by J. R. Gray
“It worries me to think I’ll never love someone as much as I love you, and I can’t have you.” Her words didn’t break my heart. They shattered it into so many pieces I doubted it could be repaired.
“Don’t say that,” I whispered. “Saying it makes it too real. We have to find a way.”
She buried her face in my chest, and I dropped mine to press my nose into her hair.
“How can you believe that?” she asked at length.
“It’s the only thing I have to hold on to.” I nodded leaning into her touch like I craved it. I did crave it. “I love you. Across a million miles, and thousands of worlds, I will never feel like this again.”
“And I love you, like I have never loved anyone before. I can’t lose you.” Hearing her say those words filled me with hope. It was nourishment for my soul. It gave me hope, and hope was all we had.
She took a shaky breath, and I tightened my arms around her. We held each other in silence for a long time as the weight of what we’d just said crushed my soul. I had to find a way. It had been an impossible situation before I knew she returned my feelings, and now that I knew, I would sell my sanity and my life to get back to her.
“What did you have to go through to get here tonight?” she whispered into my chest.
I knew she was desperate to change the subject, and I thought I knew why. I chewed the inside of my cheek, and my eyes went vacant. In truth I had clawed my way through the darkest parts of my mind to get here, worse than the first time, but I wouldn’t tell her. I feared she wouldn’t come back if she knew how much it hurt to get to her. How much I really had to face myself and open up to give her a piece of me.
“Are you going to tell me what you’ve been hiding all morning?”
She growled. “Don’t answer a question with a question.”
I knew she was tense, but it was hard not to return the attitude. “I didn’t think so.”
“Tell me, you wouldn’t last time.”
I lay back, taking her down to the rug with me. “It was bees tonight. Bees and then, God, you’ll love this! I stepped into the matrix, and right onto a crack in the sidewalk, snapping my ankle. There was no treatment, no painkillers. I had to crawl through these fields of bee infested flowers…”
Her eyes fell closed, and she curled into me as I spoke. I told her almost everything, except the very end. Being buried alive and having to try to claw out of a too-small wood box was not something I wanted to share with anyone. Most would have turned and fled at the idea of a battle with their minds to get to her.
When I trailed off she looked up. “Don’t stop, I like listening to your voice.”
I rolled my eyes. “You accent whore. You can play the recordings of my voice any time you want.”
“Doesn’t mean I get sick of it.” She purred, not denying it.
I turned to face her. “You’re scaring me.”
“I’m trying to enjoy this. Don’t make me talk.”
I clenched my hands into fists and growled.
“Sometimes I feel like you’re a figment of my imagination.” She dropped her face refusing to look me in the eyes. “A cruel trick played by the universe.”
My face fell. I couldn’t help it. I tried to be strong for both of us, but sometimes it was near impossible. Her doubt was another burden I bore whether she saw it or not. “Feel me. I am real.” I moved her hands to my face and kissed one palm.
“But this isn’t real. You are thousands of light years away.” She dropped her forehead to my chin and exhaled a shuddering breath. She was good at masking her feelings, but it hadn’t taken me long to work out her cues.
“I am real. What more can I do to prove it to you?” I stroked my finger through her hair, doing anything I could to let her know I was real.
“Nothing. I don’t know how to stop feeling this way.”
Her words cut my chest open like a knife, but she was right. All of this was based on faith in another person, which was close to impossible.
“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” I brushed my fingers down her spine.
She gripped on to my shirt. Why did something so amazing have to cause so much pain? The universe wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. How cruel to meet your other half and it be impossible to be with them. She wasn’t even half of me, she was all of me. I was an empty vessel without her.
“If two people are meant to be together they will find a way. They’ll find a way to cross the universe and be with each other.”
“How can you really believe that?” she whispered pressing her eyes closed.
“It’s the only thing I have to hold onto,” I said using my thumb to brush a tear from her lashes. I turned back to her. “Listen to me. I love you, and I’m going to try and make this work as long as it’s possible, but you need to have a little faith in me. I can’t give you a happily ever after. But I’m going to give you everything I have.”
She took in a shaky breath. “Okay. I’m bad at opening myself up, but I’m trying.” She dropped her face to my neck. “I told you how I feel.”
I pushed my fingers into the hair at the back of her head. “You scare me when you’re like this. Please tell me what’s going on.”
She fisted her hands in my shirt.
“Please…”
“They’ve moved up my coronation because of what’s happened. I’m of age next week, which means he can announce me as the heir to his Barony and band me, so he can marry me off to get rid of me.” Her voice was barely audible, but the words echoed in my mind like she’d screamed them.
“To him?” I kept the emotion out of my voice. She wouldn’t have an ounce of power until her father died, and if she was married off she would have to play by her husband’s rules.
“I don’t know, but they’ve moved it up to next week. We leave for the winter palace soon…” Her voice was cold, void of emotion. There was more she wasn’t telling me.
I knew what she wasn’t saying. It hung between us. “Say it.”
“He’s escorting me as the Emperor’s representative.”
I fought the moisture that pulled in my eyes. “So, a coronation and engagement celebration all rolled into one, and you’ll only be light years from me to boot.”
