An Ever Fixéd Mark (15 page)

“No. I didn’t think much of myself then. I
knew he was attracted to another girl who came to the parties. They
always are… but then he ended up falling for someone outside of our
circle entirely and married her. I think they are having a kid now.
It doesn’t matter… I mean it does. It had to end that way because I
WAS devastated and so angry with myself for not being someone he
could love that I put my whole heart and soul into running and
relearning how to eat,” Lizzie breathed out. “The strange thing is
I realized I didn’t like the person I was when I had that crazy
infatuation.”

“Do you like the person you were when you
were with Mike?”

Lizzie felt her cheeks burn. “Not really,”
Lizzie looked down at her jeans, noticing a coffee stain on her
thigh. “That wasn’t the right thing to do.”

“No,” Ben said quietly.

“There was some satisfaction in doing the
wrong thing. Maybe it made me feel better about not having what I
wanted. Because I didn’t deserve it,” Lizzie stared out the window
and caught sight of a road sign. “Let’s go to Quechee.”

“The Quechee Gorge?”

“Have you been there?”

“A long time ago,” he said mindlessly.
Lizzie sighed at the green trees outside the window.
“Elizabeth…”

She turned her head back to look at him.
“What?”

He met her eyes briefly. “You deserve to
have what you want,” he looked back to the road, but touched her
hand. “I have met so many people, Elizabeth. Many women.
Generations of pretty women, intelligent women, sexy women, brave
women. You are one that I can’t keep myself away from.”

Lizzie breathed in slowly and blinked her
eyes a few times to fight the moisture she wasn’t quick enough to
resist. “I… thank you,” Lizzie muttered awkwardly, uncertain what
else to say.

“You are…” he faded as he put his focus back
to the highway. “It means a great deal to me that you are
here.”

“It… it means a lot to me, too,” she paused.
“The whole Will thing sucked. I hated myself for being so stupid.
But I think that had to happen to get me here.”

Ben smiled at the road. “Let’s go to
Quechee.”

Chapter
Twelve

Lizzie remembered the trail she walked a few
years before with Meg. It led them down into the gorge along a road
covered with pine needles and signs warning of floods from the
river. “We used to take a lot of road trips. Some were planned out…
some were spontaneous,” Lizzie looked about and wondered if she
really recognized the trail or if it just looked like some other
pine needle covered path she once hiked.

“You had a sense of adventure.”

“Meg has had a few… volatile relationships,”
Lizzie shrugged. “Our travels about New England were a way of
distracting her from fits of screaming and crying.”

“But you got to see a lot of different
places?”

“Yes,” Lizzie smiled at him, wondering how
many places he lived in never mind traveled to. “I always remember
this place.”

“Why?”

“The majesty, the awe… the secret. Hardly
anyone I know has ever heard of Quechee,” Lizzie walked a few paces
ahead of him. “When did you come here?”

“With a few friends… I think it was before I
went back to France,” Ben stopped walking and looked about as if
that would prompt a more specific memory.

“You lived there?” Lizzie dared herself to
start.

“I was at Verdun,” Ben resumed his pace at
her side.

Lizzie got a chill. “That was more than 90
years ago,” she said more for her own benefit than his. They walked
a few minutes in silence. Lizzie could hear the currents of the
Connecticut River and the birds above their heads. “Ben, how long
have you been … well, you know?”

“Since 1779.”

Lizzie stopped walking. The birds still
continued to chirp over her head and the rush of the water echoed
nearby. “You are older than the country.”

Ben laughed. “I suppose I am technically. I
never thought of it that way.”

“You were here to see it happen.”

“What?”

“The United States change from colonies to…
states,” she felt her history geek cloud her ability for
interesting conversation.

“I didn’t see it happen,” Ben shook his head
and leaned against a tree. “I was a farmer. I didn’t go to
Philadelphia and see those men write a bunch of sentences to sever
ties with the king.”

“Did you want… did you support the
Revolution?”

“I got swept up in the fever. I fought even
though I had no idea what I was fighting for,” Ben narrowed his
eyes. “It was very long ago, Elizabeth. I don’t remember the
details.”

