Despite myself, I found I actually felt sympathetic toward my aunt, because I couldn't imagine having a sister who deliberately stole Bastian from me. I knew my mother was selfish; I had firsthand experience of that, but I didn't think she was capable of such out and out cruelty. My mouth opened before I truly knew what I intended to say. “I'm sorry, Aunt Kim, that was really pretty awful of her.”
When she looked at me, there was a bit of wildness in her stare. “It all worked out, but maybe now you understand why I treated you as I did, when you came to live with us. How could I feel anything but contempt when just looking at you I see so much of her?”
Well, I didn't agree with that. I may look like my mother, but I wasn't her. Why should the child pay for the sins of the parent?
“I could never love you and I know that sounds harsh, but it's the simple truth. I had lived for so long in the shadow of my sister. Finally she died and I got all I wanted. But it didn't last because then you came, and once again my sister had planted herself quite firmly between me and what I wanted most. It was her last act of selfishness—sending you to me—as if she hadn't hurt me enough.”
She stood so abruptly, I almost pulled a muscle in my neck following her. “I came to see you at the request of your uncle. Perhaps you will call him and let him know you understand where I'm coming from. He lives in a fantasy world, where everyone gets along, but you and I both know life rarely works that way. Sometimes blood isn't thicker than water.”
She turned then and reached for my hand, holding it almost painfully in both of hers. “You will make it right with your uncle. He's my life, as are the girls. It's in your power to make this all go away. So prove you aren't like your mother and do the right thing.”
Before I could reply, she walked out the door. I just stood there for a few minutes, because I really didn't completely understand what just happened. Yes, I heard my aunt's words, but there was something about her entire speech which left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. For someone who claimed my mother was selfish, a fact I knew all too well, I heard an awful lot of me, me, me in Aunt Kim's spiel. Not to mention her comment about my mom dying and her finally getting everything she always wanted was seriously messed up.
I walked back into the living room, but couldn't watch the movie with the knot in my stomach, so I reached for my cell and called my uncle.
“Lark, what a nice a surprise.”
“Hi, Uncle Eddie. Do you have a minute?”
“Sure. Is everything okay?” There was a note of worry in his tone.
“Yeah, it's just that Aunt Kim was here.”
“She was?”
“Yeah. She explained to me about my mom, and I guess she was hoping by sharing with me I would understand her better, or more to the point, understand why she isn't a fan of mine.”
“What did she tell you?” There was no mistaking the anger in his voice.
I relayed the conversation and was completely shocked to hear the curse that hissed across the line.
“She shouldn't have burdened you with our shit. We had a long talk last night and I guess she thought if she could get you to understand, all would be okay between us, but we're way past that.”
I heard him exhale. “I'm sorry she came to see you and filled your head with impressions of your mother that are simply untrue. I was never in love with your aunt when we were younger, though I knew she had feelings for me. Perhaps it was unfair of me to marry Dylan's sister after she left knowing that a part of me would always belong to her, but you were an innocent child and should have been loved despite whatever happened in our love triangle. Your aunt's behavior toward you is wrong and she needs to acknowledge that. As far as your mother, she was a good person: kind, fair, selfless, but somewhere along the way she just lost herself. You may never have seen the good part of her, but I promise you it was there.”
He went silent for a minute. Then he added, “As for your aunt, we're separating. I don't want you to worry or feel responsible. It's something I've been thinking about doing for a very long time. My actions are not because of you, so please don't think that they are, despite what your aunt told you. Our problems are between us—you are just collateral damage. For that I'm very sorry.”
He sounded so sad, but resigned too. “I'm so sorry, Uncle Eddie.”
“I'm doing what I should have done a long time ago, Lark. I don't regret my life with Kim because I got the girls, but we've not been working for a really long time.” A wave of fear swept through me in response to his words—I really did believe the only thing that tethered my aunt to sanity was her family. I was afraid of how badly she would spiral out of control without Uncle Eddie and the girls to keep her grounded, but I kept my worries to myself.
“Please don't worry about it, okay?” He said.
Easier said than done. “Okay.”
“So, to change the subject—how were finals?”
A half an hour later I hung up with my uncle just as Bastian came home. He dropped down on the sofa next to me and pressed a kiss on my mouth, “Who was on the phone?”
“My uncle.”
“Yeah, how's he doing?”
I didn't really want to get into it because the whole situation made me feel sick, so I was purposely vague in answering. I then changed the subject, “So what have you been up to?”
He linked his fingers behind his head and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Had to do something.”
I turned more fully around to face him, “What exactly?”
His response was to grin so I slapped him in the chest and he winced.
“I didn't hit you that hard.” I touched his chest just over his heart and felt the bandage. My eyes flew to his when I realized what he'd been up to.
“What's that?” I asked innocently, but my whole body tensed in anticipation.
“Look and see.”
And so I did, lifting his shirt over his head before reaching for the bandage. When I saw the beauty and simplicity of my name over his heart in emerald-colored ink, there weren't words to describe how the sight made me feel. But it was very easy to express how I felt about the tattoo. “I love it.”
He pulled me into his arms. I added, “You beat me to it.”
“What?”
I had been working on a design since I moved into the apartment with Bastian. Some would argue it was stupid to get a tattoo for the one you loved, because what if it didn't last? I understood that, agreed with it actually, but I had no doubts that Bastian and I were going to last and frankly I wanted his name on me, wanted him to see his name on me. The fact that he was thinking the same thing only reinforced the rightness of both of our actions. Unlike Bastian, this was my first tattoo so it took me this long to work up the nerve to actually make the appointment. “I was going tomorrow to have a tattoo done.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.” I stood and walked over to my backpack to retrieve the design I had settled on. I sat back down and handed him the sketch. It was the Celtic trinity knot and embedded within it was a red heart. Bastian's name was worked into the design. He studied it for a minute and when his gaze turned to me, his expression mirrored how I felt at seeing my name on him. He asked, “You're going tomorrow?”
“Yeah, to your friend Connor.”
“So that's what he was alluding to. I'm coming with you.”
“I'd like that.”
My eyes traveled to my name resting over his heart and I felt all kinds of things, the strongest of which was desire. I straddled him, and he immediately curled his fingers into my hips, just before my lips found his neck. “Is it wrong for me to want to spend the rest of the day just looking at you? I want my hands all over you. I want to kiss you, taste you...” His eyes blazed when I looked back at him “…love you.”