Winter's Kiss (Summer Rain #2)

XXXIII ~ Parallel

{Daylight ~ David Kushner}

....Telling myself it's the last time, can you spare any mercy that you might find? I'm down on my knees again...

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10th December
AVA

    I have only ever met two ghosts in my lifetime. They glisten in the sunlight, not fully corporeal in fleeting moments til they crash into reality again. Somewhere in between planes of existence, ever dipping in and out, ever present and fading. They haunt, sure, but are they not simply lingering, forcing a semblance of remembrance where something or someone important once stood?

     My first sighting was his face as he came flooding into the professor's office, our eyes meeting as a chill ran through me. Had this ghost haunted me or was this simply a dream figure come to life? Had this Elliot Black managed to force himself out of my secret thoughts, my heart's deepest wandering? He was dressed all in black, his features gaunt with dark circles ringing his eyes. He was exhausted in every laboured and rushed breath til he held it, all breath ceasing instantly as he stood before me. My neck craned up to his height from my seat and I waited to see if the professor could see him, or if this haunting was all in this muddled mind of mine.

Professor Tuffman's eyes raised towards the figure in the doorway, and I withheld the sigh of relief within me, frozen stiff and staring at him, etching every inch of his face, finding differences and failings in my own memory, hoping for any clue as to who he was. His sea blue eyes poured into me, icy cold and invigorating, sending shivers all through me til goosebumps rose on my skin. He stood stiltedly, clearly uncomfortable in proximity to me. Instinctively I moved my chair further, like a repelling magnet. He seemed to ease slightly. Was I repellant or did he feel like I was too fragile to be close to? Was I as haunting as he had been in my mind?

     Instinctively I let my eyes look past him to the wall, where a mirror hung facing me. And there I saw the second ghost, a double sighting in as many minutes. My skin had paled, and there was a loss in my eyes as a ghost longs for the end. Something in my yearned but I had nothing to fill that emptiness. Something within me was missing and I ached actively in proximity to this clue. This man. This Elliot Black.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt," he choked. "I'll"—

  "Wait!" I exclaimed before I could stop myself. "Please, stay."

  "Elliot, did you not receive my message about our meeting being rescheduled?" Professor Tuffman huffed slightly.

  "I'm sorry, Professor, I had no idea," he lamented. "My mind has been... Not my own."

     All I could do was stare up at him from where I sat, my neck craned up to his height. His hair was a mess of curls, and his eyes were an ocean of brooding dark blues beneath a tense, furrowed brow and a tight, clenched jaw. He was unshaven, dressed all in black with a long coat. His hands were balled up tight into fists at his sides. And his eyes looked everywhere but at me. He had pried his eyes away from mine in the lock we had on each other until I was the ghost he couldn't or wouldn't see before him.

  "You know me, right?" I asked. "I'm Ava."

     He seemed to scoff slightly, his eyes lowered down to the carpeted floor beneath his boots, wincing like I was hurting him, resigning something he held in his mind's eye to oblivion. I was killing something before him, something I wanted so desperately to know.

  "Perhaps we should all reschedule, and find a better day when Mr Jones can join you as your aide Miss Bennett," Professor Tuffman spoke pointedly. He pressed a button on my still-recording phone on the desk as the recording paused.

  "I don't think that it's necessary, sir," Elliot spoke at last, his voice low and bassy but smooth like honey. "I know why I was called to you, and I agree."

  "Mr Black, we can speak at length about this matter another time," Professor Tuffman nodded. "But I believe it would be best if I finished up my meeting with Miss Bennett uninterrupted."

  "But I have more questions, Professor," I pleaded, pressing play once again.

  "Miss Bennett, I am not the person to pry truths out of. I am simply a university coordinator," he sighed, stopping the recording once again before pushing the phone back across the desk with a finality.

     Elliot stepped forward and placed a white envelope on Professor Tuffman's dark mahogany desk. I watched it slide across to the old man who eyed it with suspicion and confusion before looking back to him for clarity.

  "Consider this my official resignation. No meeting required."

  "Mr Black"—

  "Goodbye, sir," he nodded firmly before turning and beginning to leave.

     A surge of energy pushed me to standing from my chair, as I grabbed my phone and began to follow after Elliot.

  "Wait," I shouted. "I need to talk to you!"

     There came only silence and his footsteps walking away, further and further. No voice. No pause.

  "Miss Bennett, please can I call someone for you?" Professor Tuffman offered gently, in the same bubble-wrap tone as every nurse and family member since I woke up.

  "Elliot! Please look at me," I pleaded, grit in my voice scratching at my voice.

     His footsteps stopped still with a sigh. After a few seconds he turned on his heels in the hallway. I took a few steps closer, both of us a few metres from one another. Even from a distance I could see the tears in his eyes. Even with the space between us, there was a magnetic pull. Even within these muddled missing memories, his face was crystal clear.

  "Who are you?" I asked.

  "I'm no one," he shrugged.

  "No, no that's not true," I pushed. "You were there in the hospital when I woke up, weren't you?"

  "You had a lot of visitors," he replied. "You're very loved, Ava."

  "And you were one of them?"

     He didn't speak, but simply nodded weakly.

  "You woke me up." Another nod. "Why can't I remember you?" I asked.

  "It's for the best, Ava," he spoke with a beg in his voice. A plead for me to let him walk away. I was a nightmare, a monster before him.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Let me go," he cried quietly. "Please."

     And I released the grip of him that my words held, filling the space with silence, a dead air. He began walking again, his back turned to me until he turned a corner and was gone. And I lingered, haunting the space where my body stood. I was rooted elsewhere, lost in a grief of something I could not yet remember, but knew was all but lost.

  "Miss Bennett," Professor Tuffman's hand was at my shoulder, jolting me back into my body. "I have contacted Killian, he's on his way for you imminently."

     I hadn't realised tears were falling. I hadn't heard my sobs. I only felt the haunting.

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