The Hour of Dreams

“E
verything is going to be all right.” That’s what Wes had assured me, sitting in our kitchen a few weeks ago. Wanting to believe him, I kept repeating it—even as I swam. For Wes, spending time in his indoor lap pool was both mentally and physically calming. I didn’t need the newlywed nesting experience to discover that.

In hopes that it would have the same effect on me, it was a pastime I had come to try myself. Admittedly, the swimming did relax me. It felt good—peaceful, even. But in order to feel completely calm, I had to constantly repeat those words: “Everything is going to be all right.”

Yeah, I know. What’s new, right? Well, every day of the week, for one thing. It was November, and I no longer had the safety net of not turning nineteen until
next
year. I was already nineteen.

I’d dealt fate a low blow when I decided to get married on my nineteenth birthday. I figured I’d turn the dreaded day into something good. It worked for all of twenty-four hours.

The day had been perfect and the night even better. The way he loved me took away all my worries and fears. Then the morning came and that was great too, until he told me he'd been having dreams. Dreams he thought were actual memories of us from before I was Amelia and even before he was Weston Wilson I.

The dreams had given him a new focus, since he’d never considered that our souls had been together before his transformation. He’d assumed that the first time had been when Amelia saved his life that day in London 1915. Never the possibility of a before. Until now.

That’s all it took—images of us, long ago, growing old together. Not of me dying at nineteen. Those images made Wes believe we were true soul mates, meant to live long, happy lives for all time. Yeah, it was cliché, but it didn’t stop him from theorizing that the only reason I kept dying was because he’d been transformed to live on, slowly. Aging so slowly that there was no way for us to have a normal life together.

He believed he could set our lives back on track by reversing his transformation. So that’s why the worry began approximately one day after the best day of my life. Not necessarily because I might die while nineteen, like in my past two lives, but for the insane reason that Wes thought he could save me by killing himself.

Not going to happen, which is why I had been a little less than honest with Wes. There was one other thing that happened the day after we married. That morning, my nose started to bleed. It was the first time since I was a child, so deep down I suspected it had something to do with my recent trial treatment for my virus. Dr. Carter had firmly instructed me to call him if anything out of the ordinary came up concerning my health, and that would’ve qualified. Yet, I initially refused to allow myself to accept the setback after such an amazing evening.

Then, when Wes told me what he wanted to do to himself, I just couldn’t bring it up at all. Not while fearing it would send him straight to Dr. Carter to try and reverse his transformation. No, I had decided to do the one thing I begged Wes not to do anymore, and that was keep secrets. I say secrets because, in the last couple of months, I’ve had two more nosebleeds, and Wes knows about none of them.

I decided to look at it from his perspective. If he knew, I’d spend most of my time back at the lab being pricked, and he’d foolishly volunteer to have his cold-blood replaced with some new, normal concoction, hoping fate’s short hand would leave me alone. I shuddered as I swam.

“Hey you,” I heard, the words soft and inviting and yet still somehow startling. I shouldn’t have been thinking so negatively, but it was hard not to.

“Hey,” I replied, slowing my breast stroke until I was treading water.

“Can I come in?” he asked with a sly smile. He was shirtless and wearing his delicious trademark grin. Since when does he ask? Never. But looking at him, the reason became clear.

He was either trying to seduce me or tease me. I managed a smile. “What are you doing?”

He bent down. “I’m asking you if I can swim.”

“I don’t know. Can you?” I shifted to a back float, exposing my baby-blue bikini.

“Okay.” He stood. “This isn’t going where I’d hoped.”

“And where was that?” I asked, weaving myself farther away from the edge.

He shifted his weight and shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I'd come down here, flex a muscle or two, and then you'd beg me to come in and—”

“Okay, I get it. Sounds nice, but I’m not interested.”

He pressed his brows together, paused a moment, and then responded, “If you say so.”

I held my smile until he turned his back, and it was the visual of those muscles shifting beneath his skin as he walked away that had me feeling like the water was a little too warm.

“Okay, okay, you win,” I called.

He stopped and turned around. “Win what?”

“Me…duh.”

“I already won you,” he said, crossing his arms.

“Okay, fine. Will you please come in here and cool me off? Happy now?”

“Of course. But all you had to do was say yes to my question in the first place.”

I flipped over and started swimming. “You’re wasting time,” I said a few strokes later. When there was no response, I turned around to check on him, and he was gone. “What the…”

Surfacing right in front of me, he grabbed my hips, causing me to shriek. “Oh my—”

“Shh…” he said, putting his lips over mine.

Once my heart settled down, my natural reaction was to wrap my arms and legs around him, prolonging the moment. My mind melted into oblivion whenever he kissed me.

Which was why I’d rather die, and see him again in thirty years, than watch him kill himself and risk us never finding, or remembering, each other ever again.

So that’s where things stood as we affectionately embraced each other. Us keeping deadly secrets, because I knew him well enough to know he was already working on something self-destructive behind my back. The only question now was which one of our sacrifices would occur first. His? Or mine?

T
here’s no place like home. That’s one well-known saying I’d come to appreciate as Wes’ house became my refuge. All of the furniture I’d ordered had come in. His once cold-feeling great room had turned into a warm and cozy place to curl up.

The space was large enough to fit a huge ottoman and sectional that swallowed you whole if you plopped down hard enough. To top it off, I’d matched the coffee-colored sofa with a dozen pillows, alternating every earth tone you could imagine. I’d also filled the space with crimson-colored candles and didn’t hesitate to use them.

On cozy nights, our favorite thing to do was watch TV or just sit there. The house, the space, the feel—it was everything I could’ve hoped for. It was what was happening outside of it that caused my nails to take a beating.

The first time I’d gnawed on them was on my wedding day, because I’d been so nervous. After that, I just bit them because I was still nervous.

Between the secrets and our continued security detail, I seriously expected the worst every time I left the house. Wes didn’t talk much about that kind of danger anymore, but the fact that he kept the Tahoes around told me we weren’t out of the woods.

After Wes was rescued from that military-op group, his chief of staff at the California Blood Research Lab, Dr. Lyon, had made a deal with the government for our safety. As well as Dr. Carter's, because, when Wes was rescued, the operation had been so furious, they’d discharged Dr. Carter for his part in helping Wes escape. And then they attempted to kill him, but Dr. Lyon was able to seal a deal with them before any more harm was done.

The agreement assured everyone’s safety, as long as the lab shared its research−which Wes didn’t have any intention of doing. But at least it bought us time. And of course, Wes’ secret was still intact, but we still remembered how dangerous those people could be and how quickly they could take one of us again.

Just driving down the winding driveway, I'd scan the trees to make sure someone didn’t jump out of the bushes. At a stop light, I’d catch a glimpse of the Tahoe a few cars back and glance to my left and right to see whether anyone was watching me.

Since I didn’t smoke or drink, and Wes wasn’t always around to help me keep things together, I took the nerves out on my nails. The only other calming moments were with my mom or friends at work. Mom and I kept our Thursday lunches at Berkeley, and Wes and I had dinner with her and Tom every Sunday. On every other day, I still worked at Healey’s. It wasn’t really
work
, in my mind. I enjoyed every minute, because it helped keep my mind off all that was scary. But on an early November day, even Healey’s took a new turn.