I gasped. Astaroth was telling the truth. I looked down where the pendant hung concealed by my shirt. The reassuring pulse was back. It throbbed in acknowledgment. I hoped the effects lasted long enough to get all the answers I wanted.
“Some of them were innocent. I didn’t even know them.”
“You knew them. And they knew you.” His gaze traveled down my body. “Parts of you. None of them were innocent.”
His statement confused me. I wanted to completely block the parts he leered at. I felt icky, like he had groped me all over. “I don’t understand your jealousy.”
“Jealousy is fickle.” Astaroth leaned down. I inched away, and he followed. “I am livid.”
I stumbled on the wreckage when he ripped open our connection. The wall crashed down between us and the full array of his emotions swept over me. He had been holding back. It was too much for me to grasp or process. Hate-fringed love with an underlying sense of betrayal and heartbreak filled every one of my cells.
Astaroth reached out for me, but I dodged his arms and kept moving until I rounded the table and put it between us. “You told me to live my life.” Without thinking, I pulled the pendant out of my shirt. “Told me you’d make all my dreams come true. You can’t be mad at me for doing exactly what you wanted.”
“I’m furious that you care more for those parasites than you ever cared for me!”
The depth of his sorrow and loneliness pained me. It was a shitty excuse for his actions. He chose to hurt others and took satisfaction in it.
“You stole my brother, tortured me, and killed innocent people. How am I supposed to care about you after all that?”
Astaroth leaned on the table and came eye to eye with me. “You did once. You started to again.”
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled the pictures out and held them up. “You mean like this?”
His face hardened.
“You took this from me. Did you steal my memories of them, too,Roth?” He didn’t respond. The stone pulsed when I screamed, “Answer me!”
He looked down at the pendant and spit through clenched teeth, “Yes.”
His admission made me sick to my stomach. What else had he done to alter my life? I wanted everything back he took from me, but I would never be certain if what he gave me was the truth orif he would feed me more illusions. “I can’t even stand to look at you.”
Astaroth’s gaze latched onto mine and narrowed. The white specks flickered lightly within their angry, tired depths. “Would it be easier if I looked like this?”
I gasped when his face morphed into one of my recent hookups.
“Or perhaps like this?”
Jaw slack in horror, I watched him change into someone else.
“No?” A devious smirk curled in the corner of his mouth. “What about one of these?”
My head hurt as his face changed again, and again, and again. I shuffled around the table as he stalked me.
“I thought for sure one of them would suit you. Maybe one of these will be better.”
Faces came into focus that seemed vaguely familiar. The fogginess in my mind dissipated and a slew of memories rushed back to me. I felt like I was living life in reverse as the veils lifted revealing each one. The guys I actually dated during and after college before giving up hope on a normal life. Boys I dated in high school who I thought moved away and never heard from again. Tears pooled in my eyes when their names echoed in my head as the goblin announced their entrance into the arena.
Astaroth changed into the younger, softer version of himself. “What about him?”
A sob caught in my throat when the remainder of my memories revealed themselves. All the times he visited me through our childhood: running through the woods and catching fireflies together, climbing trees and building forts, lying on our backs and staring at the clouds until the stars took over the sky and I had to rush home, leaving him behind, my grandmother discovering us together and learning what Astaroth could do, and her prohibiting me from ever following him home. Thencame the memory of his visit when I started viewing him as more than a boy and of his furtive glances at my developing body.
The first time I kissed him.
When we lost our virginity together.
My hand shook as held the photos up. They were my gift to him so he wouldn’t forget me. He said things were happening at home, and he wouldn’t be able to visit for a while, but when he was ready, he would return for me, and we could be together forever.
“A forever of forevers,”I’d said and sealed it with a kiss.
