An Ever Fixéd Mark (61 page)

He waited a few moments and then followed
her. He went to the fireplace and stood awkwardly at the mantle.
“It was an accident. I was… I was so happy that you… that we were
together. That you made the choice to be with me.”

“I didn’t make that choice.”

He left the mantle and went to her. “You
told me that Lily forgave me. You kissed me.”

“
I made a foolish
decision. I was confused. I thought I was supposed to... that it
was what Lily wanted. Maybe it is what Lily wants,” Lizzie
tightened her fist. “But it isn’t what I want.”

“You let him manipulate you,” he took hold
of her cheeks and turned her face to his. “You let him convince you
that Lily doesn’t matter.”

She pulled herself away as he tried to kiss
her. “I know you loved Lily. I know she broke your heart. I know
that she … I know the baby… it wasn’t fair what happened to you,
Oliver. But it isn’t for me to make it right.”

“This isn’t about making something right,”
he went to her again. “This is about what is right. Us.”

“There is no us.”

“
You don’t want
this?”

“I want you to leave,” she looked directly
at him.

“Please, Lizzie.”

“You left me to die.”

“You told me to leave.”

“You could have done something.”

“Yes,” he nodded. “I could have saved
you.”

“You knew… didn’t you? You knew that my
blood wasn’t right. You knew if you took too much I could
change.”

His dark eyes smiled at her, but she could
see the deceit of his charm. “You knew… you did this to Melissa
Benson.”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“No,” Lizzie walked towards the door. “But
you knew when you took her blood she wouldn’t be well enough to get
home. You knew she would die.”

“She tricked me.”

“You knew she wouldn’t survive without a
transfusion. From you. So you didn’t take her to the hospital. You
didn’t want her to mutate and turn into… you didn’t want Ben to
know what you did.”

“
You weren’t there. You
don’t know what happened.”

“I was there a few days ago. You did to her
what you did to me. You left me to die.”

“I don’t want you to die.”

“I don’t want to live like you,” she tried
to walk passed him, but he took hold of her arms again and pushed
her against the wall. He let go but stood in front of her,
blockading her exit. “Did your wife have a choice? Or did you
infect her blood by feeding from her too soon?”

“We made the choice to let it happen.”

“No you didn’t.”

“You’re confused,” he shut his eyes. “You
are overwhelmed. But you will understand… I know you will see that
this is what should happen.”

“What?”

“Why else would you keep coming back?” he
touched her hair. “It doesn’t make sense that you should die
again.”

“Oliver, I don’t love you.”

“You aren’t supposed to be with him.
Lily...”

“Oliver,” she shut her eyes. “Why are you
doing this? You are a good man, Oliver. Why can’t you accept that
this is what I want?”

“Because he doesn’t deserve you,” he took
hold of her chin.

“He would let me go if I didn’t want him,”
Lizzie made herself meet Oliver’s sad manic eyes. “He wouldn’t
force me to stay with him because some vicious vampire told him
lies about karma.”

He let go of her arm and stepped back. “It
wasn’t a lie. You came back.”

Lizzie pushed him aside and went down the
stairs. She took her keys from the door and stepped out onto the
porch, knowing Oliver was right behind her. She stepped onto the
porch and felt him take her arm. “Oliver, this has to stop. I need
to live my life now. Not… the one you and Lily never had,” she
looked away from the eyes that seemed to burn into her soul with
accusation and challenged her goodness. “Please go.”

“
She asked you to leave,
Oliver,” Ben appeared at the bottom of the porch stairs.

Oliver let go of her arm and turned to face
Ben. She had not seen them together since high school. Both sets of
eyes burned with an intensity that frightened her. She saw Ben’s
fists curled tightly at his sides. She wondered what he was going
to do when Oliver didn’t leave. Oliver was taller. He was probably
stronger than Ben. He could hurt Ben. He could… “Ben,” she began as
the keys rattled out of her grip. She shifted back to Oliver and
tried to offer a smile to him. She couldn’t find the strength to be
pleasant but was able to tender her voice to kindness. “Oliver,
please go. Please don’t make a scene.”

