Sublime

by Christina Lauren

  “Revive him!” she screams, slapping his shoulder, hard. “Why aren’t you reviving him?” She looks at her hand, at the flush of blood she can almost see pumping beneath her skin. Something hums in her ears—a heartbeat.

  “Just give him a minute,” Jay says with a level of calm she can’t comprehend. “We’ve checked this all out. He’s good for a while.”

  Colin’s semilifeless body is blue and mostly naked, laid out on the foil blanket. He looks skinnier than she remembers; his muscles spasm sharply. As soon as Colin has coughed all of the water he inhaled out on the foil, Jay sits back and just watches him shiver.

  Jay seems calm. He’s totally onboard with this insanity, no nerves, no hesitation.

  Just as she’s on the verge of screaming her panic into the dull gray sky, she hears, “Luce. Turn around.”

  She swivels toward Colin’s voice and her heart melts.

  Chapter 26 • HIM

  LUCY LAUNCHES HERSELF AT HIM, heavy and warm and full; her lips find his neck, his jaw, his mouth. He could consume this girl, he thinks. He could bury himself in her and never come up for air.

  With her neck exposed and her smile so big it reflects the sky above, Colin realizes he’d expected they would run off into the powdery snow and strip and just get down to it. But when she raises her head and looks at him, her eyes full of relief and excitement and fear and desire, the only thing he wants is to be here, like this. The world around him is so bright and full of detail, he finds it hard to even blink. It’s exactly like he remembers.

  She’s taking his lead, her fingers wrapped around his arms, waiting for him to decide where he wants to go. All he knows is he doesn’t want to watch Jay when he starts resuscitating him. Colin tugs her arm and leads her to a bench a few hundred feet down the trail.

  Colin remembers his tenth-grade photography class and how exposure is measured in lux seconds—brightness over time. The sweet spot was always that point where everything was visible, but before the light bled through, erasing the details. Here, in this world, it seems that the amount of light that can exist is limitless, and all it does is show him more. More color, more detail. Each rare leaf has a tiny skeleton, visible from even ten feet away. The clouds are gone. The sky is blue, yes, but also green and yellow and even red. When he inhales, he thinks he can feel each molecule colliding inside his lungs.

  They sit. They smile. This is the strangest thing that has ever happened in this universe; he’s convinced of it. His body could be dying on the lake and whatever it is that makes him live—his spirit or soul—is beyond elated to just be here.

  Lucy wraps a blanket around his shoulders. She climbs into his lap, facing him, wrapping them up so only their heads peek out the top.

  “I’m not cold,” he says.

  “I know. But it’s weird to see you like this, without a blanket.” She smiles, bending to kiss his jaw. He lets his head fall back, feeling.

  Her hands slip up his front,

  solid

  solid

  solid touches. His skin rises to meet her fingertips.

  She talks softly as she kisses around his neck, his face, his ears. “You okay?”

  He nods. This place is the most intense thing he’s ever seen, and Lucy feels better than anything, than everything, even than warm water running down cold skin or the first bloom of sugar on his tongue. Better than fast sex or a faster downhill ride.

  “You’re humming.” She laughs.

  “I’m in heaven.”

  She stills, fingers paused, splayed across his ribs. “You’re not.”

  “I didn’t mean that. Settle down, Trigger. I meant metaphorically.”

  She leans back and watches him.

  “You think I’m insane, don’t you? You think this is insane,” he says, suddenly made uneasy by the intensity in her swirling gray-green eyes.

  “Yes,” she says, leaning back in. She sucks his ear. Tugs at his hair. “No.” She moves closer, squirming over him. “There’s very little about us that isn’t absurd.”

  “Most of it’s not absurd,” he says, for some reason prickling at this. “We aren’t absurd. It’s that . . .” He searches for the right ending and gives up, laughing. “You’re dead and I’m kind of in between right now.”

  “Oh, that,” she says into his neck. “Not absurd at all.”

