Page 4 of Jude

Maybe that was why I wrote songs about beating despair and finding redemption, one brutal step at a time.

I needed to believe life would work itself out, even if my own peace remained out of reach.

I craved a woman to claim, kids to protect, and a home worth coming back to.

However, relationships made me cautious.

I had loved and lost, with the scars to prove it.

Yet, all I ever wanted was what my mum and stepdad shared; a deep, unceasing, incandescent, and intimate devotion.

The kind of passion and feeling in my most heartfelt songs and the chords I tracked.

One day, soon.

With an exhale, I slid on headphones and played our latest unreleased EP tracks, hoping to drown out the restless noise in my head and the ache in my heart.

Chapter 2

SOFIA

‘Not much more longer to go.’

I glanced over to my companion on the bench seat beside me.

‘Bene, because I’m over this ride.’

Luisa shot me a smile that didn’t quite reach her olive green eyes.

‘You need to be more grateful, chica. This is a chance of a lifetime.’

The way she said it, with almost a sneer, raised my hackles.

With every mile, she seemed to get more pushy, cold, and demanding.

However, I was too tired to interrogate her shift in mood toward me.

The bus from Montreal down into Vermont was its own special brand of purgatory.

I sat jammed close to the cold glass, pressed into yellow, sticky vinyl, my lungs full of the stink of burning diesel.

Along with the nauseating reek of wet wool, and decades of sweat trapped deep in the foam cushions.

Every frost heave and pothole we slammed into sent a violent jolt straight up my spine, a dull, throbbing ache settling into the marrow of my bones.

We avoided the heavily monitored ports of entry.

Instead, Luisa routed us through the quiet, bleak checkpoint at the Lacolle Route 15 border crossing.

Perfect for blending into the dreary local commuter traffic without drawing the razor-sharp scrutiny of the larger transit hubs.

Our passports and tourist visas were clean, but every mile we traveled felt engineered to keep us moving like ghosts unseen by authorities.

If the gig was on the up and up, why was Luisa being so elusive?

We cleared the border.

As the bus rumbled south along the interstate toward Burlington, the view shifted.