Page 158 of Sweet Nightmare

Need.

Friendship.

Pain.

Absolution.

Reassurance.

Fear.

Love.

It’s all there.

In the slide of his hands over my skin.

In the gentle caress of his fingers against my cheek, my shoulder, the nape of my neck.

In the give and take of his mouth against my own.

Every moment before this and every moment that will come after this somehow meld together, and I can see them all.

Sweet and sexy.

Fun and terrifying.

Easy and more difficult than anything I’ve ever imagined.

They’re all right there, a million points of light spread out before me, so close I can almost touch them. And Jude is in every single one.

For the first time in my life, I understand why the Ancient Greeks saw life as a thread to be spun and, eventually, cut. Because that’s what I see in this moment when Jude and I are broken open and laid bare. Thousands of multicolored threads connecting us to the world, to our friends, to each other. Thousands of multicolored threads woven together to—

“Oh my God!” I pull back as it suddenly comes to me.

“Clementine?” Jude looks freaked out as he lets me go. “What’s wrong? Did I hurt—”

“Nothing! Nothing’s wrong! I know what to do!”

I don’t waste time explaining it to him. Instead, I grab his hand and pull him down the stairs to where our friends are.

They’re lying around or still dozing. But around them I can see the men and women of the past, dressed in suits and beautiful dresses, as well as other people in clothes the likes of which I’ve never seen before. They’re obviously people from the future. Only now, they’re not separated by space or time. They’re together, mingling and talking, dancing and laughing and whirling around the room. The past and the future combined into one beautiful tapestry of life.

One couple—a man from the future and a woman from the past—get a little overenthusiastic and crash into a table that isn’t there in the present. Ember, who is lying in that spot, screams and leaps up from where she was napping.

“Did you hear that?” she asks.

“Hear what?” Mozart starts looking around.

“That! People are laughing! Can’t you—” And that’s when I realize she can feel them. Not just as a nebulous brush against her arm or a shiver down her spine. At this moment, she can actually hear and feel the people from the past and the future who are gathered around her.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Remy tells her soothingly, and I realize he can see them, too. That he’s always been able to see them.

“The monsters—” she starts.

“Not the monsters,” Remy says, sharing a conspiratorial smile with me. “The future.”

“And the past,” I add.

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