Ivan
Ilooked down at my glass, while I sat at the quiet pub. I was in some place called Philadelphia recommended by Marcus. His brother, Harris, was helping me to start a new life here in the human world. The best way for me to keep my distance from Jalisa was to never return to the fae realm. I was certain when she went back, she would explain to the court why I couldn’t return so that they didn’t seek punishment against my family.
“It was the right thing to do, walking away. I have to remind myself of that. It’s only been one day, but it’s the longest we’d been apart since our marriage, and I am feeling out of water. It felt like a mistake, but it’s not. I know this. The other night, I looked at her for an hour and had no idea who she was. I excused it as drunken one-night stand, as you humans call it. I havedecency and didn’t want to disappear into the night. That’d be a shit thing to do to someone.”
I snapped my fingers. “And then an hour later, I remembered her. It all came flooding back and instead of relief, I felt miserable. Because I’d forgotten her at all.” My eyes watered, and I didn’t care if the tears fell. I had a right to be sad. To be upset. “It’s never been that bad before. All I could think was that I didn’t want the love of my life to feel this way. No, I’m fucking lying. I also thought that I couldn’t stomach seeing what doing that to her would look like. I’m an alpha, that wouldn’t be protecting her. She’s my omega. I need to cherish her. Make her happy. And I can’t do that. Maybe leaving makes me a coward. What do you think?”
I looked over to the bartender, an older werewolf shifter with cropped white hair and a long white beard. He continued to dry out a glass with a towel as he considered me with hard, golden wolf eyes. “If you love somebody, it’s not about holding on tight. It’s about setting them free.”
I nodded, taking a sip of my whiskey. That sounded pretty wise. The humans, in small doses, could be quite smart.
“Of course, she didn’t ask to be set free, and it sounds like you wrote her a Dear John letter, which is shit.”
I lowered my head to my chest. “I wrote her many letters. What happened to John?”
The bartender chuckled. “Basically, his baby wrote him a letter to say she’s leaving him.”
“Did she have a good cause, like me?”
He shrugged. “Don’t remember the lyrics of the song. But are you sure it’s a good cause? I don’t know much about magic, but I had someone in my life who suffered from dementia. It’s not like what is happening to you, but there are some similarities. Except I couldn’t imagine someone remembering everything and everyone else but me. It would kill me.”
I pointed at him, glad he was understanding. “Exactly.”
He glared down at me with a disapproving raised brow. “But not as much as not having every moment I could with that person until the end.”
I rolled my eyes. “This is not helping.”
“I’m not here to do that.”
“Clearly. Look, mate, you don’t understand what this dark magic is doing to me. My uncle told me it’s not a slow roll out where I would lose knowing who she was bit by bit. It started that way, yeah, but then it hits me like a sledgehammer. I know her and then I suddenly have no clue. It was for seconds and minutes before, with sporadic loss of my memories of her. But it scared the hell out of me to know I lost her for an hour. Imagine a day. I’d leave her, thinking she was a crazy stranger. Imagine her waiting for me to return.” I slapped at my chest, feeling my insides burn from the pain of dark possibilities. “Maybe I would remember and come back. And that would be our normal routine for a while. Until that one day I wouldn’t come back at all. How long would she wait? How long would she put her life on pause? For me?”
The bartender put the glass down and tossed the dish towel over his shoulder. “That sucks, man, but isn’t she kind of waiting now?”
I put my glass down and rubbed at my face with both hands. My skin felt itchy and uncomfortable. It might have been the loss of my bond. It nagged at me as if something was missing from me. I hated it. “Yeah, you really aren’t helping. But yes, she’s kind of waiting now, but I wrote in my letters to tell her not to. I joked about waiting ten years. But I think five years is more realistic. And at least she knows I left until a cure is found, not because I wandered off to forget her. I put in parameters. Even though I remember everyone else, I sent word to my friends and family that I’m staying here. They can get approval to visit me. Idon’t want to rub it in her face that she’s the one I forgot, nor do I want her to uproot her life staying away from me. So maybe I’m a coward, but I’m a thoughtful one.”
“It sounds like it. But question, are you willing to forget her? If you see those pictures you have of her and read your journal, what will that do toyourmind?”
“It’ll drive me crazy. Knowing there’s this woman out there that was so precious to me but who I can’t remember.”
“Seems cruel to do to yourself.”
“It’s the only way to ensure I don’t give up on us. She’ll keep looking for a cure. I need to as well.” I knocked back the rest of my drink and slammed the glass down before getting up. “Ok, I’m leaving. It was really good talking to you…”
The bartender glared at me. “Max.”
I extended my hand for him to shake. “Max, I’m Ivan. This is a great place. I’ll be back for some of your sage wisdom.”
“I thought you didn’t like my advice?”
“Oh, no, I don’t. I just wanted to say something nice.”
***
I woke up one morning feeling a deep loss in my heart that I’d never felt before. Something was missing. Something necessary. I sat up in the dark studio apartment, clutching at my chest.
The space around me was foreign, too new to be home yet. But it wasn’t just the newness of it all that contributed to the loss I felt. I really wanted to get out of this realm. Go back to the fae. Everything was wrong. However, I couldn’t go home. The fae realm was no longer a safe place for me. I couldn’t remember exactly why, but I knew it to be true. Still, I knew I was missing something. I just couldn’t remember what.
This was the fifth morning in this studio apartment. The fifth morning I’d woken up to feeling like there was a hole in thecenter of my chest. The fifth morning I looked through my communication device, what the humans called a cell phone, searching for something I couldn’t quite name. I looked through my written messages, or text, finding the same questions I intended to ask to the friends I’d made in this realm. Why was I not able to go back home? Had I lost someone or something?
