Chapter 23: Reset
I spent the rest of Monday evening thinking about what Adrian had whispered to me through the car window, occasionally feeling another blush rise to my cheeks. He had been extremely... emphatic. Would we be doing... that... tonight in our dream? Didn't we have to talk? We kept saying that we were going to talk, but to tell the truth, I wasn't really looking forward to a serious conversation, even though I knew it was important.
I guess Adrian wasn't looking forward to it either, because after dinner, I got a text from him asking if it would be ok if we moved our dream-visit, the one we had planned for that night, to the next night instead. He said that he was in the middle of a new masterpiece and didn't want to lose his momentum, but that seemed more like an excuse than the truth. Still, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. So I texted back saying that it was fine, and that I would see him tomorrow instead.
Tuesday passed in the usual fashion, and I tried to be productive. I made it to volleyball practice – which I had had to miss the previous day when I took Jill to Clarence's – and I was much more careful with my calories than I had been the previous day. I found myself looking forward to Adrian's dream-visit all day. I wanted to get that conversation behind us, and I wanted to... well, find out more about what Adrian had whispered to me through the car window. But he didn't answer the phone when I called him that night before I went to sleep, and the time between falling asleep and waking up was time that I spent completely alone.
I woke up surprised and upset. I couldn't believe it. He had stood me up.
All day Wednesday I expected some sort of word of explanation from him, but I received none. He didn't respond to the text I sent at lunch, and didn't answer when I called after dinner. Finally, I lay down to go to sleep, wondering where he was, how he was, and what was happening. I didn't want to get upset over nothing, but after everything we'd been through, to not hear from him for a while was worrying. I wasn't angry; if he needed space, that was fine. But I wanted to know what was going on. And worse, I just missed him. As I tried to get comfortable under my blankets, I missed his arms around me, missed his scent. I was aware that it was strange to miss something that I had experienced so few times in real life. Finally, I drifted away to sleep.
And then...
I looked up suddenly.
Adrian was painting. He was wearing a pair of paint-splattered jeans, and I saw a few streaks of paint on his bare chest. I wanted to run to him, touch him, see if that paint on him was still wet – but at the same time, I didn't want to disturb his concentration. He was painting a strange, dark landscape, quite different from his usual paintings. His body blocked most of it and all I could see was one side, depicting a path through a tangle of thorns. I thought there might be a human figure in the painting, but I couldn't quite see it. Intrigued, I took a step closer, and I guess he heard me because he turned around.
"Woah," he said, when he saw me. "How did you get here?"
I was a little hurt at his reaction. "Nice to see you, too," I said.
"It's always great to see you, Sage," he said, though he didn't exactly look happy. "I'm just surprised. Seriously, how did you get here at this hour? It has to be after 2 or 3 in the morning."
I looked around. How had I gotten here? It was Adrian's living room, complete with the garish yellow walls and the ugly plaid couch. But... was it really? How had I gotten here?
"I don't know what happened," I said. "I was lying down to sleep and then I was here..."
Adrian looked around the room, then closed his eyes for a moment in apparent concentration. A pint of vanilla Haagen-Daaz ice cream appeared in his hands. He held it out to me significantly, and I looked away, a little ashamed for some reason. I had just begun to understand, but Adrian spelled it out for me anyway. "You did it again, Sage," he said. "You pulled me into a spirit-dream."
"I didn't mean to," I said. "I don't even know how I did it." Why did I feel as if I had to apologize for this? Adrian pulled me into spirit-dreams all the time. What could possibly be the problem? Only that you have gotten yourself into some serious problems by invading Adrian's dreams, the Traitor suggested in my head.
As if he'd heard that thought, Adrian said, "At least you didn't invade my actual dream this time." His tone was icy now. He took a step away from the painting, and automatically, I moved my head a little to be able to see it better. He noticed my movement, and the painting disappeared before I could get a good look at it. "That's not ready for you to see yet," he said.
"Okay," I said, holding my hands up as if warding off a blow to the chest. "Let's stop right here. Are you angry at me?"
