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I let the feeling wash through me, settling into the marrow of my bones.
It feels like only minutes later when the movie ends and credits are rolling up the screen. Stacy nudges Cal awake, who was only “resting his eyes” and we all snicker at his insistence that he was not, in fact, asleep—despite the soft snores that have drifted from his corner of the couch for the last half hour.
Addy and I give them the biggest hugs goodnight, smiles bracketing each of our faces, before we head up the stairs and into Addy’s room and land on her bed in a hug of our own.
“I can’t believe we’re leaving tomorrow,” she muses again. Her words are soft and quiet, but they sound louder in the silence of her room.
“I know. This summer flew by too fast, Addy. I’m not sure I’m ready.” To head off to college, to be in a new city all on our own, to be the only one solely responsible for the success of my future from here on out—I’m not sure I’m ready for any of it.
I’m not ready to leave yet, either. Not when it had just started to feel like our summer had truly begun.
Until last week, and the accident, the harsh realities of life tugged against the lighter days and forced them to come crashing down, anyway. Leaving Jude, and his own darkness, exposed in the aftermath.
He apologized, though, and I know how much he meant it. His imploring, quiet words. The subdued storm brewing in his gaze. The desperation in his tone.
I’m used to apologies. Ones full of buts, blame, and a lack of accountability. Jude’s held none of that. Nothing but the very opposite. And I’m learning now that not all darkness that bleeds is meant to submerge us until we drown.
Sometimes, it bleeds just to remind us we’re alive.
That there’s still a life worth fighting for.
I fall asleep next to Addy in her bed, those thoughts running on a loop in my mind.
______
In the dead of night, I wake with a gasp.
Orienting myself in Addy’s room, my breaths slowly start to calm, receding into a steady tempo ofinhaleandexhale.
I don’t even remember what my nightmare was about, but my heartbeat echoes the rhythm of fear.Fear,I almost laugh as tears surge at the back of my eyelids. Because I know my fear isn’t born from the usual mess of my nightmares, but instead,from what tomorrow brings. A panic that words can mean nothing, and I might not ever see Jude again.
It’s with that thought that I slip from Addy’s bed and into the hallway.
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but my feet carry me forward regardless, guiding me toward his room.
As slowly and silently as I can, I open his door and pull it closed behind me.
His quiet breaths fill the room, his soft little groan as he rolls onto his back making my lips tug at the corners. It’s such a contrast from the moodier, shielded guy I’ve known that it stuns me still for a moment. The delicate moonlight washing over his skin, his breaths rising and falling in his chest, and the darkness dissipating as my eyes adjust—meeting his straight on.
“Declan?” his low, gravelly voice breaks through the quiet, and my breaths still before kicking into overdrive. He sits up, his sheet slipping down and pooling around his waist. Rows of toned abs greet me. The low line of his dark boxer briefs does, too.
My heartbeats wait untilnowto make their presence known—after they’ve already climbed into my airways, and into my limbs, where all I can feel are their quick beats pulsing through my body.
What the hell am I doing here?
His eyes ask a similar question, but his lips remain still, so I make my way to the edge of his bed, my heart pounding so hard, so loudly, it’s all I can hear. It blasts through every single one of my thoughts, leaving only…Can I just? I want to…“Can I lay here with you?” I ask. It feels like my heart says the words for me, because I don’t know where they come from, only that I mean them.
Lay here and what, though?
Ask him to hold me? Fall asleep with me? Kiss my forehead goodnight?
Let him silence the chaos of everything, my heart whispers, the way he always does.
“Yeah, of course.” His brows furrow, concern creasing the edges of his eyes. “Everything okay?”
I nod, my throat thick with emotion.
I’m in nothing but my underwear and an oversized T-shirt, and Jude has nothing on but his dark boxer briefs, but he pulls me onto the bed and onto him anyway. I’m not sure it’s where either of us intended for me to be, but it’s where I land—in his lap, my knees bracketing his hips, his firm body resting beneath my soft curves.