Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
NYLA
A watery sheen glimmers in his eyes, and in them a darkness that answers every one of my questions.
Jaden is no hero. He is a shattered soul that holds its fragments together with the help of a superhero costume.
That’s how he breathes.
That’s how he manages to keep going.
Involuntarily, I reach out my hand to him.
It could destroy my life. That was my answer when he wanted to know why it’s so hard for me to live in the moment. But even as I spoke the words, they felt wrong.
Before my mind’s eye I saw Jaden and myself. How we dance in the rain. How we stroll laughing through the fair. How we enjoy the view of the harbor together, take in the glitter of the ocean, chat without a care.
The memories of it are everywhere inside me. Moments full of happiness, detached from time and space. Moments like this one, in which we are so close to each other, feel each other, truly see each other.
Enjoying what is right now is not as wrong as my fear made me believe. But using it as an excuse not to have to face what hurts is.
And what if it’s no longer a life? That’s what he asked me the other day, and only now do I understand what he meant by it. He’s stuck, unable to look back or move on.
Now I gently touch his cheek. ‘Maybe it’s not the pain outside the moment that destroys your life at all, but the idea that it could if you let it in.’
He places his hand over mine and stops my thumb, which had started stroking his cheek all on its own. ‘Maybe,’ he says.
It’s only one word, a single word, but it means everything. That he doesn’t deflect, doesn’t crack a joke, doesn’t escape the situation. That he yields, opens up, and allows this thought feels in this moment like a whole new world.
One in which together we are more and have more than each of us alone.
The fear disappears from his expression, replaced by longing. The same feeling that is shining in me too, and not just since today. The longing for us.
His fingers brush against mine. ‘I don’t know how to get through pain.’
His voice is only a whisper, yet it hits me right in the heart. As if in a trance, I rise up onto my tiptoes and let my hand wander to the back of his neck. ‘I’ll help you.’
He gives the slightest of nods, and I know how big this silent step is for him. This conversation has scared him, yet he hasn’t looked for any excuses.
He stayed.
Here with me.
And he showed me something that scares him.
This truth overwhelms me with a force that robs my own fear of its power over me.
‘We can do this. Together,’ I say, and I feel braver than I have in a long time.
‘Together?’ He wraps his arms around my back and gently pulls me toward him.
I nod. Around us the crickets are chirping, the wind makes the leaves rustle. His breath brushes my lips, hot and fast. My heartbeat quickens, my knees grow weak, but he holds me tight.
He has already tried to kiss me several times, and each time I stopped him.
Now he doesn’t come any closer but only looks at me with his green eyes.
And I want to do it. Without asking, without doubting, without worrying.
I don’t want to think anymore about whether it’s good or bad or right or wrong. I just want to let go. Enjoy. Live.
Just here.
Just us.
Just now.
And at the same time so much more than that.
Slowly I close the last few inches between us. My lips touch his. He returns my kiss, and what I was just longing for becomes reality.
The world turns featherlight, time and space no longer exist. What usually weighs on me dissolves. Our kiss carries me away, I feel weightless. Boundless. Free.
My thoughts drift away like clouds in the wind, and inside me a silence spreads that is not empty but full of light. I feel nothing but him, but us, and in this moment, there is nothing that holds me captive. Nothing that pulls me back. Only the feeling of flying.