Adrian paused, and then took a deep breath and let it out. "I'm sorry, Sage," he said. "I'm not angry. Come here." He took a few steps towards me and then folded me into a hug. We stood there for a moment, and I felt his body relax against me."Ohhhh, Sage," he sighed, rocking me. "You smell good." He kissed my cheek, and I smiled. For a moment I could almost forget that there had been anything amiss. But I wasn't going to just let it go.
"Let's clear the air," I said, as we pulled apart. "Like I said, this dream-visit tonight was an accident on my part. However, to be honest, I am glad it happened. I've been wanting to talk to you. You stood me up the other night. What is going on?"
Adrian looked away. "I know. I have been sort of incommunicado. I bet you're angry, huh?"
"No, I'm not," I said. "A little annoyed, sure, but not angry."
Adrian looked at me, clearly surprised. I think he had expected me to be angry. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I should have called. I just... needed some time."
"Time for what?"
"I don't know. Time to be an idiot, I guess." He sighed again. "I'm a shit, Sage. You knew that going into this. I'm terrible at all of this. I just-"
"Okay, no," I said, interrupting him. "Stop with that. Don't say things like that. Don't get mad at me, and don't get mad at yourself." I took his hands in mine. "You're better than that."
He smiled at me, maybe the first genuine smile I'd seen on his face that night. "Thanks, Sydney." He kissed my cheek.
"Don't thank me," I said. "Just stay with me. Something happened. There's something going on. Let's talk. We've been avoiding this talk so carefully that if we had put half the energy into having it that we did into avoiding it, we would have been done ages ago. We could be relaxing on the beach in Rio right now."
Adrian smiled mischievously. "Want to go to Rio? I hear they have great mojitos."
"Not right now," I said. "Let's just go to our forest."
"It's our forest?" Adrian said, surprised. "You think of it as 'ours'?"
His face registered both surprise and pain all of a sudden, and at first I didn't understand why. Then I remembered the dream, the... awful dream, the dream that had terrified me, and precipitated the fight and our breakup. I remembered running through his wall, out through a door in a tree, and into the forest. I remembered telling him that he wasn't allowed in "my forest." And we hadn't gone there together since that awful night, I realized, and the knowledge was like a stone in my stomach. "Oh, Adrian," I whispered, and kissed him. "Of course it's ours. I'm sorry that I ever said anything different."
"Ok," he said, and gave me a sort of sad smile. "Then... let's go." He gestured to the corner of his room where the door usually opened, and the door appeared. We held hands and walked through it.
On the other side of the door, I saw our red blanket spread out over the pine needles, and even a few fluffy pillows. We sat down on the blanket, arranging the pillows so that we could lean against them comfortably. Adrian took my hand, and we sat quietly for a few minutes. I stroked his hand, trying to let him know that I would listen to whatever he had to say, whenever he was ready to talk.
Finally, he said, "It's weird. I thought I wasn't angry at you. When you came over the other night, and you saved me from the darkness, and we... well, you know, on the boat... I mean, I thought everything would be ok after that. But after I had time to think about it, I realized that I was still angry. Or rather, that the anger kept returning... I don't know how to explain it."
I thought about what he had said. "Like a computer resetting. You kept resetting to 'angry'."
He squeezed my hand. "Yes," he said. "That's a good way to put it."
"Something like that used to happen to me," I said. "But not with anger. With fear. I thought I would be ok, but then I kept finding myself frightened, again and again."
"Oh," said Adrian, sounding resigned. "The vampire thing. The magic thing."
"Not really," I said, and then surprised myself by adding: "I was afraid you'd break my heart." That was probably one of those things that you're not supposed to actually say out loud, I realized a moment too late. Oh well.
"So you broke mine instead," Adrian surprised me by saying.
"I didn't mean to," I said, after a moment. "I didn't think I had the power to do that."
"You are much more powerful than you think," he said, and there seemed no way to reply to that, so we just sat quietly again, the silence a little more comfortable this time.
Finally, I spoke. "What were you mad about?" I asked.
