We Can't Be Together

We Can't Be Together

Emilia's POV

We all strolled down the parking lot for Aaron's car. They all jumped in, but Sebastian stood before it, his eyes touring over the sedan, his face twisted in a critical look.

“This should be a carriage. But why is it without a horse?” He asked, turning his head to me, eyes darting from me to the car. There was a naive cluelessness to his face that drew a ripple from my throat.

I gagged, my cheeks buckled as I tried to hold back my laugh. I shut my eyes for a moment, swallowing back the laugh, and opened them again to him. I opened the car door for him to get in.

“This isn't a carriage. It's called a car. It is powered by an engine, so it doesn't need horses.” I told him.

He looked from me to Brian in the back seat and shook his head. “What does an engine mean?” He stared at the car again and then at me. “Is this thing safe?”

My cheeks buckled again, but still, I didn't let the laugh win. I jumped in beside Brian, and I reached for his hand. “It is safe, Sebastian. Trust me.” I said, and I leaned my hand for him.

He shrugged his shoulders then, and he took my hand, his thick, bigger one swallowing mine. “Anything you say, wife.” He forced through tight teeth, and he climbed in.

I shut the door after him, since he left it open.

“He is truly from the past.” Brian said, and the laugh I struggled not to let out, he outrightly churned out, tapping the car door in a fit.

Sebastian grunted through clenched teeth, heat in his eyes. “Why is he laughing, wife?” He said. He cupped my face in his hands, looking at me.

“Can you stop calling her your wife?” Nathan snapped from the passenger seat, just as Aaron sent the car in motion, steering us out of the parking lot and into the road.

Sebastian’s body shook with rage, and he moved to yell at him, but I squeezed his hand. He turned back to me, the frown on his face dissolving into a smile. “Don't mind them.” I whispered to him, and I dropped my head on his chest, listening in to his heartbeats.

He pulled me closer to his big body, holding me firmly to him.

“I heard what you said, Emilia,” Brian chimed.

“And what if you did?” I replied with the same teasing tone he did, and he just turned to the window, continuing with his laugh.

Aaron’s eyes kept jumping from the road to the rearview mirror, stealing glances at us in the backseat, curious, and staring.

Our eyes eventually met, and he looked to the road. “So where is this bookstore?” he eventually asked.

“It's just before my school, so we definitely can’t go tonight, but tomorrow.” I told him.

He was silent for a moment. “So what do we do about the big man at the back then?”

“Just take us to a motel,” I answered. “We’ll spend the night there before we leave for the bookstore tomorrow morning.”

Aaron's tone was sharp now. “You don't expect me to leave you in some motel with a man we know nothing about.”

“But he is my husband, Aaron.” I said.

“And I don't remember giving you away to him or attending a wedding where you were pronounced his wife.”

“I don't care if you like it or not. She is my wife, and we are staying together tonight.” Sebastian challenged.

“You might want to get him to shut up, Emilia. He got me by surprise then. He won't again.” Aaron forced through clenched teeth, his hands tightening around the steering wheel.

I raised my head to Sebastian. Thick veins clouded his neck, and he was about to yell at Aaron when I grabbed his jaw and steered his face to me. I shook my head at him. “Don't, Sebastain.” I muttered. “And don't talk. Just let me handle this. I can.” I said.

He smiled with just his lips, and he held me tighter, so much that my skin was pressing against his. He kissed my forehead, and I chuckled, enjoying the warmth of his body and the tingle that crawled through me at his touch.

When I turned to look back at Nathan and Aaron in the front seat, I saw them turning from the road to stare at us, veins sticking out on their necks. Brian just kept laughing, beating the door in a fit of giggles again.

While Aaron said nothing and turned back to the road, Nathan didn't. He glared at Sebastian. “I don't care if you think you are her husband, but don't you dare kiss her again, not before us, and definitely also not behind us. Are we clear?”

Sebastian growled. And before he could react further. I shook my head at him again. I grabbed his fist, which still quivered and pulsed.

He looked right into my eyes, and he grunted, grinding his teeth so hard they rattled. I held his cheek with my hand, and I leaned up and kissed him.

He grabbed me harder, sucking on my lips as I did his. I pulled back fast from him when the car suddenly broke down to a halt, the screech of the tires sharp in the car as we were thrown forward a little.

I felt the heat in their eyes burning my skin even before I turned to them.

Aaron moved to scold me, but he just growled out his fury, his fists pulsing on the steering wheel.

Nathan had much to say. “What was that about, Emilia?” he scolded.

They were my brothers, and I loved them, but they had to respect that I was no longer a kid they needed to protect. "You said he shouldn't kiss me, not that I shouldn't kiss him. And I wanted to kiss him. He is my husband.”

“Oh!” Brian giggled, tapping the car again in a fit. “Mom is going to go nuts when she hears about all this.”

“And she is hearing nothing about this.” Nathan and Aaron screamed in unison at Brian, glaring at him. His laugh died instantly, and he kept mum. He made a sign of padlocking his lips and turned to the window.

