44. Chapter 44
Chapter forty-four
EMMA EASTON
The strange thing about peace after a long period of torment is…
that it feels weird. For weeks after everything ended, I kept waiting for the world to collapse again.
For another phone call. Another nightmare crawling out from the dark to drag us backward into survival mode.
Even now, months later, there are still moments where my pulse spikes unexpectedly if Jude takes too long coming back from somewhere or if an unknown number flashes across my phone screen.
But those moments are becoming smaller now, drowned out by ordinary things. Things we almost never got to have.
Like grocery shopping.
Jude stands beside the cart under fluorescent lighting with a loaf of sourdough tucked beneath one tattooed arm while arguing with me over pasta sauce. His dark hair is falling messily into his hazel eyes while he squints suspiciously at ingredient labels. “This one should taste better.”
“It literally tastes the same.”
“It absolutely does not.”
I laugh while reaching around him for the jar anyway, and the corner of his mouth twitches upward in immediate victory before he leans down to give me a quick kiss. It’s like we’re just another couple buying groceries on a Thursday night.
“This organic shit is about to be the best thing you’ve ever tasted,” he says with a grin.
I roll my eyes. “Jude, you spent years injecting drugs into your bloodstream.”
“All the more reason for me to care now, yeah?” He shoves me playfully as we continue on our way.
Normal.
We’re becoming normal. And it’s the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened for us.
Other nights, I sit cross-legged on the kitchen counter at the cottage while Jude cooks shirtless in his sweatpants, tattoos flexing across his back and shoulders as he moves around the stove singing softly along to whatever song is playing through the speaker near the sink.
It feels almost exactly like before.
Back when we were younger and hopelessly obsessed with each other. Except now there’s something quieter inside him. The boy I fell in love with is still in there, but when he laughs, it’s not as loud. When he’s sad, it’s compounded. When he’s angry, I give him space.
It’s both a beautiful and devastating thing to witness.
Because of the abuse he endured for years, he’s become more communicative.
Now, there’s always this carefulness to him beforehand, like he needs to hear me choose him every single time.
And after all of the violence his hands have known, he’s more possessive and wild in the bedroom.
Tonight, he’s humming under his breath while stirring pasta, and when he catches me smiling at him from the counter, he smirks. “Are you drooling over the food? Or me?”
I snort. “Obviously you. You’re shirtless and singing to MGK while making me dinner,” I reply. “You created this situation.”
His laugh fills the kitchen, though it’s softer than before. I’ve missed that sound. Even if it is a little different, I’ll love and cherish it forever.
Nova lifts her enormous black head from the rug near the sliding doors at the sound of it, tail thumping lazily against the hardwood floor, before she wanders over toward Jude, hopefully searching for dropped food.
He scratches behind her ears absentmindedly while still singing along quietly, and I swear something inside me heals a little more every time I see how kind he still is, even after everything.
The song ends, and for a few quiet seconds, the only sound in the kitchen is the gentle sizzle of garlic in the pan and the distant crash of waves beyond the windows. Then another song begins, and the opening notes hit me instantly.
Jude freezes at the exact same moment I do.
“Right Here” by Lil Peep.
Our song.
The one that somehow followed us through every version of ourselves, through first love and heartbreak, through years apart and the impossible road that led us back here.
For a moment neither of us moves. Then Jude slowly turns toward me, and the look on his face steals every coherent thought from my head because I can see it all reflected there.
Every late-night drive. Every kiss. Every promise.
Every memory we almost lost to darkness.
Every version of us that survived long enough to find each other again.
A smile spreads across my face.
Without saying a word, Jude sets the wooden spoon down on the counter and crosses the kitchen toward me. I laugh softly as his hands slide around my waist and pull me against him.
“What are you doing?” I whisper.
His answer is another smile.
The music swells around us while golden sunset light pours through the windows behind him, and then he’s kissing me. When he finally pulls back, it’s only far enough to rest his forehead against mine.
Then he starts singing. It’s just loud enough to vibrate through my body, calming me in the same ways it always did whenever I was anxious.
It’s just for me.
