“I’m not letting you push me out of your life,” Ambrose informed me, stubbornness written all over his face. “I found you again – which is kind of a miracle and I’ve been looking for so long, just hoping that eventually it would happen, and it did. I don’t get why you don’t want me to stay, but I’ll find out,” he promised me, much to my chagrin. “And I’ll convince you that we do belong in each other’s lives, even if it takes me another 75 years to do so.”
“Better go faster than that,” I muttered half-heartedly. “Naga only live about 200 years, I may not be alive in another 75 years.”
For just a second, alarm and pain shot across his face, then it disappeared back into determination. “Then I’ll convince you sooner. This time, I don’t have my parents to block me from talking to you and I’m not making the same mistake I made back then of letting you get away. I’m in your life for good now, Maddie. Better just accept it.”
He stood up and hesitated for a second as he looked back at me. “I’m going home, because I don’t want to overstay my welcome, but we will talk more.” He fished out a business card and set it on the side table. “Call me if you want. Actually, please do. We need to set up a time for lunch or something. If you don’t cooperate,” he smirked just a bit, “I will start to show up here or at your workplace, anywhere I have to, in order to see you. You’re not getting away from me this time, Maddie.”
Alone in my apartment a few moments later, I took a moment to process and then slowly went over to the table and picked up his business card with his phone number printed on it. I sighed and took it over to the table, dropping it next to the folder from the doctor I still hadn’t figured out what to do with yet. Now there were two things I didn’t know how to handle in my life. Ambrose meant well, but he just couldn’t be in my life, and I couldn’t seem to convince him of it. My plans to suggest our relationship wasn’t what he’d imagined had backfired on me and even worse, he’d already figured out I still cared, even after all these years. Sure, I could try to blame his blind stubbornness for that claim, but the problem was, he wasn’t wrong, so I couldn’t exactly deny it when he said I still cared.
Groaning, I flopped down on my bed and stared at the ceiling. What now? If I told him it wasn’t safe, he probably wouldn’t listen. He might get more intent on being in my life, then, to try to protect me or something. Maybe I could get in contact with Leo through him and tell Leo the truth and get him to call Ambrose off? The problem with that plan was Leo might actually repeat whatever I said to Ambrose, not to mention, Ambrose had been raised as the only son to a wealthy man and wasn’t really accustomed to bending his plans to someone else’s. He wasn’t obnoxious about it and would listen, but at the end of the day, he’d still go with what he wanted. I doubted, now that he was an adult, whether Leo would have enough influence over him to convince him to leave me alone.
The only other plan I could come up with was to just accept that I couldn’t get rid of him, but try to make it as casual as possible. Keep my distance emotionally, maybe even let him see some of who I was now. That would cool his enthusiasm really quickly, if he realized I wasn’t the person he knew back then. Basically, just keep it casual, and hope that showing him who I was now would scare him off.
Granted, it wasn’t a foolproof plan. Ambrose was likely to not understand “casual” and he might not be scared off. Still, I wasn’t sure what the alternatives would be. Disappear? I could, potentially, but it would be a pain and risky for me. I’d have to just see how things went and hope that I could get rid of him by different methods, but if it came down to it, I’d choose that option over letting him stay and be in danger.
If I could help it, Ambrose would never be in danger again.
~~~~~
To keep him from showing up at my work or home unannounced, I reluctantly left Ambrose a message, confirming a time to have dinner together sometime, then tried to go back to my life as it had been. Shawna thankfully didn’t ask any questions, but I did get questions from patrons who had seen him there that night and realized he knew me and were curious about the friend of the mysterious bartender who didn’t like people.
By the time I got out of work the next day, I was tired and annoyed after dealing with the questions and reconsidering whether I was up to a dinner with Ambrose. I headed to a local convenience store, buying a couple of small items I needed before heading out and back to my apartment.
As I headed down the sidewalk, however, I heard the screeching of tires and looked over automatically, wary and alert. Thankfully, the car wasn’t headed towards me, but it appeared to have clipped a pedestrian who was now in the street, bleeding.
“Someone help me!” She cried. “Please help!”
I glanced at her, but continued without stopping. This wasn’t my problem and there were plenty of other people around. Besides, she didn’t actually look that hurt. Yeah, a bit of blood, but it felt like she more just wanted attention than actual help. No need to get involved with this.
I got back to my apartment, changed into different clothes for the dinner, and then sat down and watched some TV, waiting for Ambrose. He’d offered to pick me up since he had a car and I didn’t, so he was supposed to show up here and help me. To my surprise, he wasn’t on time and ended up being almost half an hour late before I buzzed him into my place.
When I let him into my apartment, he looked a little frazzled, and immediately started pacing around my apartment before I could suggest we head out.
“Why didn’t you help her?” He demanded at last.
I stared at him, confused. “Help who?”
“The woman who was hit by that car! I saw you, you were standing there, and she asked for help, but you just ignored her and walked on.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I called the police and all, and me and several other bystanders helped, but why didn’t you?”
I hadn’t realized he was one of the crowd members. Maybe he’d been there because he’d been on his way to my place and had stopped when he spotted me, but actually, this might work in my favor.