Aaron and Nathan moved to me then. Aaron spoke this time. Which was better. He was the most levelheaded of them all. He leaned against the driver's seat to have a better look at Sebastian and me.

“I love you, Emilia. I really do, and I want you to be happy.” He said.

“I know,” I replied.

He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bulging. “But you have to understand, you can't just bring a man to us for the first time and tell us he is your husband from a strange world and expect us to just accept him. It doesn't work that way. We have had no time to know him, no time to vet him to see if he is good for you.” He said.

“I understand, Aaron.” I replied, my voice low. I bit down gently on my lower lip, rebuking myself. Why did everything have to happen like this?

“So for all of our sanity. You guys should just keep to yourselves and stop with the kissing and showing of love, at atleast until we get to the motel.”

“No!” Nathan challenged. “Until the bastard goes back to whatever hole he crawls back from, and I hope it is soon.”

Aaron scolded Nathan with a sharp tap on the shoulder, and Nathan just grunted, turning away briefly.

“I will drop you and yours at the motel with Nathan to watch over you both. Brian and I would leave for home and tell Mum you are with Gabby. Then tomorrow, we find this bookstore owner and confirm all this and send your boyfriend to wherever he comes from.”

“But he can't leave tomorrow. He either has to stay here with us, or I go with him. I can't leave him alone.” I retorted.

Aaron tried to speak again, but he just grunted. He threw his hands up in an I-give-up gesture and turned away again.

Nathan did the talking now. “He can't stay, Emilia. Because if what you say is true, then he doesn't belong here and doesn't exist here. He has no ID, no certificates. He is basically not a person here. And you also can’t go with him, because if you do, then what do we tell Mom happened to you?”

A lump settled in my throat at his words, and I stared at him, unable to deny the truth in them. I swallowed hard, forcing the lump down as much as I could, and I moved to speak. Sebastian squeezed my hand then. I stopped, turning my head to him.

“They are right, Emilia. According to the guardian of the portal. Three days is the maximum I can survive here before she comes to claim me myself.”

“Then I am coming with you. I can't—”

He made me a soft, careful smile, cupping my face in his hands. “You can't come with me, Emilia. The main reason why I came here is to stop you from going back again. This is probably the hundredth time you have returned to my world, and each time the end doesn't change. You always end up dying, and then we are stuck in an endless circle where the guardian sends me back to see you for the last time, or like now, I should stop you from coming back.”

My gaze narrowed on him. “So you mean this isn't the first time I have tried to return, and it's the first time you will be coming back. How is that possible?”

“It is possible because I came not just from my world, but from the future. The guardian always sends me back to you some days before you return to my world after the time you left with Gabbrielle.”

“So you mean if I returned back to your world now, I would only end up dead.” I asked in a voice that was too thin and hollow to be mine. A heavy force settled in me as silence settled in the car. No one made a sound. Even the world muted around us.

I watched his head drummed in the air, and his lips echoed out the words. “Yes, Emilia. And then I will be miserable and will have to come back to fetch you. So for both our sakes, don't return to my world.”

I could feel my brother's eyes on us now, intense and curious, but what I felt more was my heart sinking fast for my stomach. My voice was deeply strained as I looked right into Sebastian's ice-grey eyes, and I asked. “So what do we do now, Sebastain? If you can't stay here, and I can't come there. How then can we be together? How can I be your salvation? How can I be your wife?” I tried my best to keep it back, but the tears spilled down anyway, stinging my eyes.

The look in his eyes dropped, the ice-grey pair darkened, and they became solemn. His fingers brushed my cheeks, cleaning off my tears. But more spilled down, staining his fingers wet all over again. “I wished we could, Emilia. But we can't be together anymore. We have only tonight to be together.”

“No,” I yelled, pulling from his hands. He reached for me again, but I dropped out of his reach. My lips clipped and chin tilted high with resolve, I looked right into his eye. “I can't accept that, Sebastain. We either stay here together, and whenever the guardian or whatever she is comes for you, we send her away, or I am going to come with you to your world tomorrow, and we are going to find a way to make sure I don't die again there—"

“But there is no way to avoid—”

“We will find a way, Sebastian. We definitely will.” I said, firm and determined, I wouldn't let anything separate us now. Not a fate that cares nothing about us, not the prediction of my own death. Someway, somehow, we were going to break this sad ending curse.

“Do you understand what you are saying, Emilia? You want to kill yourself over—" Nathan was yelling, his eyes wide with terror, aghast.

“You obviously are not thinking of—” Aaron was saying too.

“Just stop, Nathan.” I snapped at him, and I turned to Aaron. “Drive, Aaron, and take us to a motel. Nothing you say is going to change my mind. This is my life, and I choose to live it however I choose.”

“Emilia—”

I ground my teeth hard as I yelled. “Just drive, Aaron. Please just drive.” I yelled, then I turned to myself, throwing my palms to my face, and the tears spilled again, hotter this time, my heart wrenching more and more, squeezing tight as if being tied up tighter and tighter with each moment that passed. What did we ever do wrong? Why did fate have to be thus cruel?