she’s in Amaranth now. She left many, many years ago. I’ll never change anyone again. Ever.”
I placed my hand over his, felt the guilt that oozed from his voice, even after years. “It was her choice though, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. I guess every now and then, for whatever irrational reason, someone does choose this life. She begged me for a long time, thought hiding our relationship was getting too tedious. It was, but there was no other way. Either way we’d have to hide, whether she was changed or not. We were living against Samira’s rules back then, too. If we didn’t hide, we both would’ve ended up in Amaranth. Life here becomes too difficult.”
I thought back to our conversation at La Boîte Noire, and how Joel had mentioned Amaranth being a banishing. It still didn’t sound like such a bad place to me. “Is the idea of living there really so awful? I mean, considering the alternative?”
“For me, yes. Gavin, Gabe and I have considered it over the years, believe me. But knowing what we know about it, the alternative is,” he gestured to his tiny living room, “less depressing.”
He stood and grabbed his guitar, then sat back next to me, strummed it lightly as we talked. “Anyway, you and Gavin aren’t like me and Arianna. We weren’t meant to be together. Gavin is different. For you, he’s willing to move heaven and earth to find a way to be with you. He won’t give up, and he wouldn’t change you. Not in a million years.” He looked out the window, watched the rain as it dribbled down the sides of the glass. “I made my decision not to follow Arianna. I have to live with that.”
He stopped strumming and reached over to put his hand on mine. “What can you live with?”
“I’m not sure.” I grasped his hand. “I know what I can’t live with.”
“That’s a start.”
“I can’t go back to Louisiana now, even though it’s my only option. I can’t go back to that town, back to my little hole-in-the-wall job. I’ll just be a zombie. It’s not going to be the same without him, and I can’t live with that.”
He gently sat his guitar down when he saw my tears, scooted across the couch to wrap me up in his bear arms. I placed my head on his chest and let myself feel again.
“Then don’t live with it.” He said this softly, held me tight. “You love him, don’t you?”
“I didn’t plan for it to be this way—”
“Forget plans, Camille. Do you love him?”
“Yes, of course I do.” I looked up at him, frustrated.
“Then stop complicating things.” He squeezed me tighter. “These were the cards you were dealt, right? As crazy as the cards are, work with them. Don’t sit around moping about it or trying to get away from it. Work with what you’ve got.”
I used his shirt to dry my eyes and pulled a bit away from him. “I don’t know how to do that. And you fell in love with a human, look what happened to you two. The same thing will happen to Gavin and me. We’ll end up hiding or going to this exile city, it’s impossible.”
“But regardless of what you two choose, you’ll be together. That’s what I mean when I say you two are different. Arianna and I couldn’t agree, couldn’t find any middle ground. Eventually she wanted out of this world, and I couldn’t bring myself to give it up. We wanted different things.”
He held my chin and looked at me, made me wonder if he was considering having me for dinner. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s extremely difficult, either way you decide to go. So why would you decide to take the difficult road that the one you love won’t be on?”
“You said he wants me to move on.”
“Of course he does. He doesn’t want you to hurt because of him. But just because he wants you to move on doesn’t mean you can’t wait for him.” He got up, pulled a blanket from an old cedar chest near the couch and handed it to me. “You’ve had a rough night. I can take you home in a few hours once you’ve had some rest, okay?”
“No.” I took the blanket from him and laid it across my lap. “I can’t sleep.”
“Please, just try.”
“I want to stay for a few days. I’m not ready to go home yet, I just got here.”
He looked at me, eased back down on