26. Ash

Chapter Twenty-Six

Ash

“ T here you are,” Dolus said, appearing next to me while I stomped through the forest. I was pissed off, and I had no idea why. “I’ve looked everywhere for you.”

“No, you didn’t,” I pointed out. “Yeah… I didn’t,” Dolus said with a grin. “I knew where to find you. What’s going on with you?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “You look like you’re in a shitty mood.”

He wasn’t wrong about that. “It’s nothing.”

“Is it?” Dolus asked. “Or does it have something to do with Lorraine’s ex-boyfriend?”

I glared at Dolus. “What the fuck would you know about it?”

Dolus shrugged. “I don’t know much about her ex, or yours,” he admitted. “But I know everything about exes and the jealousy that can come with it.”

I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you think I’ve lived a loveless life?” Dolus asked. “If you’re alive for an eternity, you find all kinds of ways to dedicate your heart and have it ripped out again, over and over, since time goes on forever.”

“Hmm,” I said. “She’s pissing you off,” Dolus said. “It’s not her,” I answered flatly. We walked in silence for a beat before Dolus pushed in again. “Come on, talk to me. What are friends for?”

I still had no fucking idea why Dolus thought we were such close friends when that hadn’t ever been on the table. I’d opened up to him a little, I guess, but that was before this strange feeling had started accompanying him, making me feel like something just wasn’t right. “It’s complicated,” I hedged. “Is it because he’s still in the picture?” Dolus asked. I glared at him again. “He’s not. That’s the point of him being an ex-boyfriend.”

“Sure, sure,” Dolus said. “But she still dreams about him.”

And there it was—the reason why I was so fucking pissed off. Lorraine still dreamed about the asshole who’d made her life a living hell. She was here with me, and I did everything in my power to protect her, and she dreamed about someone else. I knew it was fucked up of me to get upset about it. It wasn’t like she was having good dreams about him, dreams that she held onto or instilled positive, loving emotions in her, but that didn’t change the fact that he was still on her mind in some way or another. “It hasn’t been that long,” I said, defending her. “It’s only been a couple of weeks, and she’s human.”

“She has weaknesses,” Dolus said, nodding. “That’s not what I mean. Time for her is different, since there isn’t so much of it in her life, so the fact that he’s still on her mind just a few weeks after she saw his true colors, when he’s been in her life for so long…” I shook my head, stopping myself from saying anything more. Despite wanting to be tight-lipped about Lorraine and what I felt about her, Dolus had managed to get me talking, and I’d already said more than I should have.

“You think about your ex sometimes, too,” Dolus pointed out. I bristled, balling my hands into fists. “And the idea doesn’t make you happy, either,” Dolus said, glancing down at my hands. “Does that mean she should be upset with you, too?”

“It’s not the same,” I countered, but maybe it really was exactly the same. “When I think about Ava, I hate her. I only think about her when I think about what she’s done to me. There’s no love anymore—there hasn’t been for a long time. If I think about it, it’s to compare her to Lorraine and to see how much she was lacking.”

“Ah,” Dolus said. “But you do think about her.”

I sighed. “Yeah, well, that’s the reason I wanted to get out of this hellhole in the first place—I wanted to get away from all the memories that haunt me. I guess it won’t make a difference, though.”

“Why not?” Dolus asked. “Because it doesn’t change anything. No matter where I go, I’ll still be the same person with the same past. I’ll still have my memories, which means that Lorraine and Ava will both be coming with me, at least in my mind.”

“Ah, you see, that’s what I’m here to talk to you about,” Dolus said. I relaxed my hands as the anger faded away and frowned at Dolus. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Your choice to go or stay.”

“I still have time to decide,” I pointed out. “Well, yeah.” Dolus shrugged and pushed his hands between the dark folds of his clothes, putting them in pockets I couldn’t see. “You can’t make an informed decision, no matter how much time you have, if you don’t know all the facts.”

“You mean, like where I’ll be going?” I asked. Was he really going to let me in on that when he hadn’t been willing to tell me before? Dolus snorted. “No, that I won’t tell you. I told you before, it doesn’t work that way.”

I stifled a groan. Dolus was showing his true colors more and more and talking about facts—he was more full of shit than I’d thought at first. “There are other things that will count in your favor, though,” Dolus said. “Like what?”

