© Copyright 2011
All work is property of Leah Crichton, any duplication or reproduction of all or part of the work without explicit permission by the author is illegal.

Disavowal: (dis-uh-vow-uhl)

disowning, repudiation, denial

To disown knowledge of

Hot, vicious, relentless tears poured down my face and blurred my vision.  Orion stood in front of me and ran his hands through my hair. “I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

“What the hell is going on? I was there, in the hospital. How did you do that? Who are you?” I yelled, ignoring the knot stuck in my throat. The walls closed in around me, and the smaller they became, the more my head spun in vertigo.

“Sit with me, okay?” He pulled me down on the bed to face him. I wanted to object, but couldn’t think straight. Every rational thought I ever had about anything was torn away from me in mere seconds. “I’m not exactly who, what you think I am. This was never meant to get so complicated. But from the moment I saw you, I knew it would be so hard. I didn’t think. I never thought…” 

“Never thought what?” 

“Never thought it would be this way. This isn’t supposed to happen. I’m supposed to just do my job, to stop Damien from doing his. I didn't plan for you.”

“Your job? What the hell are you talking about.”

“Don’t you see? The girl, in the bed, that’s you.”

“But we’re here now, together, we’re both here, not in a hospital. I don’t know how you did that but I promise not to tell anyone. You’re like Mona? Some sort of enigma, you’re like a time traveler or something, you can go to the past?” Under the given circumstances where nothing seemed reasonable, it was a reasonable assumption. It was the best I had. 

Orion looked like he might be sick as his mouth formed a deep frown. “You watch too much TV, Tiger. I’m not a time traveler, and it isn’t it the past. It’s now. The present.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re not supposed to understand. You’re there, not here. You only think you’re here because I’ve made a terrible mistake.  I wanted to make it nice for you. I knew it would be nice for me. I wanted to make it good, and all I’ve made is a mess. I should have just done it right away. I didn’t need to bring you here, to risk things... to risk everything.”

“Done what, Orion?”

“Kissed you,” he said simply.

“You’ve kissed me lots,” I reminded him.

“Yes, only because you asked me to. But I held back, I always held back. I haven't kissed you the way I've wanted to. The way my nature is begging me to.” His teeth were clenched and his words were strained. “That morning after that first night in your bed, I almost lost control of myself. I almost did it then.”

“What are you talking about?” 

“Remember the girl at the party?”

Recollections of him kissing her played out like a horrific rerun, slow motion, the moment my heart broke. “Yeah,” I said. “Unfortunately, I remember.”

“It wasn’t to be hurtful. I never meant to hurt you. That was Marianne.”

“Why would you think I want to know her name?”

Orion sighed in frustration and ran his fingers through his messy hair. “Marianne. As in Alicia and Alex’s cousin. Marianne.”

“The one who died?”  I asked, still not putting the puzzle pieces together. If I had, they wouldn’t make any sense anyway. “So what, Orion? You knew she would die, so you wanted to give her one last kiss from a handsome stranger?” I thought about this. Perhaps I should have listened to him in the first place. Maybe he was trying to make her last moments on earth something special.

“Yes. I kissed her, like I’m supposed to kiss you. Then she died. But I didn’t want to do it to you. They never have a choice. You, you deserved to have a choice.” His eyes brimmed with tears, which threatened to spill at any moment.

“Orion, I don’t understand! What are you saying?” I was yelling again, afraid I didn’t want to know his answer.

“She died, Ireland, because I kissed her. I kissed her the way I want to kiss you.”

My thoughts resumed their frantic, twisted spiral. “Orion, she died from a heart defect. You think it was a kiss that killed her?”

He nodded. 

Okay, so he was crazy. I may be the one to hallucinate, but he was surely insane. 

I jumped off the bed, out of his arms and made my way as fast as I could to the door. My fingers wrapped around the steel doorknob and turned, trying to force it open.

He flew to his feet and threw his arm out in front of him. The door I was trying so desperately to open slammed shut. “It was the kiss, Ireland. It was a kiss from death.”

I stared at him blankly; my mouth hung open like it’d been detached from my jaw. “Are you demented?”

“No,” he said. “I just told you what I am.”

“Death?” I asked incredulously. A nervous laugh escaped, trying to mask the panic in my voice. “You think you’re the Grim Reaper and you’re supposed to kill me? Is this your idea of some kind of joke?” The tears came again, faster than I could stop them. I couldn’t believe he would be so mean. “Do you think you’re funny, Orion? You’re so sick!”

I raced to the window and slipped my fingers under the pane. Orion sat head down with one hand covering his forehead. He held the other out to the side, pointed at my intended exit point. The glass wouldn’t budge. I turned to him. “Let me go!” 