She picked up her head, and I could see the pain in her eyes. “How do you know where the winter palace is?”
“You don’t think everyone on Harden knows where our overlords watch us from?” I laughed without humor.
She pressed her face back into my neck. We sat holding each other as snow started to fall outside my window. The fire burned low, and the chill through the walls started to encroach on us. I knew I would have to get up to build it back soon, but I felt like if I let her go she would vanish. Her words echoed in my mind, “Every day you put it off is another day wasted.” I regretted every wasted minute. They rested like a weight on my shoulders. I’d squandered half of what we had with fear. I would never get that time with her back. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. It was a lesson I would take to my grave.
The words my father had said before his death came to mind and finally made sense, “At the end, when you’re laying where I am, you’ll only regret the chances you didn’t take and the wasted opportunities. Don’t forget that.” I’d taken some chances, but most I’d wasted out of fear. The most important one I’d fucking blown. There was going to be nothing left when she was gone. Nothing. Darkness seeped into my mind, filling every crevasse. I couldn’t let it win while she was still here.
I took a slow breath. “It’s going to get harder to see each other, isn’t it?”
She nodded into my neck. “We should talk about this.”
“What?” I asked feeling like I was losing her, no matter what she said.
“You’re here now, but our schedules are opposite. Would it be easier just to end it now before…” She trailed off.
I cupped both sides of her face, forcing her to look at me. “You think it’s going to be any less painful now?”
I scoffed, rubbing my thumbs over her cheekbones. “I don’t know about you, but there is no going back for me.”
I knew she felt the same. Damn it, I could feel it.
“I know.” She pressed her eyes closed. “I’m trying to make it easier for you.”
“Make what easier?” I tightened my grip on her face when she tried to pull away. “You think pretending you don’t have feelings will make things easier?”
“I just want to turn them all off.” Her words were laced with sorrow.
She looked down, not answering. I felt it coming. My gut told me she was going to end things. It was too hard for her. I knew me and my fucked up head were too much work for her. Her life would be so much easier without me.
“If you’re done, Jocelynn, just say it.” I let the edge show in my voice.
Her eyes flashed back up to mine. “I want this. I wouldn’t have just told you I love you if I was done. I was trying to give you an out if you need it. Why do you doubt me?”
I sighed, letting my hands fall from her face. “I doubt me.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she whispered laying her forehead against mine.
“I don’t deserve you, and I’m waiting for you to realize.” I mirrored her tone rubbing my nose over hers. “I’m … I’m nothing. You’re strong and have so much coming to you.” I shook my head when she tried to turn my face to hers. “I know you see it, Jocelynn, so if you’re done tell me. Don’t draw it out.”
She growled, grabbing me by both ears to turn my face into hers. “You’re a real fucking idiot, you know that?”
“What? I pour my heart out, and you can’t even wait to tell me I’m an idiot until I’m finished?”
“I don’t want this to be over, but I’m trying to spare your feelings. You think I want to be with him?” Her blue eyes blazed.
“I think every female in the universe wants him. I don’t compare.” My mouth was dry.
“But I am here with you, avoiding him. I’d choose you every time. I’d give up everything I am to be there with you. It’s not even a choice.”
“You’re right. It’s so hard to see straight with my emotions.” I rested my forehead against hers. “We’ve gotten pretty good at good-byes. No more. We’ll hold on as long as we can.”
“Okay.”
I tightened my grip on her. “I want to enjoy this. As long as we have here today, and every time from here out … if you can make it back. Promise me no sadness.”
“I promise.” She wiped her face on my neck.
“We’ll always have this.” I don’t know how I got the words out. But if this was going to be the last time I refused to have it sad.
“I can’t stay all day.” She pressed her face into my chest.
“Why not?” I pulled back a little so she would look me in the eyes.
She sat back as well rubbing her hands together. “Phillip is escorting me for the departure. I didn’t tell you the full truth earlier. I leave tonight for Gavin 9.” She chewed on her lip, and I lifted a thumb to tug it free from her teeth. “I couldn’t say no to him in front of the Baron. His stateroom will be next to mine.”
“I understand.”
I detangled myself from her to stoke the fire. The snow outside was unrelenting, and it was just the way I wanted it. Glancing over my shoulder I watched her grab a throw blanket off the back of the sofa and wrap it around her shoulders. She came up behind me and slid an arm around my lower back. I leaned into her.
“He’ll take care of you, you know.” I knew it would be true. I’d seen it in Phillip’s eyes that night. He loved her.
She turned her face into me and pressed her fingers into my hip. “Don’t say that. I could never feel about him like I do you.”
“But, Jocelynn.” I exhaled a sigh. “Maybe you should try?”
Anger more than pain flashed across her face. “How could you say that to me?”
I turned into her once I got the fire roaring again. “I want you to be happy.”
“It’s like you want me to forget about you and live happily ever after with the prince. Like this is some goddamned fairytale.”
“Maybe it is, and I’m the bad guy trying to steal the fair maiden away?” I chuckled, rather liking myself painted in that light.
“I’ll tell you a secret.”