“The memories, the past that you keep referring to, saying that it will go with you—that won’t happen.”

“What do you mean?” I asked and stopped walking, turning so I could face Dolus. We were in a part of the forest I didn’t usually visit, and I set my magic across the trees, looking for other druses who might be listening in on the conversation. We were completely alone. “I mean, if you decide to go, you won’t take your memories with you. You’ll start from scratch with a clean slate. You’ll forget all about Ava.”

I blinked at Dolus. Could it really be? After all this time living with the memories of what she’d done to me, I could finally be free of them? It was nearly enough to make me agree to do it then and there, but something pulled me up short. “What about Lorraine?” I asked. “I’m not letting her go with you,” Dolus said tightly. “That’s not how this works?—”

“Will I forget her, too?”

“Memories are memories, Ash,” Dolus said. “We don’t get to pick and choose which ones we lose and which we keep. If you go and you forget it all, you forget it all.”

Could I do that? Could I risk losing the memories of Lorraine? A life without knowing her would be so empty and bland. She’d brought color and life back into my world when I’d thought I’d lost it forever, and to give that all up…

“No one said that’s a bad thing,” Dolus added. “You’re already worried about the pain of losing her if you choose to go. Well, this solves that for you, doesn’t it?”

You can’t miss something you never knew you had.”

I hesitated. That was true, and if Lorraine did decide to go back to her world, and I decided to stay so we called it quits, the pain of losing Lorraine would be so much worse than the pain had been when I’d lost Ava. “Why will I lose my memories?” I asked. Dolus grinned a broad smile at me that showed me all his teeth. The smile was supposed to be friendly—I think—but it came across like a smirk instead. “It doesn’t usually happen that way, but I pulled some strings for you.”

“Why?” I asked, suspicious. “Because I wanted to make the decision a little easier for you, you know? Sweeten the deal.”

I shook my head, trying to sort out my thoughts. “Why would you do something like that for me?”

“I told you,” Dolus said, that grin changing, becoming even more sly. “We’re friends.”

Yeah, that wasn’t something I believed when he grinned at me like that. “It’s just some food for thought. The decision is still up to you; I just thought I’d give you something to chew on. Of course, the sooner you decide, the better, so if you can make that choice before All Hallows’ Eve, I’d recommend it.”

“Why?” I asked, suspicious of anything that came out of Dolus’s mouth now. I wasn’t sure what had changed about the way he did things, but I trusted him less and less. Was it because everyone kept hammering on that he was the god of deceit and that got to me? Or was it something else? “A plan that has an expiration date is really much better the sooner you can execute it,” Dolus said. “I’ll check in with you soon. You deserve some time to think about a distraction.”

With that, Dolus disappeared and I stood between the trees alone. The wind shifted and changed, becoming cold on my skin, and I broke out in shivers. I felt empty and hollow, like the trees around me without the spirits that occupied them. The idea of losing Lorraine made me sick. The idea of never knowing she existed made me want to throw up, twisting my insides until I was nothing but a ball of anxiety and panic. Wasn’t this exactly why it was a good idea to let her go and forget about her if this didn’t work out? If I didn’t remember her, I wouldn’t feel like this. When I’d lost Ava, the thought of her had made me physically ill, too. Even after all these years, thinking about her made me feel bitter, a fire of pure hatred burning inside me. All of that would be gone, and I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. The downside was that I wouldn’t know I’d ever known and loved Lorraine. I wanted to forget Ava, but Lorraine wasn’t someone I wanted to forget. I loved her, and her beauty and purity of heart was something I wanted to hold onto forever. Would I still feel that way after we decided it was over and went back to our respective lives? I didn’t know, and not knowing drove me crazy. I turned around and headed back to the cabin. I had to find her, talk to her. I had to touch her, feel her. Was I going to lose it all? If I was, I wanted to hold onto as much as I could before it was all over. I couldn’t imagine a life without Lorraine, but if I chose to, I wouldn’t have to. I couldn’t imagine giving up the memories of her, and that ripped me apart. How could I decide? Dolus had given me an easy out by telling me I’d get rid of all my memories, but at the same time, there was nothing easy about it at all.