  His hands find waist, ribs, breasts. They grow wild and impatient, itching to feel every inch.

  Although part of him realizes that Lucy simply feels like girl—soft curves, skin that responds to his fingers, and her half-word exhales—most of him thinks that Lucy feels like no other girl ever. She’s softer; her sounds are the best sounds. He grabs her hips, squeezes. An embarrassing groan escapes his lips at the shape of her.

  But it makes her smile. “You like to squeeze.”

  “What?” He lifts his head, trying to understand her meaning through her eyes. They’re honey, hungry brown.

  “In the picture with your ex-girlfriend?”

  “The picture with Trinity from the winter formal?”

  She nods. “You’re gripping her hips. You’re gripping them like you knew them.”

  He grins down at her. “That is such a chick thing to notice. ‘Like I knew them.’ What does that even mean?”

  “Like you gripped them a lot.”

  “Let’s not talk about my ex-girlfriend right now, please.”

  “I’m serious. Do you miss being with a girl you can grip?”

  “No.”

  She’s skeptical.

  “I want that with you, it’s true. But I don’t want sex so much that it’s worth getting it elsewhere.”

  She fights a smile, though Colin doesn’t know why. “Let that smile out,” he tells her. “I’m so crazy about you and your hips that I can’t grip.”

  Lucy gives him a smile that could power a small town.

  “You’re so hot,” he whispers.

  To prove him wrong, she grabs a small handful of snow off the back of the bench and presses it to her chest. It stays there, crystalline and twinkling in the unearthly blue light. Slowly, her skin takes it in. He imagines their bodies like this must be such scavengers, needing to steal anything solid to take form. Now his girl is made of snow and beauty.

  “Tell me a story,” she says.

  He stares at the giant sky for a beat before an image pops into his head. “My parents used to have this huge king-size bed. At the foot of it was a wood chest my grandma had sent from Tibet or Thailand or something. I was jumping on the bed and slipped and cracked my collarbone on the edge of the chest.”

  Lucy winces over him, a full-body-impact wince, and it makes him laugh because what on her could break?

  “So my mom rushed me to the emergency room, and I got put in the world’s most awkward cast. I was almost six and we called it the Rack. That was right before they died.”

  He’s run out of words. It’s not a very telling story or even that long. It was only the first of several times he’s broken a collarbone. He fiddles with the ends of her hair, tying it in knots and watching it unravel.

  “Do you miss your parents?”

  “Sometimes. I only sort of remember them. Sometimes I wish I knew enough to miss them more.” It feels right, somehow, that they would have the hardest conversations here, where they can reassure each other with actual contact. What he wants to tell her is how he gets his chosen family. He gets her.

  “What do you remember?”

  He can understand why Lucy seems fascinated with the possibility that a part of Colin’s life is as fragmented as the entirety of hers. Colin has particles of memories of his parents, supported by pictures and stories from Dot and Joe. “I don’t remember much. Most of it’s been filled in for me. Dad was kind of dorky. I’m sure he would be the kind of dad that embarrasses the hell out of me now.” He laughs. “But he was fun and would play on the floor. Carry me on his shoulders. Tell me way too many details about the animals at the zoo. That kind of dad. My mom was c
areful. Well, they both were, especially after Caroline died. And at least until she lost it, Mom was quiet and liked to read and write and overthought everything. Never wanted me to run or hurt myself. Dot says that’s why I’m so crazy now. She says I’m like them but turned inside out. I keep my careful bits on the inside. She says it’s why I’m so easy to be around but so hard to know.”

  Lucy is tracing something on his chest. A spiral or letters, or a shape. Finally he realizes she’s drawing a heart. Not a heart like a valentine, but a heart. It calls his attention to his lack of pulse, to the hollow organless sensation he gets when he realizes he’s not corporeal. Suddenly he feels like his chest is sinking inward, like a crumpling empty paper bag. He stills both of her hands between his.

  “Did they have a good marriage?” she asks.

