June
Lucy's Age: 19
It was well and truly summer outside, but it felt like my heart had just started into spring. The desolate weeks after Geoffrey had left me and before I'd talked to Venice had left my insides feeling raw and frozen, but each time I talked to Venice things got a little better.
I could tell that Venice was self-editing a little as she told me about her interactions with Geoffrey, but I couldn't blame her, not really. There by the end I'd started doing a little bit of the same with regards to my time spent with Geoffrey. Our friendship had survived and we'd settled into a more or less restful truce where Geoffrey was concerned, but I was pretty sure that things had gotten better primarily because I wasn't as attached to Geoffrey as I'd been before.
He was slowly taking shape again for me through Venice's stories, but he still wasn't the vivid, living person to me that he'd been before. Even if I'd been under any illusions otherwise, the sheer self-doubt evidenced by the Geoffrey that Venice described would have told me that we were dealing with a different person than we'd been dealing with before.
It was obvious that Venice was frustrated with Geoffrey's early refusal to bend to Imastious' will. She was convinced that Imastious would kill him if he didn't do at least some of Imastious' dirty work, but I'd silently held out hope that Geoffrey would simply refuse to descend into the kind of darkness he'd participated in before.
As the weeks went by and Geoffrey completed not just one, but several hits our roles reversed. Venice became all but ecstatic over the fact that Geoffrey was finally 'seeing the light' while I became sadly certain that he'd begun the first few steps back down the path that had led him to so much unhappiness before we'd met.
I held out a little hope though that not everything was as it seemed, despite the steadily-mounting evidence to the contrary.
Given Venice's generally jovial mood these days, I was surprised when I finally got to our latest meeting place in the Bronx Zoo and saw just how unhappy she looked.
"What happened? Is it Geoffrey?"
The rising panic in my voice roused her enough to really look at me. "Yes, it's Geoffrey, but it's not that he's hurt or in trouble or anything like that. What's gotten into you?"
It took me a second to realize she was asking about my choice in clothes and then I felt my face heat up slightly. With no Geoffrey around to monitor my comings and goings I was spending a lot more time outside this summer than I ever had before and the days were getting so hot that I'd started choosing clothes primarily for how cool they were. My shorts and tank top were actually a pretty close match for what Venice was wearing.
"Nothing's gotten into me; it's just so stinking hot now. It's like the city boils all day and then we have those freak storms come in and the temperature plunges in the evening."
"Yeah, it's been an off summer. The worst I remember, which goes back a few years." Venice kicked at the asphalt underneath our feet. "All of the concrete and steel seems to just keep the heat in, even at night."
"So what's going on with Geoffrey?"
"He's falling in love."
Something wasn't adding up there for me.
"That's a good thing. Why are you so bummed?"
"Because he isn't falling in love with me; he's found someone else."
"Are you sure? I didn't even think he'd had a chance to meet anyone else, let alone start falling for them."
"Yeah, you and me both, but I'm sure. All of the signs are there. It's just like when he started falling for you, only this time I don't even know who it is."
"So what do we do? Follow him and find out who he's got his eye on?"
Venice shook her head, defeat evident in her posture. "Good luck with that. I've tried following him a few times over the last couple of weeks and he's still as paranoid as always. He doesn't have the same knowledge of the city that he used to have, but he's still too careful to trail for very far without getting caught."
"So we just have to watch from afar while someone else captures his heart and not be able to do anything about it?"
"I thought you didn't care about him anymore." I frowned at her and she held up her hands in a mock surrender gesture. "Fine, you don't care about him, but you still sort of do." Venice kicked a small rock across the blacktop. "Yeah, that's about the size of things. Welcome to my world, Lucy. Fair warning, it completely sucks."
"You don't think that you can steal him back?"
"No, not at this point. I underestimated just how much damage I did by pushing him to make those hits for Imastious. Geoffrey doesn't trust me and even if he did, once he gets his sights set on something he's unshakable. He probably doesn't even realize how hard he's falling yet, but it's pretty much a done deal at this point."
"I guess at least it means that he's happy, right?"
"Probably. It's hard to tell given the way that he freezes up around me, but he's probably happy when he's thinking about her at least, but it won't last. For people like him and me there isn't any happily ever after. He's either with another vampire, in which case she'll eventually stab him in the back at some point, or he's falling for another human, who won't be able to deal with the realities of his life."
"I'm sorry, Venice."
She shrugged. "It's water under the bridge now. I'm not holding a grudge or anything, Lucy, but we're not doing anyone any good if we ignore the world as it is."