Page 12 of Echoes of Nevermore
“A crow rarely travels alone, never straying too far without its flock. You’re my flock, Corbin, and I love you with all my heart.”
“You love me too?” I question her, waiting for her to answer me as if I don’t believe what I’ve just read. This doesn’t feel real. I need to hear her say the words, maybe then I’ll know that I’m not dreaming.
She nods. “With my whole heart.”
From that moment on, I never called her by anything other than Star. The secret belonged to us, and there was something so special about having something untouched by the outside world. It might only have been a nickname to everyone else, but to us it was the moment we claimed each other. We never said we wouldn’t tell anyone else about it, but we didn’t. At least I know I didn’t. I don’t know if she ever told anyone how her nickname came about before the accident. After she didn’t remember where it came from or who had given it to her. She didn’t remember who I was or that I was the person she loved, and it gutted me.
I tried so hard to stay by her side. Every day, I would walk to her house and have breakfast with her. Some days, she couldn’t hold her utensils just right, dropping them in the middle of her food and refusing to continue to eat. Occasionally, she would let me help, but more often than not, if I even thought of touching her fork or spoon, she’d clamp her lips together and growl. I spent countless hours with her, praying it would be the day her memory returned. And every day I felt the horrific pain of my heart breaking all over again.
Eventually, after graduation, her grandma took me aside and told me I needed to do what was best for me. She wouldn’t listen when I told her that being with Star was the only thing I wanted out of life. Her grandma claimed I couldn’t know something like that, we were just kids, but my mind has never changed. I still love her. I think I always will.
I didn’t care. I refused to leave Star. Our age didn’t matter to me, and the fact that she didn’t know me anymore wasn’t enough to push me away. We could take it slow, build a new relationship. I was hopeful. The next day changed everything, though. As I lifted her spoon off the plate and brought it to her lips, she smacked the utensil away and told me she hated me. She screamed she never wanted to see me again. I shouldn’t have done it, but she was losing weight and hadn’t eaten a good meal for days. I figured she’d forget by morning, so I returned. She hadn’t. I took a few days to let her cool off, praying the incident would slip her mind or she would forgive me. My parents had a month-long vacation planned, and Star needed to cool off. I did exactly what I said I wouldn’t and left her. When I came back to her house, she forgot me all over again.
If I could do it all over again, I would stay. But time can’t be rewound, no matter how badly we wish for it to. The only explanation I have is that I was young, dumb, and oblivious to how fragile a person can be. I can’t prove it, but I think that somewhere in the back of her mind, she blames me for leaving her. Perhaps my leaving was too traumatic, and her subconscious erased the memory of me out of self-preservation.
Chapter 9
Nevermore
Her hands slide up my neck, and the tips of her fingers stop at the edge of my mask. My skin shudders beneath her touch, and the anticipation is almost more than I can handle. I’ve been waiting for her to remember for what feels like a lifetime. But the thing is, she doesn’t. She doesn’t know who is underneath the allure of the mask. She hasn’t seen my face. She’s caught up in the moment, drunk on an illusion.
Don’t interrupt.
Let her live her life.
She’ll come back.
I hear the echoes of Star’s Grandma inside my head and have to remind myself that Star has come back. She’s back with her body pressed against mine, and her breath is on my neck. But it is not me that she’s decided to share this moment with. She wants a stranger, not a ghost from her past.
Panic blares within me while her fingers curl around the wolf's face.
She won’t understand.
She might run.
There are so many things that I need to say to her, but none of them seem right. I need to stop her before things go any further. If she sees my face and doesn’t remember, I don’t think I’ll survive what that will do to me. But I can’t do this with her, knowing what I know. It feels wrong.
I want her to know it’s me she’s touching. I’ve carried our love inside my heart for so long that if she rejects me this time, it’ll ruin me.
“Can I see your face?” Star timidly asks permission, and I freeze. I swallow a hard lump down, trying to find the words to answer her. My mind is still going back and forth with my decision. I don’t know how to explain to her my reasons for not letting her remove my mask without scaring her. I’ve had years to come to terms with the devastation, and some days, I can’t cope with everything. I can’t drop a bomb this huge on her and keep her. I can’t keep her and not tell her. I hate this.
I don’t know what the right choice is.
“What are you hiding?” She releases me, stiffening her arms by her sides, and frowns.
Everything.
Chapter 10
Star
I ask to remove his mask, but he doesn’t respond. He’s breathing heavier, and the mask is amplifying the sound. I imagine the heavy breathing of a prank call, the kind a victim hears right before the murderer jumps out of the closet and attacks them. This is creepy, but it’s kind of hot too. It’s horrible to think this way, but maybe I only believe that because society places such a stigma on kinks that aren’t vanilla. People shame each other for what turns them on, and I, for one, don’t support it. Where I land with my opinion might be because I fall on the side of being kink shamed and not the one pointing the accusatory finger.
No matter what my take on this situation is, whether it is hot and creepy or normal behavior, if something doesn’t happen soon, I’m out. He can have his reasons for leaving the mask glued to his face, just like I can choose to leave or stay. I always thought I wanted a masked man to devour me, but having it play out in real life is somehow less appealing. This might be a problem with me and not the man. Neither of us signed a binding contract with explicit details outlining a timeline for tonight’s events, and the duration of how long he wore or removed the mask was never set. Yep. It’s me. I’m the problem.
I consume books where the villain is depicted as the anti-hero. My current obsession is masked men. I’ve read eight this month already, and October isn’t over yet. There are still days remaining until November first arrives. This is my life, though. A lot of times, the stories we read give us unrealistic expectations, and we set ourselves up to fail by believing the men in our lives will act like the ones from our books. News flash. They don’t. At least not often.
My long-term future wasn’t on my mind when I made the choice to come out here and let the door close behind me. I wanted to chase a dream and maybe prove to myself that life could be easy, and I could be one of those carefree people who don’t constantly second-guess every decision. That just is not who I am, at least not yet, but I’m working on it.