Oliver looked at her again, breaking the
madness in his eyes. There was the soul struggling to be good. She
could see it, but no longer believed its ability to completely
overcome. He nodded reluctantly to her and let the meanness return
with a nasty look at Ben as he walked away.

Lizzie bent down to pick up her keys and
rose to find Ben’s arms circle about her. She looked over his
shoulder and watched the silver Jeep leave Jefferson Park. “Are you
okay?” Ben pulled back to look at her face.

Lizzie nodded, unable to find the strength
in her voice to speak. She hugged him tightly and let loose the
tears her panic froze earlier. “My meeting ended early. I came to
help you pack.”

“
He’s mad,” she swallowed
as she released the embrace. “Because of me.”

Ben wiped the tears from her cheeks. “It
isn’t your fault.”

“
I’m the only one who can
fix this.”

“What do you think you can do, Elizabeth?
You can’t reason with him. You know that.”

“
Lily took everything away
from him. Everything. He could have had a perfectly happy life. He
could have married the daughter of the blacksmith, but Lily…” the
words were exiting her mouth without the cognition of the memory.
“Lily went back to him to try to forget… you. Just like I did. I
have to fix this Ben. I have to put right what she did to
him.”

“How are you going to do that? How could you
possibly give him what he lost? You don’t want to be with him,” his
jaw was very tight.

“I don’t know. I just know I have to stop
his sadness,” she faded with a look at the blue spring sky.

“What if he kills you, Elizabeth? That won’t
stop anyone’s sadness,” he took her shoulders.

“He won’t kill me.”

“He’s waiting to put you in a position to
die or have to live like us.”

“That won’t happen.”

“
Elizabeth, I don’t know
what I will do if he hurts you again,” he folded her into another
furious embrace.

Lizzie loosed one of her arms and stroked
his cheek. She kissed his lips softly. “Ben, he isn’t going to hurt
me. He can’t hurt me any more than I’ve already hurt him. I have to
undo that. I have to make peace with him.”

“He’s too mad to understand peace.”

“
Charlotte told him Lily
would come back to him and put right what happened in the Fulton
House two hundred years ago. I have to put it right, Ben. No one
else can do that.” She didn’t know how that would happen. She knew
only that as Oliver released Lily from her sorrow, Lily now had to
release Oliver from his.

Chapter
Thirty-Nine

Lizzie was still breathing deeply as she sat
at her desk. She hadn’t run more than a mile since the marathon.
She was glad to make use of the cool July morning and test the path
on this side of the Charles. She felt the oxygen in her veins and
realized how much she missed it. She checked her emails, confirming
the schedule for Saturday’s anniversary party. It was the biggest
event yet. Andrew sent a half dozen messages about plates and
cutlery, even though they confirmed all the rentals two nights
earlier. Lizzie sighed with a happy annoyance. It was still early
enough that she found Andrew’s attention to these details charming.
It allowed her to concentrate on food and figures.

The business was a healthy distraction from
the apprehension that hadn’t left her since April. She settled
happily into her new life with Ben. It didn’t feel new, just like
something that was waiting for her to come back. It didn’t diminish
her content and it helped her optimism.

She knew Oliver didn’t leave Massachusetts.
He didn’t try to contact her in the two months since his appearance
at Jefferson Park. Lizzie hoped he was busy settling into his new
job and consumed with the details of his move. Ben was still
worried. He didn’t like when she went for her run before he left
for the office. She indulged him and carried her phone, even though
she hated the weight of it in the pocket of her shorts. Oliver was
no where to be seen. He was probably writing syllabi.

She glanced to the left of her keyboard and
noticed an off white envelope. She recognized the red address as
that of the clinic. After so many months of mystery, the clinic
underwhelmed her on her first visit the week before. It wasn’t much
different than the corridors of Mt. Elm, just a good deal quieter.
Nevertheless, she felt her slowing heartbeat pick up speed again as
she fingered the flap on the back. Ben put it there, so he already
knew the outcome. She opened it and looked at a couple pages of
numbers and letters she didn’t understand. At the bottom of the
last page, she saw in Ben’s handwriting. “You passed.”