"It doesn't matter," he said, and kissed my cheek. "I'll let it go."
"It does matter," I said. "I want to know. I want to make it right, if I can."
"I don't want to fight," he said.
"Then let's not fight," I said. "But tell me what's wrong. Please."
Adrian paused, then took a deep breath. "You snuck into a private dream," he said. "Not tonight. That night. I know you didn't really quite know what you were doing, but that's what you did. You invaded a private dream, which is worse than reading someone's diary, you know? It's seeing weird sub-conscious things, maybe even things that I myself didn't know, or even just stray thoughts, nothing I'd act on or even want."
I wanted to point out that I had seen something he did want, but figured it would be a bad idea to do so. He was right about the privacy invasion, and I said as much. He nodded and continued talking.
"The worst thing, though, isn't that you came into a private dream. It's that you got angry about what you saw, when I had no control over it, and it wasn't even for you. And!" he added, emphatically, his voice rising. "And! What you saw wasn't even really bad! It was normal. Well, normal for a guy like me who's dating a beautiful sexy girl like you." I winced at the compliment, considering the circumstances. "And you made me feel like I should have been ashamed of my own... wishes, even though they were normal. It messed with my head really bad for days. You called me a monster, and I started to think maybe I was one."
I squeezed his hand. "That was awful of me," I said. "You have every right to be angry. I should never have done that."
"And then you dumped me and wouldn't talk to me. Even though you missed me too. It doesn't make any sense."
"Not really, no," I said. I waited.
"And I was so angry at you" he said. He took a few deep breaths, as if to steady himself. "And I couldn't even quite let myself be angry because I missed you so much. But it was there, the whole time. I was so angry."
"That's fair," I said. "I understand that." I did, too. I was surprised that he'd been able to forgive me so quickly the other night, and it made sense that the forgiveness hadn't gone all the way down to the bottom of his heart. "I am really sorry," I said. "It feels stupid to say that. Like it's not enough."
"It's not stupid," he said. He pulled me close and kissed my cheek. "Saying 'sorry' is a good start. But can you explain it? I mean, why? Why you... well, dumped me?"
"It's a long story," I said, trying the familiar phrase out.
"I've got as long as it takes. Talk to me, Sydney."
So, I did. I told him about how I had thought that there was no way I could ever imagine someone like him wanting to be with me on a long-term basis. I told him how I pictured my life after he went back to the Moroi court without me, me with a broken heart, and him blithely continuing his life without me. I told him about how when I had broken up with him, I had thought that he would be sad for a day or two, and then be fine again. I talked for quite a while, and Adrian listened, not saying a word. When I was done, he was quiet for a long time.
"I don't know what to say," he said. "I'm sorry it was like that for you. I wish I had been better able to make you have faith in me."
"You were great," I said. "You were also so affectionate and open. I had faith in you. I just didn't think that you could possibly like me that much."
"Why not?"
"Why would someone like you, someone so... alive and charismatic and gorgeous... go for someone like me?"
A faint, sad smile crossed Adrian's face. "So you had faith in me," he said. "But you didn't have faith in you."
"I guess not," I said.
"Ok," he said. "Here's the deal, Sage. I think you're pretty much the greatest thing ever. The tops. The bees' pajamas and the cats' knees."
"Um, thanks," I said. I was pretty sure that that wasn't the saying, but I let it go.
"And I have good taste," he said. "Or at least, I had good taste the day I fell for you. I don't want to hear you saying bad things about yourself. Because you're awesome, Sage. Completely awesome."
I kissed him on the cheek. "You are too," I said. He kissed me lightly on the lips. After only a second or two, the heat began to rise between us. His tongue parted my lips gently, and then my arms went up around his neck as if on their own accord. We fell back on the blanket and a few minutes passed in which we said nothing at all. Finally we pulled away from each other, but lay close, smiling. He picked up a pine needle and ran it along the line of my jaw and then across my lips. But as I watched, his mood changed in front of me. It was like watching a cloud moving quickly across the sky, bringing rain. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"I missed you so goddamn fucking much," he said, and his voice was a hoarse whisper.