The familiar lyrics brush against my lips between kisses, his voice low and warm and gentle, and goosebumps rise across my skin. My eyes begin watering instantly, because I was so fucking terrified that we’d never get this. Our love story didn’t end in tragedy.
Jude smiles the second he notices the tears gathering in my eyes.
“Hey,” he murmurs softly.
I shake my head, laughing through the emotion lodged in my throat. “I just love you.”
The look that crosses his face is what makes me cry.
His arms tighten around my waist before he kisses me again, and while our song drifts through the house around us, I realize that the memories of our journey don’t hurt anymore.
Later that night, we end up tangled together beneath the blankets while rain pours outside. Nova climbs onto the bed halfway through the night and wedges herself directly between us. Jude groans sleepily when she kicks him in the ribs.
“She’s literally built like a horse.”
Nova ignores him, licking at his jaw before curling against his chest.
I laugh into the dark while Jude wraps one arm around both of us. And sometimes, in moments like these, I study him quietly while he sleeps beside me. The healed scar near his shoulder. The bruising and blood long gone now. The exhaustion no longer haunting his beautiful face.
There are still nights when he wakes abruptly from nightmares with panic, eyes unfocused and distant, while his body remembers things his mind wishes it couldn’t.
But now he lets me hold him through it instead of disappearing into himself completely.
And when my own nightmares drag me awake, shaking and gasping beside him, he gathers me against his chest and sings under his breath.
He’ll do it until my anxiety medication begins pulling me back down from panic.
Just like old times.
One night after tracing the scars along his ribs absentmindedly beneath dim bedroom lighting, I ask him quietly why he stopped smoking weed or drinking alcohol altogether.
Jude lies beside me, staring up at the ceiling for a long moment before answering. “Because I spent most of my life trying not to remember it,” he says softly. “And now I want to.”
The honesty in his voice makes my heart flutter.
He turns his head afterward, hazel eyes meeting mine in the dark. “I wasted years being high enough not to feel anything.” His fingers brush slowly through my dark hair where it spills across his chest. “I don’t want to miss my life anymore, Em.”
I understand exactly what he means, because we almost lost this. We almost lost each other.
I smile faintly sometimes when I catch my reflection now. At the slightly harder version of myself staring back from mirrors and windows. I really am different than the girl who first came crashing into Jude Graves’ life years ago.
But so is he.
And somehow we still found each other again anyway.
***
Tonight, the ocean air is cool against my skin as Jude and I sit together at the end of his parents’ dock beneath a sky overflowing with stars.
They’ve gone out for their weekly date night.
His guitar rests across his lap while he plays quietly beside me, fingers moving through soft chords that drift out across the dark water around us.
I lean back on my hands, breathing in salt air while watching him beneath the pale glow of moonlight.
“You know,” I murmur softly, “the first night we sat out here together, I thought you were going to ruin my life.”
Jude huffs a laugh without looking up from the guitar. “Fair assessment, honestly.”
“You were so cute.”
“Am I not now?”
“Of course you are,” I say with a grin. “Even more so.”
He looks over at me then, laughing. And for just a moment, he looks just like him. The seventeen year old boy I met that night.
God…he’s beautiful.
“You nervous about the interview tomorrow?” I ask quietly.
The guitar slows slightly beneath his fingers. Tomorrow will be the first time he steps back into the spotlight publicly since the trial ended. The first time the world hears him speak again. The first official announcement of the concert. Of Dissonance returning, and everything he’s building now.
But Jude just shakes his head gently. “No,” he says honestly. “I’m good.”
Moonlight catches softly across his features as he says it, and my chest tightens with love. He sets the guitar carefully aside afterward before reaching for me, fingers sliding around my waist as he pulls me gently into his lap.
“The sky looks beautiful tonight,” he murmurs. “I used to get so sad looking at it because it reminded me of you. And all of the summer nights we spent together admiring it.”
“I loved looking at it for the same reason,” I whisper back.
Something vulnerable flickers briefly across his face before his gaze drops away from mine, like he’s trying to collect himself. Then he looks back at me, and suddenly he seems nervous. His thumb strokes slowly against my waist. “I keep thinking about how different we are now.”