“Yes?” I quirked a brow, glancing down at her.
“I’d rather end up with the bad guy.” She grinned up at me.
I poked her in the sides. “I don’t deserve you, but I’ll spend the rest of my life trying.”
She looked up at me shaking her head. “So, tell me why you wanted to bring me here.”
I bent slightly to scoop her up under the knees. I sat down in front of the fire with her on my lap. “This is my rendition of Severus’s great forest. The loggers cut these great big trees, and the finest furniture is made from them.”
She laughed, and I narrowed my eyes.
“You knew that?” I groaned.
“We have quite a few pieces, but what were you doing there?”
“Some of my earliest memories are of running through the forests here. We’d stay a few days every round trip as my mother was born here. She met my father when he did his first run.” I stroked my fingers up her arm, smiling to myself at the memories. I still had family on Severus Six.
“I knew you weren’t just from Harden,” she said in an “ah-ha” tone.
“I never claimed to be, but that is where I’ve lived the last ten years or so.”
“You were raised on a freighter?” She laid her head on my shoulder.
“First ten years of my life.” When I closed my eyes I was on a ship. It was home. The hum of the Time2 bending engines.
“You’ve been all across the universe?” She slid off my lap, and I grabbed onto her, not wanting the space between us, but when she sprawled out on the rug, I groaned and lay down beside her.
“I have.” My eyes half closed. It was the middle of the night for me, and I should have slept while I waited for her, but I’d been too keyed up. Now the drowsiness ate at me.
“You might be better traveled than I am.” Her fingertips traced lightly over the curve of my neck and around into my hair line.
“I doubt it, and my travels were not nearly as extravagant as yours have been, I’m sure.”
Suddenly I knew the real meaning to intimacy. This was it. I’d never felt closer to someone. I was half asleep, and she had taken over my mind. The small touches, the soft rhythm of her voice, and the millions of unspoken actions that passed simply between us. If I searched the rest of my life I would never find this again.
“But what you’ve seen is real.” Her voice grew softer, and I think she knew I was fading.
“It is different, I’m sure.” I drew her in, pressing my face to her neck and inhaled.
“Sleep,” she said, wrapping an arm around my head, holding me to her.
Her voice roused me.
“I’ll never stop loving you. Remember that.” She started to waver, and I gripped her tighter.
“No, not yet,” I pleaded. But we both knew there was nothing we could do when we started to reject the simulation.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Jocelynn
I arched and pressed myself flush against him tightening my fingers in his hair. But he blinked. I clutched at where his form was grasping at thin air before he was back, his weight settling over mine as he gripped me as hard as I did him. I squeezed my arms around his shoulders grabbing handfuls of his hoodie until I lost the feeling in my fingers. He shoved his arms under my back and did the same. We lay like that for a few more minutes before he was gone.
I blinked a few times and found myself yanked from paradise and back flat on my back looking up at the painted ceiling of the grand palace. I pressed my eyes closed and balled my hands into fists. It wasn’t long enough. It was never fucking long enough, but this was so short. I had counted on hours, not less than one. I forced myself to breathe
. How could I go on like this?
Life was too cruel to let something so perfect exist. You could envision this perfect reality and it would be snatched away. Life was pain and suffering. The Baron had told me time and time again to grow up. They said my weakness was how naive I was, and they were right. I was filled with guilt. How could I keep him attached to me when I knew what my fate would be? I had to do my duty and take my place as leader so I needed him here with me. He’d be killed eventually if he was in the way. I couldn’t be responsible for his death. There had to be a way to make him invaluable.
“I had to.” My gaze flashed to my brother holding the neurotransmitter. I could have screamed.
“Why?” I looked at the clock and knew. The rest of my life wouldn’t be enough. He was like no drug I’d ever experienced. A drug that took over my heart, mind, and body. Nothing mattered more than finding a way he could be here with me.
“You look like shit, and you need time to get ready. This is not the time to be out of line. There is so much going on, Jocelynn.” He’d taken me from Madden. The last minutes I’d ever get to spend with Madden, and Jacob had snatched them from me. He held out the tiny chip, and I snatched it from him.
I squeezed my eyes shut, biting back the red hot anger threatening to take over. “Then tell me.”
“I can’t, but J, trust me.”
“Get out,” I snapped.
He left without another word.
I forced myself to get off the floor, putting one foot in front of the other until I stood in front of my dressing table. Mascara streamed down my cheeks, and my painted face was ruined. All that work and I would have to fix it myself as the servants were long gone, preparing other tasks for the departure. Jacob was right. I had stayed with Madden much too long, but only because it was drawing attention to myself. I needed help, but I wasn’t sure Jacob was the person to go to.
J: I miss you already.
M: And I you.
J: Comm range will be in and out on the trip, but as soon as I land I want to see you again.
M: I’ll be counting the minutes.
In a matter of hours, I was watching my trunks being hauled into the shuttle which we would take to the large luxury cruiser docked above the atmosphere. Jacob and Phillip stood to one side speaking in hushed tones, but I was too depressed to care what they were whispering about. The ship was taking me away from freedom.