Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (51 page)

Every wall and barrier that Adrian had erected came tumbling down. They were walking by the campus gazebo, and he crawled inside and fell onto one of the benches. Tears welled up within his eyes. Brian seemed stunned and sat beside him. Adrian stared at the city lights. Lightning flashed in Anthony Barnhart

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the distance. His vision became blurred with the tears, and he wiped them away. “I hurt her,” he said. “I hurt her really bad.”

“You hurt her?” Brian asked.

“She gave me her heart.” He rubbed the tears from his eyes. He bit his lip and shook his head.

“She… She gave me her heart.” He looked into his eyes. “She gave me her heart, and I took it… I took it, and I cut it open… She trusted me, but I took that trust and slit it apart… She thought she could trust me… She thought that I loved her…
I
thought I loved her!... She thought that I loved her, and so she gave me her heart… I took her heart… I… God.”

Brian had no idea what to say, so he kept the confession going. “How’d you… hurt her? I mean… I mean, how did you cut her heart open?”

“I slept with her,” he confessed. “Four times. I slept with her… Four times.”

“Oh,” was all he could say.

“She was a gift to me,” Adrian said. “She was a gift to me, and I completely destroyed that gift. I feel like… The gift has been taken from me. I had my way with it, I trashed it, so now it’s been taken from me.”

Brian said nothing.

“I thought I loved her… But I showed that I don’t.”

“You’re torn about it? Torn up about… abusing her?”

“I hate myself in every way possible,” he said. “I just want to curl up into a fetal position and die. I keep seeing her… I keep seeing her in her room, hunched over, crying, wondering why God would let me do this to her. God, how
could
He let me do this to her? I just don’t want her to be hurt.”

“Really?” Brian mused. “It sounds to me like you love her. I mean, really
love
her.”

“No. No.” Adrian refused to give room for that idea. “I proved that wrong last week.”

“Perhaps you just acted in passion. I mean, look at you: it’s shredded you. If doing this had been part of your plan all along-”

“It wasn’t,” Adrian vehemently interjected.

“People make mistakes.
I’ve
made the mistake of having sex before marriage. I regret it, yes, but I claim forgiveness. It still bothers me, yes, but I know God doesn’t hold it against me. We all make mistakes. Are you so arrogant to think that you’re somehow exempt from this? Exempt from the pitfalls of humanity?”

“No…”

Brian changed his tone of voice and spoke with authority and conviction. “Dude, you know I love you. You’re like a brother to me. But wipe your tears and grow a spine. Grow a pair of broad shoulders. You messed up, yes. But
move on
.”

That advice sounded ridiculous. “I haven’t seen her… If I could just talk to her…”

“She’s been in her room?”

“Yeah, the entire time.”

“All week?”

“All week,” he said with a nod.

“You haven’t talked to her?”

“I haven’t seen her! She won’t get online, she won’t answer her phone… I don’t know what to do. It terrifies me. I know I hurt her, Man. I think… I think I ruined everything. It’s not anyone’s fault but mine. But… On the ride home, Brian… On the ride home, you should’ve seen her. She was different. She didn’t want me to touch her.” He peered into Brian’s eyes, speaking vividly and with determination. “I hurt her so much. She gave her heart out to someone, and he took a knife to it and ripped it open. I deserve every ounce of Hell.”

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Suddenly footsteps approached the bench at the gazebo. Both Brian and Adrian turned their heads to see an image approaching from under the trees. “Brian? Adrian?” A girl emerged, one of Kristen’s friends. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Kristen’s disappeared and she left this.” She handed Adrian a note. He unfolded it and quickly read it.

Brian watched as Adrian’s face drained of color; the note fell from his hands.

∑Ω∑

Harker, visibly moved by Adrian’s vows, speaks now with sincere passion. “The Word of God tells us what love is and what love does:

‘Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.’

“The Apostle Paul writes at the end of the chapter, ‘So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.’ Having this kind of love in your hearts, you have chosen to exchange rings as the sign and seal of the vows you are making today.” He looks out towards the gathered crowd. “May I have the rings?”

