Page 103 of The Plus One
Holding back a sob that threatened to crumble his body to dust, he ripped open the door and left the apartment.
Out on the street, he started to walk, Indira’s words looping around and around his skull.When you come back, we go forward together.
Maybe he shouldn’t go back. Maybe he should walk and walk and walk until his feet were bloody and his body broken. Leave Indira to be happy and loved and free of his complications. He wanted her future to be as bright and warm and wonderful as she was.
The problem was, the past three years had robbed Jude of the ability to imagine a better life for himself, a future that wasn’t as fractured as the people he lost. If those people couldn’t have a happy future, why should he?
Jude had an ocean of guilt that it felt like he’d drown in.
He cut into a small, dark park, resting one hand on the rough bark of a tree. He concentrated on the texture beneath his palm, pressing his skin harder into it as he tried to catch his breath.
But pressure built in his throat and behind his eyes and his heart thrummed. And then he was crying.
Sobbing in anger. Fear. Devastation. Pain. He slid to the ground, pressing his back into the trunk of the tree as he continued to cry in the cold darkness. He cried until his eyes were swollen and his throat raw. He cried until he couldn’t cry anymore.
As the stillness of the fall night gently stopped the out-of-control spinning of his mind, he sucked in a deep breath. Jude pulled outhis phone, Indira’s smiling face lighting up his screen. He unlocked it, going to his pictures. Indira liked to steal his phone and take hundreds of photos, catching Jude off guard while she fixed her features into a goofy look—her face smooshed against his while he was falling asleep, the flash catching his sleepy features. A surprise selfie when he sat on the couch, brow furrowed as he tried to find something for them to watch, Indira crossing one eye and sticking out her tongue.
So many moments of her smiling face, her giant hair, those gorgeous eyes.
With Jude right there with her.
He didn’t have to imagine a better future, because he was actively experiencing the best he could have ever wanted. He was with a woman he loved, adored, cherished beyond measure. And, by some cosmic magical blessing, she loved him too. Ferociously.
His future was here.
Now.
He’d forgotten that happiness wasn’t a banging, violent emotion like all the others that bombarded him every moment. Happiness was soft. Uneventful. It was holding Indira’s hand. Sitting next to her on the couch and listening to her talk. It was a quiet cup of coffee with her next to him reading a magazine. It was teasing her, being goofy and pretending to pass out after sniffing her feet, making her shriek in outrage and giggle. Happiness was them.
And he was not about to forsake any of that for a lie his brain kept telling him. Indira deserved better.Judedeserved better.
He pushed to his feet, pocketing his phone and taking off in a sprint back to her place. He couldn’t waste another second.
When he got to her door, he worked to catch his breath before rifling through his key ring and finding the spare Indira had given him. Inside, he stripped off his jacket, listening for any sounds of Indira still being up. All was quiet.
“Jude?”
He wondered if the sound of her voice would ever stop vibrating happiness through his chest like the plucking of a harp string.
Jude walked toward the sound, then stood in the doorway of her bedroom looking at Indira. His heart turned itself inside out just at the sight of her. She held his gaze for a weighted moment, a sadness still lining her eyes. Then her face morphed into a smile. It wasn’t a smile of radiant, unabashed happiness, but one of soft hope. An invitation for Jude to hope too.
In a flash, she ducked under the covers and huddled beneath them until she looked like a little burrito lump on the bed.
Even though she couldn’t see it, Jude smiled too. He knew this gesture like a siren’s call and he was useless to resist. He toed off his shoes and shucked off his pants, then walked over and burrowed himself under the covers with her.
This had become their safe space, their perfect nest to talk and cry and laugh and kiss. They’d spent late nights and lazy mornings tucked beneath those covers as they discussed fears and bridged intimacy. If heaven existed on earth, it was in a blanket fort with Indira Papadakis.
They squirmed closer under the white comforter, almost nose to nose as their world turned warm and soft and amber. In their little cocoon, anything felt possible.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, reaching out and dragging her finger down the bridge of his nose. Tracing his lips. “It’s you, Jude. You and me. We’ll get through this.”
“I’m scared I don’t deserve release from these feelings,” he whispered. “I don’t deserve absolution or a clear conscience.” Words started tumbling out of him, fast and raw and escaping from his throat like it was their last chance to be heard.
“When I drop my guard,” Jude said, “even for a moment, I feel so much that it’s like a knife slicing through my chest, splitting me in two. It hurts so badly it seems impossible sometimes. I don’t understand these feelings. This body. How can I hurt, how can I doawful things, but still feel so much love for you? How can I want forgiveness for the things I’ve done, when they can’t be reversed? It feels selfish.”
“It’s not selfish, Jude,” Indira said, pulling back to look at him, forcing his eyes to meet hers. “You want that because you deserve that. Trauma and happy endings aren’t mutually exclusive. They aren’t even separate entities that have to be experienced at different seasons of life. You can hurt. You can struggle and suffer and learn to heal while doing it. You can stare into the face of your pain and also choose to love. That’s how I love you and I know you love me too. I want you to feel, Jude. Feel everything and do it with abandon. Because no matter what you feel, what rises up from all of that, you will always have a safe space in my heart. I will always,alwaysbe here, loving you through it all.”
“What if I don’t deserve that?”