"I did too," I whispered.
"Don't ever do that again," he said. "Please. Please, promise me, Sage. Promise me you won't give up on me again."
"I won't," I said. "I promise."
"No matter what?"
"No matter what," I said.
"You'll have faith in me?"
"Of course."
"Because I have faith in you," he said.
"You do?"
"Yes. I have faith that you make everything alright somehow."
"That's weird," I said. "That's what I think about you. You make everything alright."
"You really think so?" he said, clearly surprised. "I feel like I always make a mess of things."
"I feel like everything was a mess while we were apart," I said.
"It was for me, too," he said. "I was a basket case."
"I think you held it together quite well," I said.
"You don't know," he said. "I had these awful dreams. Like that night I called you in the middle of the night. Do you remember that?" I nodded, and he went on. "I had had this dream that I was in a mental hospital. It was terrible. And in the dream, you were there, and you were one of the mob yelling at me. At least at first... And then I think you were on my side. It was nice then. And then you were in the bedroom with me, kissing me." He paused. "After that, actually, it was the nicest dream I'd had in a long time. Only then I thought that you were really there, and I pissed you off by calling and waking you up in the middle of the night."
"I have a confession," I said. Adrian raised an eyebrow. "Well, the thing is, um... I was there."
Adrian paused for a long moment. I saw several expressions pass over his handsome face – surprise, anger, frustration, and confusion. "Why didn't you admit it when I called out?" he asked, his tone hard to read.
"Partially because I didn't want to admit to you how much I was missing you," I said. "But mainly, it was because I knew you'd be mad at me. I knew you'd never forgive me for sneaking into another dream."
"I guess I should be mad," Adrian said. "But I have a feeling you made that nightmare into a much better dream. Did you? Did you change things in the dream while you were there?"
"A little," I said, and Adrian raised his eyebrows. "Ok, a lot, I guess," I admitted. I told him about how I had tried to control the doctor blobs who had been tormenting him, and then finally how I had taken over the other Sydney long enough to guide the nightmare into a pleasant dream.
"Did you... did you heal me? While you were there?"
"A little," I said again. "You were just in so much pain. I did it before I even knew I had."
"Did it upset you to see me... kissing you? The other you, I mean?"
"No," I said. "I was sad to see it. The look on your face... I was maybe just a little jealous of the other me. I wanted to knock her out of bed and take her place. At the time I thought I'd never get to kiss you again."
At that, Adrian leaned forward and kissed me for a long moment, then leaned back and looked at me. "You can kiss me pretty much any time you want."
I smiled, then brushed his hair back from his face. "I'll be taking you up on that," I said. "But I need to know if we're ok first. Can you forgive me for going into that dream?"
"And lying about it?" Adrian added.
"And lying about it, yes," I agreed.
He took a deep breath. "That one isn't that big a deal," he said. "I know you did a lot to make that dream more bearable for me. I'm glad you were there. It's hard to be angry about that. I wish you had told the truth about it when I called, but I can understand why you didn't. Just next time, you will, right?"
I wanted to say that there wouldn't be a next time – that I'd never invade his dreams again – but I wasn't sure if that was true. How could I promise that, when I wasn't even sure how I did it in the first place? "I'll respect your privacy as best I can in the future," I said. "And I will never lie to you ever again."
He stroked my face and ran a finger over my lips. The sensation distracted me, but I tried to keep my mind focused on the conversation. "I'll be honest with you, too," he said. "As honest as you'll let me be."
I almost asked him what that meant, but then I knew. The thing he'd been trying to tell me since Porto. I realized that I was ready to hear it now. Well, almost. "And I'll try to let you be more honest," I whispered, and he nodded. We contemplated each other in silence.
Then Adrian said, in a strained jocular tone, "Well, do you have any grievances to air against me?"
"Just the whole standing me up thing."
"Ah, yes. That. Well, I apologize for that. What can I do to make it up to you?" He leaned forward, and I felt his breath on my neck. He licked me, once, right below my ear. I shivered.
"You know what I want," I breathed.