∑Ω∑

Brian tried to make sense of what had happened but was unable to do so. In a moment Adrian’s façade, his very demeanor, changed: his sorrow and regret had turned into panic and harrowing fear. His own eyes became akin to those of a deer in headlights; his muscles froze as if put on ice, and his breath stopped as if he had died with his eyes open. The color drained from his hands and face; his fingers quivered in a state of shock. Jasmine, Kristen’s friend who had delivered the letter, had not read the letter for herself; she was unable to say anything in her shock of the moment. Adrian stared forward; Brian leaned over, picking up the note; as he began to unfold it, Adrian leapt to his feet and took off, nearly running Brian over. Brian turned his head to see Adrian running towards the men’s parking lot.

Brian demanded of her, “Did you read the note?!”

“No!” she exclaimed. “No, it was addressed to
him
.”

“Why didn’t you read it?!”

“It wasn’t written to me!” she hollered. “I don’t read other peoples’ business!” Then, “What’s it say?” Her chest shook with each resounding heartbeat.

He unfolded it quickly and read it in the light from the lamp at the gazebo. Before she could say anything, he was up and running, calling after her: “Come on! Come on!”

She cursed under her breath and followed.

They ran down the slope of the campus to the men’s parking lot. The darkness was suddenly shattered by blinding twin shafts of light. Brian covered his eyes; Monica ducked out of the way. Adrian’s Jeep screeched to a halt in front of Brian. Brian ran around to the passenger side and hammered on the window. “Let me in! Let me in!” Adrian reached over and unlocked the door. As Brian got in, Monica reached the other side of the door and begged to be let in. Brian unlocked her door; before she even shut the door, Adrian was halfway up the hill, engine shrieking.

“What’s going on?!” Monica hollered.

Brian spoke to Adrian: “Do you know where she is?”

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“The overpass,” Adrian answered, almost out-of-breath.

Monica whined, “What’s going on?!”

Brian leaned forward in the seat. “Shit.”

Adrian didn’t stop at the stop sign at the school’s entrance; he swerved into the street. A car laid on its horn and swerved onto the sidewalk. Monica screamed, thrown around in the backseat. Adrian pressed the gas as hard as he could, taking the wild turns of Old Towne faster than anyone ever had. More than once they almost fishtailed into the buildings along the opposite lane; several cars dove out of their way. The left side of Adrian’s Jeep was bruised by a truck, the mirror shorn off. Monica was lying down on the floorboards; she picked herself up and screamed, “Red light! Red light!” She shrieked as they drove right past it, the horn of a business van rattling the windows. She cowered in the back, tears sliding down her cheeks. “Oh God, save us, oh God, save us, oh God save us, save us…”

Adrian yelled to Brian, “Do you see her? Do you see her?”

“No,” Brian said. “No… Wait… There! There!”

Adrian slammed the brakes. Monica was thrown into the back of the seat. The car fishtailed, circling upon the road; it smashed into the railing. Concrete crumbled from the impact and fell one hundred feet down to the rushing river. Adrian and Brian threw open their doors upon the overpass and ran out, yelling. Monica felt blood on her forehead and dizziness; she collapsed in the backseat, energy exhausted.

∑Ω∑

Mark comes forward with the rings, his official induction into the community. A strange look is upon his face, a mask of pain and joy. Adrian ignores him as he takes Rachel’s ring, and Rachel takes Adrian’s ring from the soft pillow on which they had sat. Mark returns to the pew and sits. Harker continues. “Though small in size, these rings are very large in significance. Made of precious metal, they remind us that love is not cheap nor common; indeed, love may cost us dearly.” His words drench the sanctuary, and for a moment he falters; a pang of heartache flutters through Adrian, and he knows that Harker is thinking of his own daughter. But the man composes himself and continues.

“These rings, made in a circle, speak to us in their design: love must never come to an end. Love must be continuous. As you wear these rings, whether together or apart for a moment, may they be constant reminders of these glad promises you are making today.”

He turns to Adrian, says, “Adrian Ryan, will you take your ring and place it upon the third finger of Rachel Huntsmen’s left hand, and repeat after me this promise, saying:” Adrian slides the ring onto Rachel’s dainty finger, and he repeats Harker’s words: “With this ring, I seal my promise, to be your faithful and loving husband, as God is my witness.”

