Page 19 of Someday Not Soon

“You’re going to put me in an early grave,” Cole remarks, sounding tough and grumbly, but with so much affection in his eyes.

Jude leaves to go wash up after the seagull incident, as Delaney, Cole, and I chat. The sun beams brightly as the tide steadily rises throughout the day. The waves crash with increasing force, inching closer and closer to where we sit.

It’s a lot like my feelings for Jude—growing stronger, drawing nearer, becoming more dangerous, and entirely beyond my control.

Chapter Ten

Jude

Past

There’s onlyone month left of summer until I leave for medical school. If it wasn’t for the full-ride scholarship to one of the top universities, I’d consider searching for a different option. A closer option. Preferably not one located on the complete opposite side of the country.

It’s a little too late however, and I’m stuck with it. Which makes me sound like an ungrateful bastard. But I’ve never felt this before. I’ve never been so close to someone that they feel like an extension of me. Someone I can tell everything to, with no judgment. Ella takes me in stride better than anyone I’ve ever met. And while the usage of the word soulmate makes me cringe, it’s the only way to best describe what I feel with her.

The thought of her with another man makes me want to do violent things. And the thought of being withanyone else but her feels intolerable. For the past two months we’ve walked this delicate line—between friends and two people in love. If I touch her, I’m going to want more. I won’t be able to stop. Just like that night in the bar, when those carefully constructed lines began to blur and I got carried away. Then I saw the regret written all over her face as reality came crashing back down.

At the beginning of the summer, she had joked that every long-distance relationship she’s known of has failed miserably. She’s not wrong either. Between school, clinical hours, and simply trying to survive, a girlfriend would be another plate I’d have the chance of dropping amongst my juggling act of life. She doesn’t deserve a half-hearted effort, and that’s all I’d be able to give her. She’s like nothing else in this world, and she deserves to be a priority—the main one.

But what if Icoulddo both? Med school and a relationship. It’s better than the alternative of not being with her at all. The possibility weaves its way into my chest, wrapping around my heart and squeezing it with the hope of making it all work.

Every day, every hour, and every minute I wonder if I’ll be able to contain what I feel for her much longer.

From the first moment I saw her, I was a goner. Now, after getting to know her on the level that I do, it feels as if I’m consumed, drowning in the risk and hope of opening that door with her.

As I sit here, parked at a lookout point facing the ocean, the crashing waves and endless horizon stretching before us, the reality of it all hits me. She sits cross-leggedin the passenger seat of my car, bathed in the golden sunlight filtering through. The wind whips around us, rattling the vehicle, while she smiles ear-to-ear, animatedly telling a story.

After awhile, she turns to face me, biting her lip “You need to cut me off when I start blabbing like that.”

“Why? I love listening to you talk and hearing all the things going on in your brain.”

“It is a wild place up there sometimes.”

I nod toward her. “Tell me another one of those wild thoughts.”

She stares out the windshield, picturing whatever she’s thinking about. “Sometimes I just wish I could leap off a cliff like this, and start soaring around like a bird.”

“Where would you go first?”

She taps her chin thoughtfully. “Well, I’d definitely fly straight out of Lawson and into, I don’t know…some secluded beach with cocktails and zero responsibility.”

“I’m sold. That does sound nice. Can I come too?”

She grins. “You can come, as long as you promise to pull your own weight.”

“Deal. I’ll carry the luggage.”

She covers her face with her hands, laughing. I can’t help but laugh, too, and every time she catches my eye she bursts into another fit of laughter.

She wipes the tears from her eyes and breathes, “I’m sorry, I just keep picturing this tiny Jude bird with a backwards hat like yours, and a suitcase in its beak, and it’s hysterical.”

“In what world would I be atinybird? I’d be a motherfucking eagle, thank you very much.”

“Wow, okay. You’re absolutely right. An eagle it is.”

Eventually her laughter fades, but the amusement stays, lighting up her eyes. It takes everything in me not to reach across the console, pull her into my lap, and erase the distance between us.

Instead, I reach for the Polaroid camera sitting on my dash and point it in her direction in an effort to remember this moment, and this feeling, forever. She tilts her head to the side, ready and posing in my hoodie, the sleeves bunching near her fists. Her smile is so uninhibitedly free and happy to her very core. I snap the picture, in complete awe of how breathtaking she is. I give the picture a shake, watching as the details slowly emerge on the tiny rectangle.

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