me to lonely, cold, hungry people, in need of some human care. In the beginning I was rather frightened by that dark, dirty world, but then I got used to it. I’d give them some food, a few blankets and tried to take them to the closest shelter, which sometimes didn’t work. Then there were a few, more complicated cases …”

“Like the one of the child from the burning building,” Alexis added and she nodded.

“That one hit the papers and so everyone knew about it. By then I'd learned to mimic other's behaviours enough to allow me to somehow relate to other teenagers my age, and I felt relatively happy for being a more or less normal girl. At least I didn’t constantly know what my friends really felt when they looked at me which, believe me, can be really traumatizing. And that’s when I met him … Ricky Noland.”

At the sound of that name Alexis pulled her closer, as if ready to defend some precious beloging.

“He was one of those boys that would never go unnoticed, no matter what. Tall, athletic, with blond hair, and being the basketball’s team captain, he had the largest fan club in the entire school. And, of course, he was the complete opposite of me; joyful, friendly, extroverted, always full of energy. I never saw him without a smile on his lips, never without being surrounded by dozens of friends. Obviously, when I realized it, I was completely in love with him. Of course I had no fantasies about it. I knew all too well that he didn’t even know I existed, and it was fine. I was ready to live my platonic love in silence … until the New Year's Ball."

"When I told her about the party, my mum was a hundred times more excited about it than I could ever be. She made sure I bought a new dress, helped me put on some makeup and fixed my hair. She assured me I’d be the most beautiful girl in school and, sure enough, when she was through with me, I could hardly recognize myself. All the insecurities I might have still held in my heart flew out the window the minute I arrived at the party and noticed that everyone was staring at me in complete disbelief, stepping back and out of my way so that I might go through. The murmurs that followed me were of admiration, not contempt like usually. And that night Ricky Noland finally learned that I existed,” she told him with a sigh.

“We spent the night together. We danced, and laughed, and talked, and when the party was over, he took me home. I could hardly believe when, before I could leave his car, he kissed me and asked me to go out with him. I agreed that same instant. Refusing never even crossed my mind, and I returned home with my head in the clouds. Through the next few months I tried as hard as I could to maintain that perfect image that had apparently enchanted him, and to be a girl worthy of being called his girlfriend. I renewed my wardrobe, I dyed my hair, I learned how to put on makeup and started wearing high heels. I constantly worried about stupid insignificant things, like if my purse matched my belt, or if my notebooks matched my pens. I was constantly reading fashion magazines, trying to keep up with the latest trends, and I started to belong to his group of friends. I learned to laugh when everyone laughed, and to pretend I didn’t understand what they were talking about when they expected me to play dumb. I silently listened to all the stupid jokes, even the more offensive ones, and smiled like an idiot when they laughed about it. And yet, no matter how hard I tried, my fairy tale didn’t last for long. As the days went by Ricky started to pay less and less attention to me. After all, he was constantly surrounded by other girls, most of them much prettier than I. In school, my girlfriend status that in the beginning had been reason for admiration, quickly became a joke, and people would talk and laugh behind my back at every corner. Until I couldn’t take it anymore. And so I went to him, telling him we needed to talk, and as soon as we were alone the first thing he told me was that he wanted to break-up,” she told him and a bitter taste filled her mouth at the memory.

“I should have been smart, back then, and just let it go. After all, that wasn’t a relationship at all. But the despair that those simple words brought me stole my ability to think, and I begged him not to leave me; that he would at least tell me why, so that I might be able to fix things between us. And that’s when he told me that he didn’t want to go on being the laughing stock of his friends because he had a girlfriend that refused to sleep with him. The world around me seemed to crumble and I just stood there, speechless. However, as he turned his back on me to walk away I just couldn’t take it, and so I stopped him the only way I had, agreeing to spend the night with him."

"Back then I was completely inexperienced and he’d been the only boy I’d ever kissed but, even so, as night fell, I still ran away from home to meet him. Due to his parents work he was often home alone and I stupidly thought I was about to retrieve my fairy tale. But all I found in that house was a cruel, scary man, that treated me as if I were an object, no matter how many times I asked him to stop …” Sarah stopped herself, noticing the way she was trembling, and Alexis anger flooded her mind like a wave. And yet, although she might have feared him in any other situation, because his anger was for her, for the cruel way she’d been treated, she actually felt comforted by it. With a sigh she forced herself to find her own voice and went on.

“In the end he practically kicked me out, throwing my clothes at my face. And maybe because of the shock I suffered, of all the possible moments, my empathic abilities decided to return right then. My mind was suddenly overrun by his emotions and, among so many like despise, disgust and self gloating, there wasn’t anything even closely related to love, or even friendship … That night, when I got home, I couldn’t even remember my name, and the next day I was hospitalized again. As it seems, Ricky even took a few pictures of our late night encounter that were spread all over school. And so my parents decided to move away and give me a fresh start, and I never saw any of them again.”