“Oh,” Lizzie looked down, unable to hide her
disappointment.

“I don’t feel I resemble that person very
much anymore,” Ben stopped leaning against the tree and reached for
her hand. “I’ve lived through so many things that have matured me
and made me less… well, there are things in my youth of which I am
not proud and let myself forget.”

“Fair enough,” Lizzie couldn’t argue, even
though she told him about Mike.

Ben squeezed her hand and started walking
the trail again. Lizzie hesitated and followed his pace. “Were you
a soldier at Verdun?” Lizzie backtracked to something that didn’t
make him so tight-lipped.

“I was drafted, believe it or not,” he let
his amusement escape the green of his eyes. “I wouldn’t have had to
go. I was a medical student and had enough money to buy my way out.
But it seemed the right thing to do in 1916.”

Lizzie thought of a history paper she wrote
on the lack of foresight of World War I. She stopped as another
thought entered her mind. “A battlefield is full of blood.”

“Elizabeth, I don’t spend all my days
thinking about food.”

“I do. I really have to think hard about not
eating chocolate cake sometimes.”

“Sometimes. Is that what you are thinking
about right this second? Would you rather have a piece of chocolate
cake than walk with me?”

“No. But if I was surrounded by it all the
time…”

“If anything would make me lose my stomach
for drinking blood, it would be war. In fact, it was going to war
that made me realize finally that what I am is not a monster. There
is a blood thirst on the battlefield that is very different from my
need to survive.”

Lizzie softened her eyes. She knew from her
father that there was no way for her to comprehend the horrors of
war. No matter how many movies she saw or books she read, she could
never fully know how terrible the death of battle was. She knew
from her father those images did not fade away. Lizzie looked at
Ben and wondered if a near century eroded the visions of mustard
gas and machine guns. “Did you … use your ability against the
enemy?”

“It isn’t a weapon,” he said with all
severity. “I put a man out of his misery once…” Ben’s eyes wandered
towards the sound of the rushing water.

“I’m sorry,” Lizzie broke the silence. “It
isn’t fair for me to make you remember awful things.”

Ben fixed his eyes back on her. She didn’t
understand to what memory his mind shifted as he looked at her, but
she could tell that it wasn’t any more comforting than the echoes
of Verdun. “It isn’t fair for me to make you feel guilty for
asking,” Ben returned quietly.

“What did you do after Verdun?”

“I went back to Princeton and earned my
medical degree,” he smiled.

“
How many times have you
gone to college?” Lizzie started walking again.

“Three.”

“Princeton, MIT, and…”

“Harvard. It was my first degree.”

“Of course,” Lizzie laughed. “You must know
many things.”

“
The world changes and
there is always more to learn. Plus, it helps one change
professions.”

“Right,” Lizzie paused. “You didn’t like
being a doctor?”

“I liked it very much.” Ben saw a bench and
led her over to it. “I was doing something very important.”

“Then why did you change?”

“I wanted to,” he looked at her and let out
a deep sigh. “I was a doctor for nearly sixty years. Most men
retire after so long.”

“So you retired by going to high
school?”

“Pretty much,” he laughed.

“
Why go to high school?
Why go back to high school when you can clearly pass yourself off
as a young man? Why put yourself through all that emotional
agony?”

“It gave me a history to get into
college.”

“Yes… but that doesn’t make sense.”

“I never went to high school before Springs.
I didn’t know that it was miserable… or why it was so wonderful
that people have reunions every five years.”

Lizzie laughed to herself. “I guess … but
why be such a … well, you could have easily been a jock or someone
popular. You can’t be that inept at sports.”

“I’m not,” Ben sat slowly on the bench.
“Participating wouldn’t have been a good idea. All those endorphins
running rampant would have been a difficult challenge.”

“Endorphins?” Lizzie sat next to him.

“That runner’s high you get courses through
your blood stream. It’s intoxicating.”

“You don’t like a high blood alcohol level…
but you like endorphins?”

“Mm hm,” he nodded, not looking at her.

“Well, I guess I was safe company then. I
couldn’t run and I certainly wasn’t getting any other sort of
endorphin rush in high school.”