She smiled broadly, forgetting the
anniversary party and her other unchecked emails. She half wished
Ben would indulge his overprotective habit and visit her on his
lunch break. If he knew and saw her going for a run, wouldn’t he
want to taste the benefits? No… Ben wouldn’t do this impulsively.
He was probably anticipating her blood much more than she
anticipated giving it to him. He wouldn’t squander it on a
spontaneous morning. She suspected there might be a delay for a few
more weeks to coincide with her birthday and the fact she couldn’t
find her passport.

She left her office and was on her way to
the shower when she heard the door knock. She ran through the list
of possible deliveries and hoped that it was her new mixer. She
still felt the elation of her run until she recognized the dark
eyes of Oliver looking at her. Her water bottle slipped from her
grasp as she stepped back a few strides.

“Lizzie.”

“How did you get in here?” she thought of
the doorman and Ben’s insistence on screening all visitors to the
apartment.

“I want to talk to you,” he shut the door
and stepped further into the apartment.

“Yes,” she caught her breath and tried to
collect her thoughts.

“Did you just go for a run?”

Lizzie studied his calm expression and saw
no indication of hunger for her endorphins. “It was pretty
pathetic,” she made herself laugh. “I haven’t… as you can probably
tell, I’ve been sampling a lot of recipes lately.”

“You look the same as you did… in April,” he
looked down. “Please, can we talk about that?”

“Yes,” she bent down to pick up her water
bottle. “I think we should.”

She showed him the large couch and decided
to sit on one of the chairs. She eyed the full rack of wine by the
dining room table and wondered if she should do that just in case.
It was only 9:30. That was reckless. She needed to be clearheaded
and aware of everything that was going on. Wine would help Lily’s
memories. Lizzie didn’t want them to control what she did, what she
had to do.

“So you took the job at UMASS?”

“I did. I have too many reasons to stay
here.”

“I hope I’m not one of them,” she said
slowly, but with every effort of emphasis.

“Of course you are.”

“Oliver…” she shut her eyes and drew in a
breath. “I am happy here. I am happy with Ben. Can’t you see that?
If you really do love me, don’t you want me to be happy?”

He looked at her. She could see his thoughts
struggling behind his eyes. “I want you to be happy.”

“Then, it is best if you leave us be,” she
saw him shift his eyes downward.

“What are you afraid of, Lizzie?” he wasn’t
lifting his eyes. She couldn’t see if his eyes changed as his voice
had. “Why do you need me to stay away? Are you afraid you will
second guess your decision to go back to him?”

“No.”

“What happens when you have another
memory?”

“I won’t,” she sat stiffly in the chair. “I
learned everything I need to know about Lily. But it doesn’t
matter, because… because she is dead, Oliver. I am a different
person. I make my own decisions. I choose Ben. I chose him the
first … I knew after the reunion that I wanted him more than anyone
else.”

“But you didn’t know who you were then.”

“I knew exactly who I am. I didn’t
understand Lily, but I always knew her,” she dared herself to touch
his hand. “Oliver, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that she hurt you. I am
very sorry that I… I have done the same thing. It isn’t fair to
you… because all you ever were and ever tried to be was my
friend.”

“That’s not all I ever was,” he revealed his
darker eyes. They were still human, very human. They were hurting
from a heartache as old as he was.

She pulled back her hand quickly, afraid her
oxygenated blood got too close to him. “Oliver, why do you want
Lily back if she was so horrible to you? She used you as she had
been used by Horace Fulton and Charlotte. She didn’t have a heart.
Why do you want to win it?”

“You have a heart, Lizzie. You are what she
always wanted to be, but could never become. Don’t you see that?
Part of that is her unfulfilled wish to marry me.”

“I don’t want to get married.”

“Not to Ben. But…” he took her hand back to
his own. “Lizzie, you know this is what she wanted. She wanted it
so badly she let herself die when she couldn’t have it.”

“She wanted to marry the father of her
child. Not a monster,” Lizzie hardened her voice as she clenched
the fingers in his hand to a fist. “You became everything she
hated, Oliver. You lost her – you lost your only opportunity for
her when you became one of them.”