"Do I?" He kissed my neck, then bit, very gently, on the soft skin.
"Yes," I said, huskily, then added, in a louder tone, "I want you to wash my car."
Adrian threw his head back and laughed. "Ok, Sage," he said, when he had recovered himself. "How about this. Next time you see a gas station, pull over, and I'll squeegee off your windshield for you."
"Front AND back windows," I said.
"Deal," he said. "Am I forgiven then?"
"Absolutely," I said.
"So neither of us is angry anymore?"
"No," I said. "Well, I'm not. Are you?"
He paused, as if feeling inside of his mind for anger. Finally, he smiled. "No," he said. "I'm not even angry about the car thing. I actually kind of like squeegeeing."
"I do too," I admitted. "It's oddly satisfying."
"Exactly," he said, and then leaned very close to me. "You know what else is satisfying?"
"What?" I was embarrassed that the word came out in that husky whisper again.
He answered me by pressing his lips to mine. It felt amazing, as it nearly always did, to be kissing him. I wondered again at how such a simple behavior should cause such a variety of sensations to run through me. And then I found myself thinking, yet again, about what he had said through the car window on Monday.
When we finally pulled apart for a moment, I whispered, "What did you mean, when you talked to me through the car window? When you said that you um... have a plan?"
"Plan?" Adrian repeated, affecting innocence.
"You remember what you said," I told him, and he grinned at me.
"I'm not sure I do," he said. "But you have an excellent memory. What did I say?"
I took a deep breath. "Your exact words were, 'you and I have to go to bed together really soon, Sage, because I have a plan. I'm going to take really, really, really good care of you.' "
He grinned again. "Your memory is so sexy," he commented.
"But what exactly did you mean?" I asked.
"Well, I don't want to ruin the surprise, Sage. But... let's put it this way. It's going to be the best sex than anyone ever had." I raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm not bragging," he went on. "I'm just stating a mathematical fact."
"I don't know if I've ever heard you express an interest in mathematics before," I said.
"Hey, I like all kinds of things, so don't tie me down!" He paused, then gave me a devilish smile. "Or maybe... do." I blushed, feeling my eyes grow wide, and then Adrian tackled me, lowering me down on the blanket with his hand on the back of my head so that my head would be protected. Our kiss deepened, and my thoughts got a little blurry for a long time. In quiet moments, however, I had the presence of mind to wipe away a little spirit-darkness from Adrian's mind.
When, a little while later, we lay back on the blanket for a moment to catch our breath, I said, "How has the mental wall between you and Jill held up? Can she hear you again?"
"Actually," Adrian said, "she called me today and said she could hear me again." He made a face. "She sounded happy about it."
"I think I can understand the psychology of that," I said. "People can get dependent on all sorts of things – email, video games, television, and so on. I can imagine getting used to having another voice in your head, and then missing it when it's gone."
Adrian considered that. "It's like the ultimate Facebook stalking," he said.
Even I had heard of Facebook, and I smiled, glad to get one of his references. "Yes," I said. "Like that. Well, it's better for her that you keep a clear boundary between your minds." And better for me and Adrian, I added mentally. Out loud, I said, "Would you like to work together again to rebuild your walls, as we did a few days ago? I think it worked out well."
Adrian studied my face. "Why is it important to you that my walls are up?" he asked, innocently.
"There are many valid reasons," I said, in a business-like manner. "For one thing, it'll help Jill, as I mentioned previously. For another, it will allow you your privacy, which is considered by many a universal human right, though it is rarely protected by any recognized legislation."
"Right," said Adrian, nuzzling my neck. "Any other reason?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" I said, and kissed him. He started to respond, but I leaned away. "Isn't your big art exhibition tomorrow?" I asked.
"Yes," Adrian answered, a big smile lighting up his face. "Are you still going to go?"
"Of course," I said. "Jill, Eddie, and I... and Angeline, I guess." I wrinkled my nose. "Are you sure about inviting her?"
"We have to make the girl feel welcome," Adrian said. "She's far from home, and she's lonely. She just wants some friends."
