“It’s a chore to ignore.”
“Are you researching anything in particular?” I strive to keep my voice light, conversational, despite rising up on my toes trying to get a glimpse of the tablet he was studying when we came in. But he’s too smart for that, and is quick to erase it the moment he sees what I’m doing.
Which is why I’m so shocked when he says, “Honestly, I was doing a little research on you.” His eyes burn on mine, causing Damen’s to narrow, trying to determine just what that meant. I glance back and forth between them, scrambling for something to say, but Jude beats me to it. “I was trying to figure out why I always seem to get in your way.”
I pause, my throat gone suddenly dry, forcing me to clear it before I can speak. “And did you come to any conclusions?” I ask, pretty much everything about me, my voice, my stance, my expression, my demeanor, projecting loud and clear that my interest in this subject knows virtual y no limits.
He shakes his head, his face wearing an apology words can’t express. “No, or at least nothing concrete,” he says.
My shoulders sink, as a sigh escapes my lips, and I can’t help but think how nice it would’ve been if Jude could’ve done al of my homework for me, but it’s never that easy.
“Though there was something…”
He’s got my ful attentio
n again, Damen’s too from what I can tel .
“It’s not anything that I saw per se, it was more a thought that kept coming to me. One I couldn’t chase away.”
“That’s how Summerland works.” I nod, a little too vigorously. “Or at least the Great Hal s anyway. It’s not always concrete, you know.
It’s not always something you read or experience. Sometimes it’s just a persistent thought that refuses to leave until you pay it some notice.”
He nods, curls his thumbs around his belt loops and glances toward Damen and me. “Anyway, while I know this’l probably sound judgmental, I think you know by now that I don’t real y mean it that way, but, wel , I can’t help thinking that al of your problems, al of your … obstacles … wel … I can’t help but think they al stem from your immortality.”
He sneaks a quick peek at Damen, and I do the same. Both of us knowing Damen’s responsible for the state that we’re in—both of us knowing he’s al too aware of that.
“What I mean is, your whole thing with the elixir, and, wel , whatever else is required, it’s not like I’m up on the details, but stil , my point is, it’s just not natural, you know? We’re not supposed to reach physical immortality—that’s what the soul is for. The soul is the immortal part of us. It recycles, over and over again from what I’ve seen, but it never dies. We’re meant to strive beyond the physical world, not …
not settle for it and only it…” He winces, but now that he’s started, he knows he has no choice but to finish. Besides, it’s not like we can’t hear it in his head, hear the words reeling toward us as he says, “You’re not supposed to embrace the physical world as though it’s the last stop—as though that’s al there is.”
I fal quiet. Damen does too. Both of us marveling at how Jude’s words provide an al -too-familiar, somewhat eerie echo of what Damen said a little earlier back in his room.
And I can’t help but wonder if there’s a reason for that—if I’m meant to hear it. I mean real y and truly hear it, and maybe even do something about it.
Maybe I’m meant to pay it some serious notice. As opposed to waving it away like I’m most inclined to do.
Jude squinches his face, reducing his eyes to two narrow slits of the most bril iant blue-green—a sliver of tempting tropical sea that’d be so easy to wade into. “And I think … maybe … wel , I think the karma you’ve accumulated from making that choice is keeping you from experiencing…” He shuffles, fumbles, final y pul ing it together enough to say, “Wel , I think it’s keeping you from experiencing true happiness. Real bliss. If you know what I mean.”
Oh, I think I know what you mean.
I sigh. Damen sighs too. The two of us sounding like a chorus of frustrated discontent.
“So, anything else?” I lift my brow, realizing the words sounded far brusquer than intended and trying to soften the tone when I add, “I mean, any insight on how to get around al of that?”
Jude’s mouth grows grim in a way that fades his normal y brown skin to an edge of white that outlines his lips—lips I’ve kissed once—
twice—I can’t be too sure, there’ve been so many lives the three of us have al shared. His face ful of sincerity when he says, “Sorry.
That’s al I got. So … anyway, I’l leave you guys to it and…”
He starts to move away, clearly eager to wrap it up and move on with his day. And while Damen’s stil lost in thought, lost in a dark cloud of blame, I reach out, fingers catching Jude’s bicep as I pul him back to me in a show of brute strength, a pleading look in my eye, and a hastily released thought I took absolutely no time to consider, no time to edit.
Damen looks at me, having been yanked right out of his own thoughts to focus on mine. The distinct, somewhat alarming, more than a little embarrassing sound of: No, don’t go! that swirled through my head, swirled through the room, before I could stop it.
“Um, what I mean is, you don’t have to leave on our account…”
Damen squints, regarding me with great interest. The same goes for Jude. Resulting in two sets of lifted brows, one spliced, one perfect in every conceivable way, while the eyes that lie beneath are centered on me.