“I didn’t help because it wasn’t my problem,” I explained simply. “Besides, there were other people there who could help, you said so yourself – several people, in fact. She didn’t need me to help, too.”
He kind of stared at me, flabbergasted. “You would just…walk past someone who needs help? Just because it isn’t your problem? Because you don’t know her and other people could help instead?” He just stared for a long moment. “That’s – that’s not who you used to be.”
I raised an eyebrow as I crossed my arms, returning his stare. “That’s not who you thought I was,” I corrected him. “Naga don’t normally jump into other people’s business. Someone is having a fight, that’s their affair. People are standing around able to help and my presence isn’t needed? No reason to stop.”
“If everyone did that,” he argued, “then she’d have no help at all. Everyone could just assume someone else will help.”
I decided against pointing out that the woman probably hadn’t actually needed help. “And it is not my responsibility to handle every crime I come across or help every person in need who crosses my path. I’m free to decide against getting involved, you know. For good or bad events.” I gave him a pointed look. “I told you, I’m not the same person as I was back then, but even then – even then I wouldn’t have gotten involved. Naga aren’t known for their cuddly personas or helpful demeanors. You saw the nice side of me because you were my charge. I’m not like that for everyone. I don’t get involved if I don’t have to.”
He was clearly struggling to understand this concept. “But it would only take a few minutes to help her! Why not just call the police or an ambulance, at least? You wouldn’t have to stay with her.”
For one thing, I actually probably would. Given how the woman immediately cried out for help the way she had and looked around expecting people to flock to her, I suspected she’d have been the type of person to whine and cry if someone had called for assistance for her but then opted to leave her there alone.
“It’s not my problem,” I repeated, hoping he’d get the point this time. “And I’m not getting involved if there’s no reason for me to.”
He stared at me for a long moment, his brows drawing up. “You really have changed,” he admitted at last, looking more disappointed about that than I’d like. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to break his idealized image of me – I did – but it kind of hurt to know that he was going to think poorly of me from now on.
“It’s been a long time,” I responded instead. “And people can change a lot in 10 years, let alone 75. I’ve done a lot of things you wouldn’t like over those years. A lot. If you expect me to be the pretty picture you’ve painted in your head, better get that out of your mind now. That person hasn’t existed in decades, if he existed at all.”
Ambrose turned away, apparently not wanting to let me see his face while he tried to process that.
I decided to push the point, however, because I needed him to understand that his romanticized view of me wasn’t realistic.
“Naga are raised to fight and not count on anyone to help them. It makes us tough, but it also means we don’t see the point of jumping into other people’s fights – or their business. That’s their business, that’s their burden to bear. We have no reason to get involved. If they can’t bear it, well, that’s on them.”
“Sometimes people just need a hand up,” he mumbled. “Sometimes they’re stuck with a burden that is too great, but it’s not their fault. Sometimes they just need a friendly hand or a friendly face.”
“And that’s not me. You, maybe. Fairies, maybe, I don’t know. But not me.” I crossed my arms as I looked at him, hoping he was finally processing. “I don’t see the world through your eyes, Ambrose, and you don’t see it through mine. And my viewpoint sees and handles things differently. Trust me – there are bad things I’ve done in the name of work during the past 75 years that you would hate. You think you know me, but I’m not at all the saint you’ve built up in your mind.”
He was quiet for a bit. “What kind of things?” He asked at last, in a smaller voice. “Like…killing people? Kidnapping kids like I once was?”
I was not about to repeat my rather sordid past to him. I regretted some of the things I’d done, some more than others, but life hadn’t been too kind to me and sometimes I did what I needed to in order to survive. I wasn’t about to explain that to him or try to justify my actions, though. I needed him to see the darkest side of me if he was going to give up on this idea of being friends.
“I never bothered kids,” I admitted, “but killing people…yes.”
He considered this. “In a fair fight? Or assassinations?”
I shrugged. “I’m not recounting my kills,” I told him bluntly. “Nor am I going to betray former employers’ confidences in discussing them. The point is, I have done things you really wouldn’t like. I’m not the person you think I am.”
He was gripping the back of one of my dining room chairs and I could see him swallow, hard, like he was having trouble dealing with this. Hopefully that meant some of it was starting to sink in, though.
“You know,” I told him after a long moment of silence, “I don’t think I’m in the mood for dinner tonight. How about we reschedule – you can send me a message when you figure out a good time for you.” That way, he would feel free to just forget to send me a message if it was too much for him. The ball was in his court.
“Uh…yeah…okay.” Ambrose slowly turned and headed towards the door, pausing to give me an almost broken-hearted look. “I don’t – I don’t get it,” he whispered. “Why would you change so much?”
I shrugged calmly. “I didn’t, not really. You just never saw the darker side of me even though it was there all along. You never had a reason to.”
He left, his shoulders slumped, and I locked the door behind him, feeling a stab at my own heart at his despondent figure. He clearly was hurt by his image of me breaking, and I hated that, but it was for the best. In time, this wound would heal. In time, he’d let me go and move on to better people.
And he wouldn’t be in danger because of me.
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