  “I think so. I mean, they died when I was six, so . . .” He looks out at the crystal-blue lake in the distance. “Caroline died right after we moved here. I’m sure that didn’t help their marriage.”

  Colin stares at a spot over her shoulder. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately. I wasn’t very old, but I know my mom drank a little before we lost my sister. It got a lot worse after. And no one blamed her; I mean, her nine-year-old kid got hit by a delivery truck. I’m pretty sure everyone understood why she went off the deep end. But what if she wasn’t crazy? What if she really did see Caroline? Is it possible she was really there?”

  “It’s possible,” Lucy says. “I’m here.”

  “I’ll never know, will I?”

  “I don’t know. But you’ll see them again.”

  He pauses, looking up to where she’s hovering above him. “You think so?”

  She studies him for a beat, searching his expression. “Yeah, I do.”

  He kisses her for that. For being so convinced his family will find each other, for the possibility of a good life after death. For knowing it’s what he needed to hear even if he didn’t know it.

  Her kisses are small and sweet, little sucking lollipop kisses on his lower lip, nibbling kisses, finally the aching deeper kisses he wants.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she says. She’s glad he’s here. Not that she’s back there, in his human world of flesh and bone. He finds that he feels the same.

  Every word sounds so much more intimate when it’s accompanied by the sensation of flesh under fingers. Colin has never felt this close to anyone, not even in the infatuation stage, when he becomes a mindless walking erection. This feeling here is almost too intense, when he kisses her, this need to get beneath her skin with fingertips and lips and each hungry part of him.

  Conversation falls away, and his touches grow desperate because he can feel a strange rhythmic pressure on his chest and knows it’s Jay, behind them, back at the lake, reviving Colin’s body. He’s warming from the inside out.

  Colin rolls Lucy off the bench and onto the trail and starts to touch lower and lower, feeling her hip bones and hidden skin, beneath silky fabric, to where she melts into smooth, wet girl. Her hands dig down and wrap around him, constricting in this insane, perfect way, and in a flash he worries that they’ve wasted all this time talking, but then he looks down at her and she’s grinning the happiest, goofiest smile, and it grows wider and wider even as he starts to dissolve out of her hands.

  He’s not ready to be gone, but he knows he gets to keep her anyway, and every second of today has been better than any second that came before. Colin vanishes with the vision of Lucy, rumpled and half undressed, her swirling eyes and ruby lips smiling out the word “bye.”

  Chapter 27 • HER

  LUCY DOESN’T NEED TO REMEMBER her entire life before to know she’s never spent so much time staring at a boy’s fingers.

  They jerk as if attached to a metal cogwheel, ratcheting open and closed.

  Colin flexes them again and again and then, catching her watching, curls them into a fist. “Luce.”

  She looks up at his scowl. “Mm?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Your hands are . . .” She makes jerky finger gestures, unwilling to say broken, or stiff, or, worst of all, wrong.

  “Come here. I’ll show you how fine they are.”

  Finally, a relieved giggle escapes from her throat in a sharp burst. It sounds edgy, like it might be too close to a sob to hold its shape. She can’t believe he’s here, and person-colored, and warm. And that, five hours after being in the frozen lake, the only thing that seems to be off is how slowly he bends his fingers.

  “It wasn’t that bad. Coming back, I mean,” he whispers into the darkness of his dorm room. He’s hidden beneath several layers of blankets, and the space seems exceptionally quiet now that Jay has worn out his postresurrection high and left for the night.

  What he says is true. Jay insists that bringing Colin back was easy. But agreeing with Colin right now feels wrong, as if the universe is merely waiting for her to say that stiff fingers and a few bruises are a small price to pay, before snatching everything away at once.

  It felt like they were together for days. Days of talking and touching and holding each other so closely there was no air left between them. In reality, it was only fifteen minutes. Jay said he started to freak when Colin was shivering so bad he almost jerked off the foil blanket. But time felt generous then, stretching every minute into what felt like twenty.

