Chapter 2 #2
The Dior Jordans pause right next to my desk.
I know those twenty-five thousand dollars shoes, I know them well.
Because growing up, I know only one person who had an obsession with designer sneakers like that.
Instantly my gut clenches. I can see his closet, I can smell the Aqua De Gio cologne again, I can feel the softness of his t-shirt.
A shudder runs through my body. If I really concentrate, he’s warm.
Not cold. Not dead. He’s flicking my nose, then leaning in and begging for a kiss.
My heart instantly pounds in my chest as adrenaline courses through me. Not real. Not here. Not him.
I’m instantly curious if we have a new professor or student. It would be weird to join this class halfway through the semester, and I know everyone in my major.
Students around the room start whispering to each other, some point, others look at Evans waiting to see what he’s going to say. I turn the music almost completely silent. The whispering is almost louder at this point than the song. What the hell is going on?
The hair on the back of my neck goes up. Why are people looking at me? Is it because he’s by my seat? Or because I haven’t acknowledged him yet?
Enough that every instinct I have starts screaming when the shoes don’t move forward. I steal a glance at Evans he’s not looking at me.
Slowly, I look up.
And he’s here.
No.
The thought hits so fast I nearly laugh.
Not because it’s funny.
Because it’s impossible. It’s fucking impossible.
For one insane second I actually think I’m hallucinating or that I’ve died and gone to hell because how is this even happening?
Maybe it was the weird breakfast.
Maybe the knock ’em dead comment conjures ghosts.
Maybe I finally snapped from stress.
Maybe grief is a lot more creative than therapists give it credit for. I almost laugh because wouldn’t that make my therapist give up their job? I can conjure up ghosts. Clearly.
Because the man standing in the doorway died seven years ago. I saw his casket. I stood in the rain. I’m dead. My heart must have stopped from stress. This is impossible and yet…
My pulse stutters.
The classroom disappears.
The chatter.
The fluorescent lights.
The professor.
Everything.
Gone.
All I can hear is the blood rushing through my ears.
He looks older, obviously.
Taller somehow, even though at seventeen he was six four.
Crueler, like life sharpened every smooth edge he used to have and left nothing behind making his jawline impossibly firm right along with every muscle on his body.
But it's him.
My. God.
It's him.
The same wavy dark hair, same broad shoulders,
Same full mouth that used to curve into a smile right before he got himself into trouble, which was often. Same lips that used to taunt me every single time he got close and said he was going to steal a kiss one day.
His smell is different and yet it’s still familiar, like he’s using the same cologne but different body wash and I hate that I’m fixating on it, but smell is one of the strongest memories we have and I’m suddenly back in his room, he’s almost kissing me, and then the shots fire.
I’m writing the damning words, and he’s getting buried.
My chest tightens so violently I have to grip the edge of my desk; my fingers dig in so tight I’ve lost all feeling. My heart is hammering against my ribs so hard it might burst. I can’t slow my way-too-rapid breathing.
Because I know that scent. My body is physically unable to not react. My pulse can’t help but hammer beneath my skin, my breath can’t help but come in short small gasps, my skin can’t help but tingle.
I hate that I know that scent more than any scent in this entire universe. I hate that it used to make me laugh, cry, that it made me want more than I’ve ever wanted, with such a desperation shame almost always followed.
Hints of Cedar.
Smoke.
Winter.
All make up, the subtle hints of Jude.
My Jude.
It’s the smell of first kisses followed by bad decisions.
It’s the smell of my fifteen, his seventeen.
The smell of everything I buried—lies I told.
Mistakes we made and everything in between.
His eyes sweep the room briefly while people whisper, and then, they land directly onto me. Immediately, I understand two things.
The first is that Jude Hale isn't dead.
The second is that he knows exactly who I am.
And he’s here.
Standing by my desk.
He knows who I was.
What I did.
The realization crashes into me so hard I nearly stop breathing.
For seven years, I've mourned a living, breathing person.
Seven years.
I've compared every friendship to him.
Every relationship.
Every touch.
Every stupid, disappointing kiss.
