Page 191 of Oleander

But he hadn’t died without me. He’d survived. Bloomed even.

I wasn’t the same person Jude fell in love with, and though I was still frightened of hurting him, of somehow destroying that which made Jude, Jude, I was determined to show him that Icouldlove him back. I would allow him to love me while returning that love.

He watched me now with a strange mix of tenderness and hunger. I’d revelled in both sides before, and I wanted them both again. And again. And again.

“Can you play something for me?” he asked, casting his eyes over my shoulder at the upright. It hadn’t been where I’d expected him to go, based on the look he’d been giving me.

“If you like.”

I stood and carried my tumbler over to the piano and set it on the top. I sat on the small stool and lifted the lid. A flashback, a phantom pain over the fingers of my right hand.When I’m talking to you, you will fucking look at me, do you hear me!? The weighty top bashed down onto my fingers once, twice, three times. The pain excruciating.

“What would you like to hear?” I asked, clearing my throat as I forced away the memory.

“Anything,” said Jude softly. “I just like watching you.”

“And here I was thinking piano was more of an auditory experience.”

“Not when it’s you that’s playing it, it’s not.” He sipped his drink and gave me a bawdy look, which made me laugh.

“Actually, I’ve been working on something.” I shifted on the stool, feeling a little self-conscious. Especially given he was the muse.

“You wrote it?” His eyes widened with delight.

I nodded, settling my hands over the keys.

I’d been working on the suite for over a decade. I’d started it when I was still at Deveraux, a catalogue of songs that had become our story:The Boy. The Gardener. The Beach. The Reader. The Library. Oxford. London. Oleander.

It was almost complete though I still tinkered on the pieces daily, adding and removing things depending on my mood, never quite happy with the sum of the parts. But perhaps there was one more piece to create, one more to add.The Boy: returned.The Man: in bloom.

I began to playOleander: the piece I was most confident in, the one I’d worked on longest. The one I’d been lost in the night Xavier broke my hand. That night, I’d boarded a plane and left him for the first time, only to find Jude, inexplicably, waiting for me on the other side of the ocean. My lighthouse in the storm.

As the piece moved through its motions, he watched me with tears in his eyes and his heart on his sleeve. His eyes had changed, but he still looked at me the same way. As though I was his and he was mine. I wasn’t afraid of that look now, I returned that look now.

When it was over, he shook himself as though coming out of a dream. He looked like he might jump to his feet and applaud.

“Fucking hell, Cas. That was...incredible.”

“Thank you.” I lifted my glass and moved to sit back on the couch across from him.

“I really want to kiss you,” he said after a moment. “Can I?”

“You never have to ask me that, Jude.”

He set his glass down and moved across the couch toward me. Then, he took mine and set it down too. When he brought his hand up to touch my cheek, I let out a small desperate noise I hadn’t thought I was capable of.

“Did he ever...” Jude began, green eyes turning dark. “Without your consent? Did he ever hurt you like that?”

I’d never lie to him. But neither did I want to say it out loud, the humiliation was too great.

In the end, I didn’t have to. His jaw clenched, and his mouth flattened into a line. Still, his touch was excruciatingly soft as he skimmed his thumb over my lip.

“Cas…” He pressed his forehead to mine, breathing quick. “I’m so sorry.”

“Please, don’t Jude.” I pleaded. “It’s over. I’m okay. Everything is okay now.”

“Please tell me you know you never deserved it. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what you said that day. I can’t.” He fixed me with a firm look. “Please tell me you know now that you never deserved what he did to you.”

The truth was, I was still trying to get to a place where I believed it unflinchingly. Counselling was gruelling and some days felt like walking through quicksand filled with snakes. But it was working, I could feel that too. And so while I couldn’t say it and mean it today, I knew I would be able to one day.