“I can’t.”

My eyes darted across the room to my desk and settled on a letter opener that looked more like an ice pick. Before he could do anything, I ran and snatched it. “Let me go now, Orion.” I tried not to shake it as I held it out and walked toward him. “I’ll hurt you.”

He shook his head. “No, Tiger, you won’t. You can try all you want. It won’t do you any good.”

I palmed the blade and flipped it around to face my own body. “Let me go or I’ll hurt myself, then!” The threat was empty. I wasn’t about to plunge the cold metal into myself.

That got his attention, but only to call my bluff. “Do it. You could stab yourself in the heart right this minute and you still wouldn’t die. Not without me. You think the only thing keeping that girl you saw alive is those machines, but don’t kid yourself, Ireland. If I decided it was your time, I’d have your last breath in seconds.”

My fingers loosened and I dropped the blade to the floor. “Why are you doing this?” 

He stood. “You’re dying. You’re supposed to be dead. I was supposed to make it good for you at the wreck.”

“Make it good? It was a car accident.” My head shook back and forth, trying to empty his words out of it, to bring this surreal conversation to an end.

“Death isn't something you should be afraid of.”

“I am afraid of you,” I said. “None of this is real? Nothing was real?”  I sucked in air hard and fast, as if I were going to hyperventilate. Was I dying, or was I already dead? 

Orion stood and stepped forward. Despite the voice in my head begging me to move, my feet were nailed to the floor. “It’s real.” He put my hand on his chest so I could feel his heartbeat. “Do you feel that?  It’s still real.”

I pulled my hand away like he’d burned me. “What about my family? You say I’m dying, but they’re here too…”

The tremble in his voice was unmistakable. “Come and sit down.”

“Tell me!” I demanded.

“I think you should sit down.” 

“Tell me, Orion!”

He hung his head and inhaled sharply. “Your mom, Luke, they’re here too.”

“They’re dead?” The words hung in the air, smashing down to rip me apart inside the same way the crash had ripped me apart outside. My legs turned to jelly.  “Snickers too?”

Orion nodded.

“My Dad? Where’s my Dad?”

He cleared his throat. “Your father was the only survivor. Surely you must have noticed he’s been gone awhile.” 

“But he's back home in Churchill, my mother said.”

Orion simply shook his head while my own spun, every turn snatching away a piece of my consciousness. My knees buckled and the last thing I remember before slipping into darkness was the pained expression on his face. 

***

Maybe it was all a dream.

I prayed to a God I was no longer sure existed that it was.

But when I came to and saw Orion, I knew. The playful, mischievous appearance I was so used to seeing was gone, replaced with a solemn expression.

Seeing his beautiful face that way and processing the information he had disclosed forced a fresh round of unending tears. I bawled. My chest heaved, and my throat was raw. I cried for my family, for my dad, who was sitting by my bed, haggard and worn. I cried for all the years of my life I had lost, things I would never do. I cried for every time I was cruel to my parents, to Luke. The whole time Orion held me, rocking back and forth.

An hour must have passed, maybe two. I cried until I had no tears left. Nearing exhaustion, I lay defeated in his arms, wiping away the remnants of moisture with the sleeve of my shirt. “Are we in Heaven?”

“No. I’ve kept you at a place in between, an illusion of what it would be like if you were on Earth. I’m supposed to take you there, to the other side. I should have just done it in the first place. If I had, none of this would be happening.” 

“If Luke and my mom are already dead, why are they here? Why didn’t they go to Heaven?”

Orion ran his fingers along my jaw-line thoughtfully. “They’re waiting for you. They love you Ireland, they weren’t about to leave you behind.”

I thought about Luke’s disapproval of Orion, of his constant warning that people were not always who you thought they were. Why did he always have to be right? “Luke knew.”

“Yes. I told you he was a good brother. He only wanted to protect you from me. He knows you’re a fighter. How could I have let this happen?” he said, more to himself than to me.

“How did you let anything happen?”

“I should have taken you at the crash; it would’ve been easy. It would’ve been over. But when I saw you there your eyes were open, and they were so beautiful.”

I tried to picture my damaged body, lying on the highway, bleeding and twisted, wondering how Orion could have possibly thought I was beautiful. I remembered my nightmare.  A flashback?

His deep voice interrupted me. “I touched you, Ireland, and saw your soul. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. You, you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Your soul was so different. I’ve seen so many, too many, and when I saw yours, I got… greedy.  I wanted to keep it for myself, not to collect it just to give it away, so I let you live. I just wanted to know you.” 

“It’s not a beautiful soul!” I argued. “You didn’t know me before! I wasn’t a good person, I wasn’t a nice person.”