“
I liked your company,”
Ben pushed some of her loose strands behind her ear.

Lizzie wasn’t affected by his tenderness.
“But if you were going back to high school… why did you choose
Springs? In the middle of nowhere? Why not choose a better school
system, with more educational opportunity? With a more diverse
student body to seem less… obviously different? Why did you pick
Springs?”

“Going to high school helped immerse me in
culture and learn current vernacular. It wasn’t just about the
classes I was taking. I needed to fit into a younger generation. I
chose Springs because I liked Coldbrook,” he kissed the top of her
forehead.

“What about Oliver?” Lizzie asked abruptly
and looked up to his eyes.

Ben dropped his hands at his sides and
sighed. “He is like me.”

“He’s a vampire?”

“Yes.”

“Your parents?”

“Did you ever meet our parents?”

“No.”

“That’s because we didn’t have parents.”

“Are you really brothers?” Lizzie suddenly
realized Ben’s red tinted hair and greenish eyes didn’t match
Oliver’s darker colors.

“We were both changed by the same vampire,”
he said slowly.

“Where is he?”

“She is dead.”

“You said you were immortal.”

“No, I did not.”

“But you… can’t die.”

“I never said that,” Ben shook his head. “I
assure you I can die.”

Lizzie’s mind filled with another hundred
questions. It was difficult to decide which was more important to
understand. “How did she die?”

Ben looked at her, hardening his gaze. “Her
heart stopped working,” he said coldly, confusing Lizzie and
discouraging her from continuing the pursuit of that subject.

Lizzie paused and allowed the sound of the
water fill the air for a few minutes as she let her mind stop
buzzing. She wanted to stop, breathe, and simply appreciate the
fact she was with Ben. It was overwhelming … and yet, as she saw
his eyes shift back to her… amazing. “Is Oliver really older than
you?”

“Younger,” Ben’s voice was warmer, but not
as light as her question.

“I really was an idiot in high school,”
Lizzie laughed at herself. “I had no idea.”

“There is a lot of self-absorption in high
school,” he lightened.

“But what of the teachers? The
principal?”

“They have enough to worry about with
teenagers without suspecting there are vampires. Besides, Oliver
and I kept a pretty low profile.”

“Mm,” Lizzie mused, thinking of her more
outrageous classmates. Dan Stewart was definitely a bigger handful
than a geeky closeted vampire. “So, really… after all those years
of being alive, you liked my company of so many other choices at
Springs?”

“I did,” Ben put his arm around her.

“And Sara, of course,” Lizzie tensed her
shoulders with the memory.

Ben lifted his hand and turned her chin to
make her face him. “I never had a thing for Sara,” he met her
eyes.

“Never?” Lizzie felt her head spinning with
a truth more dissembling of her reality than any of the other
things Ben told her in the past two days.

“Never,” Ben caught her next breath in a
passionate kiss, silencing her questions to the sounds of the birds
and the Connecticut River rushing in the distance.

*****

Lizzie shut off the television as Ben walked
into the room with two paper bags. He set them on the small table.
“I got you some dinner,” he removed a Styrofoam carton.

Lizzie smiled uneasily. “Thanks.”

He pulled out the chair and waited for her
to take the seat. She sat and lifted her hands up awkwardly as he
slid her closer to the table. “You can’t wait a week until you eat
again.”

“I can’t believe got me a hamburger,” Lizzie
lifted the lid of the container.

“You don’t like hamburgers?” he sat down in
the chair opposite.

“No, I love them. I just… I didn’t run
today.”

“You just hiked through the gorge and back.
You need iron. Red meat is a good source of iron.”

“I know,” Lizzie lifted it to her mouth and
set it back down. “I feel weird eating while you just… sit
there.”

“I’m used to it.”

“Yes, well… I am very self conscious about
eating more than other people.”

“Elizabeth, this is something you will need
to get used to. Besides, you watched me eat the other night.”

“That was… different,” Lizzie pulled apart
the layers of the burger. She found the pickles and pulled them off
of the roll. “Have you ever had a hamburger?”