Page 17 of Luna Ascending

“What did you want with me? To get your talons in so deep” Aaron's words are a hiss.

I feel a knot growing in my stomach and only manage a small shake of my head. This can't be happening – everything was storybook perfect a moment ago. Who is this man that can change his temperament so quickly, on the head of a pin?

“You bewitched me but were still such a little slut you were cavorting around with Marciel in public?!” Aaron leers towards me and I shrink back, realisation suddenly hitting me.

“Marciel...” I stutter “Marc? He's... just an.. acquaintance .”

Even to me it sounds weak. My head's spinning, thoughts rushing in every direction. Tavey must have recognised me from that day in the coffee shop when Marc got rid of my headache.

Of course! Tavey peered in the window just as Marc was giving me a massage! Shit. I square my shoulders, that was uninvited invasion of my space. I can explain it, surely. One look into Aaron's face and I suddenly feel doubtful, and very very small in the wrathful gaze glaring at me.

“Whatever hold you had on me” Aaron barks “it's gone. We're done. Go crawl back to your fucking Coven, witch”.

My insides twist, I feel like Aaron has physically assaulted me. My mouth's open but I can't get enough air to breath, never mind protest. He towers over me and I flinch away, half expecting him to grab at me.

The two young men at the next table insert themselves between us and before I can explain myself to him Aaron spins off upending tables in anger as he crashes out the bar.

What the actual fuck? We're on a first date... he didn't even give me time to explain! It's not his fucking business who I was or wasn't getting a bloody massage from last week. What a temperamental asshole!

I thump the table in frustration, ignoring the sympathetic looks from the guys at the next table. As the adrenaline fades, my anger seeps away, replaced by a stale disappointment.

A massive black hole opens inside my belly. He's gone, and it's somehow my fault.

Chapter Twelve

Freya's POV

The next few days merge miserably into weeks of grey nothingness. I leave distraught voice-mails for Aaron, taking hours to pluck up the courage to send each one. Nothing. No response. I keep telling myself I've only met the man a few times, I shouldn't feel this shaken up just because he thinks so badly of me.

On good days I persuade myself that someone who can turn so vicious at the drop of a hat, and refuses to listen to a reasonable explanation, isn't a nice person. The little voice inside my head disagrees – he seemed really nice.

But seriously, how fucking dare he swan into my life and expect I've just been sitting around waiting for him?! It was a freaking first date. He's no right whatsoever to expect I've been celibate recently - and, even more frustrating, I fucking have been!

He's probably the kind of guy that would expect I was a bloody virgin too! I swing erratically between an anger of epic proportions and a grey self-pitying upset.

Mostly however, I'm just lonely.

Liz dropped by a couple of times, but its difficult not to resent her happiness with Tavey. It makes me a crap friend and I know it. I just end up wallowing in my own misery whenever I snap at her for encouraging me to 'get back in the game'. She seems so oblivious as to how bloody awful I feel, and when I try to tell her she vanishes for days without a word.

Even my gorgeous plants seem affected by my gloom. 'Vera', my magnificent Aloe Vera plant's plump leaves are browning, growing some kind of foost. The bathrooms' accoutrement of spider plants have died completely. Even the neighbours' cat has stopped visiting, put off by my aura of self-loathing and misery.

To top it off my most prized books seemed to catch onto my mood and threw themselves to the floor in attempted suicide this morning. Maybe the apartment block is finally subsiding beyond repair.

There is always just one more thing going wrong. Even the littlest everyday mishap is a massive hurdle. Now that my migraines are ramping up again, I really feel like I'm at the end of the line.

Marc has started texting repeatedly, and I mostly ignore him. Somehow, in my head, he's partly to blame for the disaster with Aaron. Marc's been very very persistent though and eventually I cave. Some sort of interaction with another human felt better than being alone again with my thoughts today.

Initially, all I do is simply reply, turning him down for a coffee claiming my migraine is too bad. Of course, he would fucking remind me about his 'magic touch'.

I have to admit the idea of this pain settling down is a really nice one, especially today when my flat's lights are misbehaving – the flickering is making it so much worse.

Meeting Marc for coffee out in public feels weird; I've not been out my flat socially in weeks. It's nice to see the world moving around me, doing its own thing. After Marc arrives he does the same weird massage thing on my temples. My migraine vanishes, and it's already the best day I've had in ages.

He's on his best behaviour and is perfectly charming. He's even nice to the waitressing staff and I feel myself start to relax. It's just pleasant to have some attention and feel like a normal human being again. I've missed getting out.

Marc suggests we have another date sometime. I hesitate, it hadn't crossed my mind that he thought this was a date- it throws me a bit. He presses on, seeming to know not to force intimacy onto me, explaining I'd be doing him a huge favour.

Marc desperately needs a 'plus one' for a family function to avoid hours of distant relatives trying to set him up with hugely inappropriate matches.

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