  “Lucy, stop staring at my hands and come over here.”

  She slips in beside him, and he pulls her close, her big, warm spoon. She feels stronger and more present than she can ever remember feeling, and Colin mumbles something happy and content.

  “What?”

  “You,” he says sleepily. “Just wondering if you feel different because you’re different or because I’m feeling you differently.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You feel more solid. Stronger.”

  “Stronger how?” She wants to know if it feels the same to him, as if she’s growing more permanent.

  Instead of answering, he says simply, “I want to go in again.”

  • • •

  If Lucy thought Jay and Colin were organized before, they’re almost militaristic this time around. New rescue equipment and supplies are spread out on the carpet in front of them. They choose the best time of day based on the almanac and weather predictions. They pack and repack supplies, outlining every possible scenario down to the smallest detail.

  It’s reassuring . . . in a completely warped way. She knows that if she protests too much, Colin will hear the lie in her words. She doesn’t want him to risk his life, but there’s a part of her that strengthens and blooms every time he talks about this. Is it greed? She’s not sure how to process what she’s feeling, this fascination with watching someone she loves be so wholeheartedly reckless.

  “Last time I held your core temp pretty steady at around ninety-two.” Jay snickers and adds, “ ’Course, it’d be more accurate if I could measure rectally.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you you’re never going there,” Colin says.

  Lucy stares as they cackle like twelve-year-olds before turning back to the notebook in her lap. She scribbles messy circles and squares, flowers and clouds, trying to remember her favorite words and how they come together under the pressure of her pencil.

  Crystalline. Lattice. Momentum. Sublimate. Enthalpy.

  The words burst into her thoughts, reminding her of a classroom, of traveling to the university to study in the humid summer months, of a scholarship that would have been hers. When she looks down at the paper, she’s surprised to find each letter written in perfect script, no shaky or disappearing lines. She stares at them, reveling in these small pieces returning. She’s never been able to hold a pencil for long, let alone put ideas to paper, so watching the words uncurl from the tip of her pencil is almost as fascinating as the guys’ strange obsession with this new lake activity.

  “Holy crap, Luce!” Colin shouts, and she immediately freezes, breaking the pencil lead against the pap
er.

  “What?”

  “You’re writing.” He’s grinning as if she’s a toddler and just took her first step.

  Jay gives her a slow clap and whistles. Standing, Colin leaves their giant sprawl of gadgets and books and blankets to come sit near her on the bed.

  He reaches over, rubs her shoulder, and announces, “I think you’re stronger lately. More solid.”

  She watches him. He’s repeating himself, and his speech seems the slightest bit off, as if he has to build his thoughts one piece at a time. Before she can tell him that this is the same thing he said last night, a window blasts open, bringing a sharp funnel of freezing air inside and interrupting Colin’s excitement. He forces the window closed, and when he returns, his hands are as cold as hers, but somehow the thrill it gives her—the hint of the cold to come—feels like fire.

  • • •

  She wonders if this is how a tiger feels when it catches the scent of prey on the breeze, or how a long-distance runner feels with his toes bordering the starting line. She feels like she might explode from her skin and vaporize into a million tiny glittering particles. Does this lightness, this exhilaration she feels as Colin strips down to his boxers, mean she might take flight?

  Last time Colin stripped and jumped straight in, like if he thought about it too long, he wouldn’t go through with it. This time, he stares at her, his grin building as slowly as his blinks are delivered. She steps back, and then again, turning to the trail before he’s even submerged.

  • • •

  It’s exactly what she expects it to be. They meet at the spot on the trail, and turn, laughing and running with the wind down the path to the shed, feet tripping over feet.

  Jay said he thinks he can give them an hour.

  An hour.

  Even with the bright white-blue of morning outside, it feels like night inside the shed. Beams of light play with the stars of dust in the air, and Colin’s skin looks lit from within, as if he’s the different one now.