"Perhaps her definition of the term 'friends' is different from mine," I said. "Perhaps she includes attempted seductions of her friends' boyfriends in her friendship behavior." Ex-boyfriends, corrected the Traitor, and I had to admit she had a point, though out loud I said nothing.
"Ah, you heard about that," Adrian said. "Did you get at all jealous?"
"Not really," I said. Adrian studied my face. "Maybe a little," I admitted. Adrian still said nothing. "Okay," I said, finally. "It felt like a boiling vat of acid in my guts."
Adrian grinned. "That's how it felt for me when I heard about your date with whatshisname."
"Well, you had nothing to worry about."
"Neither did you," Adrian said, then leaned forward and whispered in my ear: "As if I'd ever want her when I've been near you. As if anyone on earth could compare to you."
I was so pleased and flattered at this that I was momentarily speechless. Finally, I sputtered, "That's the way it is for me, too. I... When we were apart, I remember thinking that I would never feel this way ever again. I thought that no other guy would ever make me feel like you do." I ran my fingers along his cheek, and he leaned into the caress.
"You know," he murmured, "sometimes when you touch me, it's like you leave little trails on my skin that I can feel for a little while afterward. Is that weird?"
I had no adequate words. I just kissed him again for a long while. It was heavenly.
But soon we noticed the pink tinge to the sky, and we knew it was time to stumble over to the tree, through the door, and back into Adrian's room. I undid his jeans and helped him out of them, but resisted the temptation of pulling off his silk boxers. As for me, I was wearing sleeping clothes anyway, a fact which Adrian pointed out in a semi-annoyed fashion.
"Next time I'll wear a woolen parka," I said. "To give you something to take off of me."
"Next time, don't wear anything at all," he growled in my ear, and I shivered happily.
We curled up in his bed as we'd done so many, many times. While we were lying quietly, we rebuilt Adrian's mental walls against Jill, and this time he made no comment about my motives. We talked for a while about the exhbition the next day, and we agreed that I'd come over at noon tomorrow during my double free to help him move some of his paintings to the exhibition hall. After that, we murmured a little bit quietly before we fell asleep, both of us feeling much more at peace than we had when the night began. In some ways, I hated to fall asleep in the dream, as it meant leaving Adrian behind. But I knew I'd be seeing him the next day, and I contented myself with that as sleep came to pull us apart.
I woke up in my own bed at Amberwood, as always in the position I had been in Adrian's bed. There were a few flakes of paint on my tank top. I remembered the paint splattered on Adrian's bare chest, and understood. Of course, thinking about Adrian's bare chest made me think about Adrian's silk boxers and so I had to force my brain into more productive channels, like my morning jog.
A/N: So, I've been on the road for the past month or so, having weird adventures. You know how in my stories I put in lots of details about the places that A&S go – Rome, Porto, Venice? Well, that's because I travel a lot and actually go to these places! So this summer I'm in some places I've never been and I just haven't had a lot of time to work on my story. I've been sleeping on beaches, taking 2 am flights from one place where I don't speak the language to another place where I don't speak the language, and possibly, just possibly, drinking a little too much wine from time to time. So there are rarely times to sit down and write. Sometimes there's no electricity. Often there's no internet. I just get excited when there are proper toilets, to be honest.
Plus, I got a little sad as I realized that I wouldn't be able to finish before TGL came out. I've come to accept that my story is now going to be sort of AU. Oh well.
Anyway, I haven't abandoned the story. If you have abandoned the story, that's your business, not mine, but I think it's unkind to tell me so in the reviews. I'm going to keep writing until it's done. :) The good news is that some things that happened this summer are working their way into my story and I think you'll really enjoy it! Or at least, I hope you will. Plus, I really have written a lot of the later chapters. I swear I have.
I haven't read TGL and I won't read it until I'm done with my story, so please don't spoil it in the reviews! And if by any chance anything that happens in my story is like something in TGL, that's coincidence.
Thanks for your ongoing interest in the story and I hope you're having a great summer, wherever you are (and wherever I am.).
-L
