The following day, time seemed to move slowly. It felt as if I had waited for forever before two o'clock came rolling by. I was nervous and every bit of me wished I had met Nick earlier on in life. I didn't know who he was but I was afraid of letting him go.
There was just something about him.
An hour passed as I waited, and I began to wonder if he would show up at all.
It was around five o'clock when I decided to slip the wristband on. I was itching to find out what it would look like on my wrist.
Don't be silly, I thought to myself.
But I was a silly person and so I slipped it on. It fit like a glove. A part of me felt like it belonged to Nick; that I was his and he had given this to me. Another part of me wanted to stop living in a bubble that could easily pop in a second.
Sighing, I decided that I had to take the wristband off whether I liked it or not. But it was stuck. Literally.
No matter how much force I put into taking it off, or how many forks I slipped in the space between it and my wrist, it refused to budge. As luck would have had it, Nick walked into the café at that exact moment.
I swore under my breath and hid my hand.
"Hi," I smiled as he approached me. He sat opposite me before greeting me back with a smile.
"Sorry I'm late," he continued. "I had to take care of something.
I wondered how long it would take for him to notice my discomfort.
"So," he surveyed the table, "Where is the wristband?"
I cleared my throat. "About that." His face fell. "I, um, don't know how to explain this but –"
Nick cut me off before I could even explain myself. "You lost it? Someone stole it? What? What happened to it?"
I opened my mouth to speak but he cut me off again.
"Please don't tell me something happened to it. I need that wristband. You have no idea how badly I –"
"It's stuck to my wrist!" I blurted. I thanked the heavens for my caramel skin tone because if I had been any lighter, I would have been as pale as a ghost.
"This is going to sound stupid but I just wanted to try it on and –" I took out my hand from it's hiding place and showed it to him – "now it's stuck. I thought my hand was small enough to fit it. This is embarrassing."
My eyes looked up to see an expressionless Nick. He kept his eyes on me and I fidgeted, thinking that he was furious.
"This is not possible," I heard him whisper. "It can't be."
"Huh?"
Without warning, my hand was being investigated by Nick. He tried to pull the accessory off my arm but it stayed in its position.
"Nancy, where do you come from?" He inquired all of a sudden.
The question caught me off guard but I still managed to respond. "I don't know. An old lady found me in the street, seemingly half-dead, and drove me to the hospital."
"Do you remember anything from your past?"
"No."
Nick looked me deep in to my eyes and asked, "Do you have an engraved number on your wrist that no one can see?"
The number on my wrist was only visible to my eyes. This was the case with all the other bodies who were born knowing their death date. If you were discovered to be one of the Marked, only you and your doctors knew about the mark.
There was no telling if Nick knew about mine. So I lied.
"No." I sat upright.
"I can see it, Nancy." His gaze travelled to my right hand where the mark was.
"What? How?"
"So you do have a number! You're marked!" Nick was happy. Beyond happy. I wasn't so sure why.
"Shush," I hissed. "I don't need the whole world knowing that. And what does this have to do with the wristband stuck to me?"
A grin played on the lips of the boy who I thought would never smile so widely at me. He ran his hand over his mouth and sat back it in his seat.
"I'm going to tell you a story. Don't say anything and don't interrupt. I'll explain everything after I have said what I need to say.
I nodded my head and swallowed hard. What kind of story was he going to tell me?
"In the year 1820, a female goddess was born. She was heir to the most powerful god and goddess – the goddess of light and the god of darkness – and had a bright future ahead of her.
"She had everything any god or goddess could ever want. The most expensive clothes, jewelry, all the men asking for her hand in marriage; you name it and she had it. Her name was Nox. She was the most beautiful goddess ever. No one could keep their eyes off her.
"And then she fell in love the god of deceipt, memories and love. She almost got married to him but something terrible happened. Something that forced them apart."
Nick sucked in a sharp breath before resuming his tale.
"No one knew exactly what happened but the goddess was angry. She inherited more of her father's darkness than her mother's lightness. The whole kingdom feared what it would be like if she ever got furious.
"She got reckless. She drank and partied. She was rude towards her townspeople. She broke rule after rule after rule. Rumor it that she nearly killed someone. Months flew by and her destructive behaviour got worse. That was until she met another god. His name was Hephaestus. The god of fire. He fixed her and they fell in love. Nox decided that she didn't want their love to end.
"The problem with that was gods and goddesses only had two hundred years to live. That's how far their "immortality" went. Nox was addicted to the feeling of love and she didn't want it to end. Love brought lightness into her heart.
"Together, they decided that they would find a way to live for longer. The idea of jumping into other bodies came up a couple of times but they weren't so sure of it. When they ran out of options, they circled back to that idea.
"They would jump in the bodies of human beings yet to be sent to earth that the gods moulded and take away years from those bodies before returning them with a few years to live. They did this for many years. Nox promised Hephaestus that when the time was right, they would go back in their old bodies and spend their last few years together.
"But when her ex found out what they were doing. He was furious with her and disappointed by her recklessness. He was given an order from the god of justice to end it. He was to wipe their memories and separate them.
"They would die feeling lonely. Hera would pass the crown to someone else who was worthy of it. That was the end of the Reckless Romance Tale – as people would call it.
My mind was filled with all sorts of questions but all that left my mouth was: "Why are you telling me this?"
Nick looked out the window and let out a loud sigh.
"Because," he turned his attention back to me, " you are Nox and I am Hephaestus."
Everything around me froze. I was suddenly aware of my breathing and the sound of my heartbeat.
Nick reached for his jean pocket and pulled out a photo with wrinkles. He hesitated before handing it to me.
The photo mad me feel light-headed. There I was standing next to Nick – a boy who I thought I did not know – with my arm around his torso. I had on the brightest smile on my face. Nick was looking at me, one hand in his pocket and the other around my shoulder.
The room tilted and all remembered before closing my eyes was the sound of glass breaking.