Every man who wasn't him.
I've carried his ghost around like an open wound while he was apparently alive enough to walk into my classroom like I didn’t still dream of him, like I didn’t waste tears on him. How dare he, how dare he!
The third thing I realize, is that I’m not relieved. Not at all. I’m not happy, and I’m no longer even really confused. No, I feel nothing but rage from the betrayal of it all.
Pure. Blistering. Rage.
The kind that starts in your chest and burns from the inside out toward your hands until they shake with it.
The kind of rage that makes you want to laugh and scream and throw something all at the same time.
And then almost immediately, fear crashes in right behind the rage, because the corners of his mouth slowly tilt upward.
Not warm.
Not kind.
Cruel.
Like he's been waiting years for this exact moment.
Like he's imagined it.
Practiced it.
His gaze locks on mine.
And then he mouths a single word.
"Boo."
My stomach drops straight to hell.
Don’t show fear. Don’t move. Look annoyed, bored even. I’m not her anymore. My hair’s different, maybe he won’t recognize me? There is no reason for him to have any feeling towards me other than hatred. If he’s not a figment of my imagination that is.
Slowly, I feel him lean down and then less subtle fragrances reach my nose: Aqua De Gio cologne, always the same. And the smell of peppermint gum. “Hey there…De-Lilah.” He says my name like a curse now, when back in the day he’d sing it like a love song. “Still a lover of the arts it seems?”
I say nothing. If I move I’ll pass out, if I show fear he’ll pounce. What the hell is going on? How is he alive? How is he here? Coincidence? I don’t even go by my full name anymore. I’m far away from our childhood homes, our town. I’m older, I’m different. How is this my life right now?
He moves away and keeps walking. I exhale as a bead of sweat runs down the back of my neck. He stops in front of Evan’s desk mid-lecture.
Not beside it like a normal student would, not casually leaning even like an arrogant prick.
No—he’s claiming as much space as humanly possible, forcing everyone to notice his presence.
I don’t look up all the way, I stare at his ass, then his muscled back.
He’s thicker than before. That can’t be good.
You can feel a guy like Jude Hale before you see him.
And now it’s like his presence has swallowed up the entire room.
Evans clears his throat in annoyance. I can’t tell if it’s because he’s being interrupted or if it’s because he’s no longer the hottest guy in the room.
Evan’s is the all-American hot nerd, Jude is the guy that does you against a wall and makes you scream his name until your voice is hoarse then forces you to grab a hold of whatever you can, hair, jacket, arm—while he sends you into oblivion.
The adult version of him is absolutely mouthwatering and terrifying all at once.
Not that I would know even what the young version was like, we only had that one moment before everything went to hell, we were never like that until that moment.
Maybe that was the universes way of punishing us.
Maybe it really was all my fault for wanting a kiss that desperately, for wanting my best friend with every fiber in my being. For lusting.
We started as friends and swore to never cross that line until that day.
I always liked him, he always flirted with me but that was it, he said to cross that line meant taking away the one thing we had—that was more precious than anything, had I known it would go down the way it did, I would have leaped across that line when he still tolerated me, just to see what all the fuss was about.
Now? Now I need to stay far away. I can’t transfer this late and since I’m only two classes away from graduation, all I need to do is find a way to figure out what’s going on and avoid him, again, maybe it’s a fluke, maybe one of his dad’s many companies donates to the school, that would make more sense.
While he and Evans talk, I quickly look at my phone and look up the school’s donors.
It doesn’t take long to see that the number one donor is Edmond Hale.
His father. And it’s in the millions a year.
It’s not even his Alma Mater. Weird. I type in Jude’s name and nearly fall out of my chair.
Suddenly, the Google search actually shows him, pictures of him at Harvard.
Harvard? It shows social media; it shows a life I never even knew he had.
A few pictures of him with girls who look like supermodels pop up, and I instantly regret my choice to look.
The last time I searched his name was right after the incident and all it had was information on the funeral.
Why would I go online and look up a dead guy?
I didn’t have a reason to, so I never did after that.