“You think what you want. I’ve seen hundreds of them, thousands maybe. Never one like yours. Up until now, I haven’t had anything worth fighting for. I didn’t want to give you up so easily… I didn’t want to give you up at all. Rumor has it that when the penance is over, you’ll find the one you’re meant for. You, Ireland, you’re her, the one I’m meant for. I’m sure of it.”

I should have run, like any rational person would have, but where would I go? Where would I go if I wasn’t even here? “What do you mean, penance?”

“I wasn’t born this way. I had a life, a real life, just like you, but I wasn’t exactly a good person. I did something… terrible…. We all pay for our sins, some worse than others. My punishment was to walk the Earth collecting souls. I heard that I’d know it when I found her, the one for me, and then it could all be over. I have eternal life just like any person does, but it would only be mine when I found her— you. I just didn’t think it would be this hard. No one told me that I would love you with everything I have inside me the very moment I saw you. That my feelings for you would be inescapable. Imagine being faced with having to take the life of the only person that matters to you. I thought if I kept you with me, maybe it didn’t have to be so bad, and then I could give you a choice.”

“I do love you,” I stated.  It was impossible for me to consider him anything other than Orion,

the person.

“I know you do.” He kissed my forehead.

“You really think I’m meant for you?”

“I know,” Orion said.

“So you go around kissing girls and collecting their souls?”

“You make it sound a lot more callous than it is,” he said.

“You just walk up to them, kiss them, and that’s it? Doesn’t anyone ever try to stop you?”

“Do you remember the first time you saw me?”

“Yes.”

“The people involved—”

“You mean the victims?” I corrected him.

“I’m not a murderer, Ireland, but yeah, I guess you could call them that.  The victims are meant to be drawn to me, like a magnetism sort of, just like you were. They don’t question it. If they do, I can manipulate things easily. At the risk of sounding narcissistic, because I don’t mean to, I make them feel better than they ever have before. As scared as everyone is of death, it’s supposed to be euphoric, a rebirth of sorts to a new and different life.”

“You can manipulate people?”

“I’m very convincing. It doesn’t take much for me to get what I want, especially when I want someone’s soul.”

I shuddered. “Are there others like you?”

Orion sighed. “Mona and Helena are both like me; so is Damien. That's why Mona screwed with Chloe. She thinks Chloe's soul is dark.”

“Is it? And what does she have to do with anything? Is she dying?”

“She was in the truck that hit your car.”

“Why didn’t you kiss her?”

“Mona is right, her soul is black. She belongs with Damien.” 

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I mean she doesn’t belong anywhere I would take her. I told you to stay away from him for a reason, Tiger. I’m supposed to take you to Heaven. He wants to take you somewhere else.”

“Is he the devil?”

“He wishes. He's pathetic. The place he wants to take you isn’t anywhere any of us want to go.”

“He kissed me, Orion.” I felt nausea swirl in my stomach.

“I’ve kissed you, too, and yet there you were in that hospital room, still alive.”

“So you can go around kissing people and nothing happens?”

“It’s about self-control.  How can I explain this?” He brought his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes. “That’s why I tried to avoid kissing you.  It’s easy to lose control once I start. During the kiss, when the soul starts to leave it becomes as good for me as it does for the girl. Like my own nirvana, a mental, physical high. It's hard to stop myself. It hurts.”

“What do you mean it hurts?”

“It hurts to not follow through. It’s not like I can go around and leave a bunch of souls suspended the way I did with yours. God’s way of making sure I can deliver the goods, I suppose.  When I do my job, it’s rewarded with that high. Nothing feels better. If I don’t finish what I start, it’s like being knifed a thousand times in the gut.”

“But you stopped with me.”

“Because I’d suffer through anything in order for you to have a choice.”

“It hurt you?”

He nodded.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He managed a small smile. “I’ve told you once and I’ll tell you again, don’t ever apologize for being human. I never should have put you in this position.”

“About that…” I started, but my eyelids were heavy, weighed down by my own emotions.

“Why don’t you get a little bit of sleep? It’s a lot to take in. Rest for a while. We can talk about it later.”

“I’m scared to close my eyes.”

“Don’t worry.” He looked down at my face, twirling my hair in his finger. “I’m here; you’re safe.”

The Grim Reaper himself promising to keep me safe. Could things be any more ironic? “Don’t leave,” I told him. 

“I won’t leave you again. Not until you tell me to.” His fingertips brushed my eyelids.

I closed my eyes in response to his touch.  I was angry.  Nothing about this was fair.  I’d waited my whole life to meet someone like Orion, and finally he was here.  But it wasn’t in life that he would be mine completely. 

It would only be in death.