But she only shakes her head. ‘It’s just… it was 150 years ago.’ Amber eyes dart to mine, looking so intently at me that I feel like she can see all the way into my brain. ‘I barely remember what it was like, much less what I miss.’
I nod and it makes her smile return, small and cautious. A gust of wind comes from nowhere, cool air rushing at us from the sea, and I see her shiver, ever so slightly. I honestly don’t even know if vampires can feel the cold, but my body acts on instinct, moving closer to her and draping one arm around her shoulders.
I worry she might resist it, but to my surprise– and delight– she relaxes into me, resting her head against my shoulder. I feel something tighten in my chest. It’s a foreign feeling, like I’m in free-fall and I can’t quite catch my breath, but the longer I sit with it, the more I realise it’s a good thing.
Florence has dropped her guard, just a tiny bit, and I absolutely plan to make the most of it.
‘Can I ask you a question?’
I hear her hum softly beside me. ‘Of course.’
‘Why don’t you date humans?’
ChapterTwelve
FLORENCE
On the surface it seems like such a simple question. Whydon’tI date humans?
The answer, of course, is far more complicated.
In reality, I haven’t actually dated a human since Iwasa human. Losing Josiah the way I did carved a hollow out of my chest I was never quite sure how to fill. It was a pain so deep, so unwavering, that I couldn’t let it go. When I was turned, I thought perhaps it would heal, that I would be as untouchable mentally as I became physically. But that wasn’t quite true.
I’ve since heard from fellow vampires that any ailment they had prior to their change was carried with them, and it turned out to be true for me. I carried that heartbreak with me long after my heart stopped beating, to the end of my life and through to the next. But years went by, and then decades, and slowly, so slowly, it finally began to fade.
It got to the point where he wasn’t the first thing I thought of in the morning, nor my last thought before Iwent to sleep. There was just a dull ache underscoring everything I did, only catching slightly on the occasional mention of a name that sounded like his, or a glance at the spot on the beach where he took his final breath.
‘It’s because of me, isn’t it?’Josiah mutters, right next to my ear.
I had just about moved on, and then he started to speak to me.
And yes, it’s because of him.
Truth be told, it took me until I was twenty-three to fall for someone in the first place. Growing up as I did, I was well acquainted with death. As a child, I had a front row seat to the worst moments of people’s lives. I saw, over and over again, how people– ordinary people– were torn apart by losing people they thought they’d spend the rest of their lives loving, and I vowed that I would never make myself vulnerable like that. If I never gave anyone my whole heart, I reasoned, then it would never break.
But Josiah caught me off guard.
He’d been in the background my whole life, but for mostof that time he’d been nothing more than the youngest son of Thomas Quinn, the grocer who owned the shop across the street. I didn’t pay much attention to the scruffy boy, a year older than me, who helped his dad out in the shop sometimes. I’m not even sure I ever made eye contact with him in all that time, because once I did, I couldn’t look away.
It was nothing like the silly crushes of my teen years that I’d found so easy to ignore. This was instantaneous– a shot arrow that landed cleanly in my chest. When it happened, I couldn’t push that feeling away. It would have been like trying to ignore a house fire.
And when he died, that same fire burned my heart to ash.
There have been humans who have ignited a spark in me since him, of course there have. But I’ve been careful enough to dampen the flames before they could amount to anything.
Quinn shifts against me, and all of a sudden I notice the warmth of his body where it presses against mine. All of a sudden there’s something new smouldering in the pit of my stomach, something warm and unpredictable.
‘Have you ever met someone you thought was your soulmate?’ I ask him, and he pauses for a few moments before shaking his head.
‘I don’t think I have,’ he says quietly.
I don’t expect that, knowing what I know about him, knowing how easily he falls in love, knowing he at least loved someone enough to marry them.
‘I have,’ I say, forcing down the knot in my throat. ‘And he died a few weeks before our wedding.’ Quinn’s hand tightens on my shoulder, such a small movement that I’m not entirely sure he can have noticed it. ‘I don’t know that I could bury someone I love so completely again. It would break my heart. Maybe beyond repair.’
He’s silent for a while before he turns, brushing a soft kiss to the top of my head. ‘I won’t break your heart, Florence,’ he says, and there’s gravity to it, a weight to his voice that tells me he absolutely believes it.
The problem is, I’m not so sure I do.