Harker faces Rachel. “Rachel Huntsmen, will you take your ring and place it upon the third finger of Adrian Ryan’s left hand, and repeat after me this promise, saying:” She wiggles the golden ring onto his finger—upon feeling the ring, lightning courses through Adrian’s soul—, and she repeats the words Harker speaks: “With this ring, I seal my promise, to be your faithful and loving wife, as God is my witness.”

∑Ω∑

She stood upon the concrete ledge of the overpass, tiptoes poking over the side. The wind whisked her chocolate hair about, and her eyes stared down into the churning, icy water below, the waves Anthony Barnhart

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frothing at the tips. Her hands seemed to shake as she stood there, her mind overflowing with a million broken thoughts. Brian and Adrian ran up behind her and begged her to come down; Adrian tried to move forward, but she told him that if he touched her, she would jump. He felt tears welling up in his eyes and his knees became like rubber; he fell against a lamppost, pleading with her to come down. Brian pleaded likewise, but it was Adrian’s words that came with the most unhindered passion.

“I’m sorry!” he wailed. “Oh God, I’m sorry! It was wrong! God! It was so wrong! I was stupid, I was selfish, I was mean, I took your heart and I gouged it! Kristen…” The tears blended with his choked pleas. “Kristen… Come down… Come down… I’m sorry…”

She looked back at him, shaking her head. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face seemed withered of all life. “You don’t understand…” she said, her voice cracking with bottled emotion.

“You don’t understand…”

Adrian didn’t hear her. “I won’t ever touch you! I promise! I won’t ever speak with you, won’t even
look
at you! Please come down. Please don’t do this. I’ll do anything you want, I’ll do-”

Brian was speaking coolly, defying his panic: “Kristen, let’s think about this… Let’s reason together…”

Adrian slid to his knees, body wrapping around the lamppost. “Kristen… Kristen…” All the memories of their beautiful moments together, all the laughter and joy and the feeling of completion he had felt, all of this swarmed into his heart, and it buckled him down onto the ground. He reached up at her, feeling more weak than he ever had, more hopeless and unworthy and more
wicked
than he had ever felt before. “Kristen… Don’t do this… You don’t deserve this-”

“I
do
deserve it,” she growled. “You don’t understand…”

“Kristen,” Brian breathed. “Come down. No one is going to judge you or ridicule you or—”

Adrian cried out, “I know I don’t understand, Kristen, I know I don’t understand how I could’ve hurt you like…”

Kristen spoke: “I
made
you sleep with me, Adrian! Don’t you remember it? I
made
you do it!”

Adrian gawked at her through his tears. “What?” he wept.

She bit her lip, fighting back the tears. “You were asleep… And I crawled over… And I got on top of you and started kissing you… I
made
you do it… I said that if you loved me, you’d have sex with me. You said no, but I made you do it. I made you do it because I threatened to break up with you. I abused the love you gave me. I took it and twisted it and manipulated you to get what I wanted.”

Brian stared at her, unbelieving.

Adrian groaned. “No… No, you’re lying…”

“You’ve invented a lie to protect me!” Kristen hollered. “You’ve invented a lie so that you don’t have to know who I really am, what I’m really like. I’m not some princess, Adrian. I’m a horrible creature, a slut of a creature. God! I always wanted real love, Adrian, and God blessed me by giving me a chance—just one chance!—at love, and I murdered that gift.”

Adrian could not believe. He didn’t want to believe. But with her words came the realization, came the flood of memories. Yes, she had crawled into his bed. Yes, she had started seducing him. Yes, she had manipulated him. He didn’t feel a rush of anger at all, but a deeper sorrow. When he looked upon her, his love for her seemed to swell and expand to greater depths, greater heights.

“I’m going to jump,” Kristen said. “You’re too good… Too good for a girl like me.”

Adrian wiped his eyes, panic returning. “Kristen…”

Brian gently stepped forward. “Don’t do this, Kristen. Come down. It’s okay.”

“You deserve such a better girl than me,” Kristen said. “Not a… not a manipulative sex-addict.”

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