Page 168 of Requiem
Just like old times.
One night after tracing the scars along his ribs absentmindedly beneath dim bedroom lighting, I ask him quietly why he stopped smoking weed or drinking alcohol altogether.
Jude lies beside me, staring up at the ceiling for a long moment before answering. “Because I spent most of my life trying not to remember it,” he says softly. “And now I want to.”
The honesty in his voice makes my heart flutter.
He turns his head afterward, hazel eyes meeting mine in the dark. “I wasted years being high enough not to feel anything.” His fingers brush slowly through my dark hair where it spills across his chest. “I don’t want to miss my life anymore, Em.”
I understand exactly what he means, because we almost lost this. We almost lost each other.
I smile faintly sometimes when I catch my reflection now. At the slightly harder version of myself staring back from mirrors and windows. I really am different than the girl who first came crashing into Jude Graves’ life years ago.
But so is he.
And somehow we still found each other again anyway.
***
Tonight, the ocean air is cool against my skin as Jude and I sit together at the end of his parents’ dock beneath a sky overflowing with stars. They’ve gone out for their weekly date night. His guitar rests across his lap while he plays quietly beside me, fingers moving through soft chords that drift out across the dark water around us.
I lean back on my hands, breathing in salt air while watching him beneath the pale glow of moonlight.
“You know,” I murmur softly, “the first night we sat out here together, I thought you were going to ruin my life.”
Jude huffs a laugh without looking up from the guitar. “Fair assessment, honestly.”
“You were so cute.”
“Am I not now?”
“Of course you are,” I say with a grin. “Even more so.”
He looks over at me then, laughing. And for just a moment, he looks just like him. The seventeen year old boy I met that night.
God…he’s beautiful.
“You nervous about the interview tomorrow?” I ask quietly.
The guitar slows slightly beneath his fingers. Tomorrow will be the first time he steps back into the spotlight publicly since the trial ended. The first time the world hears him speak again. The firstofficialannouncement of the concert. Of Dissonance returning, and everything he’s building now.
But Jude just shakes his head gently. “No,” he says honestly. “I’m good.”
Moonlight catches softly across his features as he says it, and my chest tightens with love. He sets the guitar carefully aside afterward before reaching for me, fingers sliding around my waist as he pulls me gently into his lap.
“The sky looks beautiful tonight,” he murmurs. “I used to get so sad looking at it because it reminded me of you. And all of the summer nights we spent together admiring it.”
“I loved looking at it for the same reason,” I whisper back.
Something vulnerable flickers briefly across his face before his gaze drops away from mine, like he’s trying to collect himself. Then he looks back at me, and suddenly he seems nervous. His thumb strokes slowly against my waist. “I keep thinking about how different we are now.”
The ocean crashes quietly below us while I watch him swallow hard, his hazel eyes reflecting fractured moonlight.
“I know I’m not the same person I used to be,” he admits quietly. “Sometimes I feel it in everything. The way I think, react to things, and even in the way I love you.” A weak laugh leaves him. “I think I love you even worse now somehow.”
I smile through the sudden sting gathering behind my eyes. “Worse?”
“More intensely,” he corrects softly. “Like if something happened to you again, I’d lose my fucking mind.”
