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I wish I could tell him I know he was telling the truth and that I forgive him for everything. I toss and turn to the images of him dancing through my mind and even as I wake up the next morning, I swear I see him walking out my bedroom door. Maybe these visions are proof that he didn’t survive. And now I will spend the rest of my life with what remains of him lurking in the corner.
Epilogue
A few weeks have gone by since my run-in with Bridgett, and while I go through the motions of my new life, nothing has felt quite the same since. Not knowing what to make of the haunted feeling, all I can do is carry on. Bridgett and I have already hung out a couple of times since then, and I’m glad to have her back in my life.
She may be Jameson’s only redeeming quality. For all the people I met there, no one ever ended up really being who they claimed to be. I can’t help but think it’s only because she was only there for such a short amount of time. If she had grown up there, or even just been stuck at WJ Prep for a couple of years instead of a couple of months, she might have been turned into a monster like the rest of them.
For the hundredth time that morning, Emmett’s face flashes through my mind. What is a monster anyway? Just some unknown thing lurking in your closet. But if we turn on the lights and face it, does it lose its power? That doesn’t seem quite right, or if it is, it proves Emmett wasn’t a monster after all. Because nothing ever lessened the power he had over me. Even it faded briefly, it’d soon come crashing back with a fury.
I shake it off as I run, knowing that sooner or later I have to start letting all of my questions go and move on with the rest of my life. I have to move on without him, no matter how much it hurts. I’m thinking all of this over as I sprint down the sunny sidewalks near my apartment just like I do every Sunday morning. But no matter how many times I remind myself I need to move on, it hasn’t happened yet.
Suddenly, I freeze, not even really knowing why at first. The hair on my arms stands up and I feel a nostalgic fluttering in my gut. I haven’t felt it in so long, but only one thing has ever made me feel quite like that. But I know that is not the thing causing it this time. Only he could do that. It can’t be.
Something makes me stop and turn to look at the figure I just brushed past. When I do, my stomach drops. A familiar pair of hungry eyes met mine.
It can’t be, I think again. I drink in the sight of him, wondering if it’s real. I know the strain of those muscles and every last mark across that skin as well as I know my own body. The gray eyes burning into me, pulling me in with the magnetic force I know all too well. Then he smiles and I think I would cry if I wasn’t so overwhelmed with a million other feelings, all canceling each other out yet intensifying at the same time.
“Looking good, Lopez,” Emmett says with a wink. His voice shatters through me like a crack in the earth.
I step over to him, still gasping for breath. Beyond my control, my hand reaches for his face. My fingers graze across the curl of his lips and his slightly crooked, charming nose. His thick lashes blink, sucking me into the storm of his gaze. I want to stay there forever.
But something pulls me back, remembering that even though I may be overcome with relief to know he’s alive, I have no idea what he’s doing here. For all I know this could just be his ghost haunting me again. Becoming more vivid to demand my attention, true to his living self. Am I losing my mind? Have I been running from the haunting memory of him for so long now that it’s causing me to hallucinate something more real?
“You stalking me?” I blurt out, trying to sound normal, but I don’t recognize my own voice. I don’t know where else to start but from what I remember of our beginning. And my pitch slips right back to what spilled from my lips all that time ago.
He seems just as speechless as I am and we’re frozen there in silence for the longest time. I swear everything around us moves in slow motion. I gasp as he reaches for my hand suddenly. The touch of his fingers lets me know that he’s real. He draws the back of it up to his lips, kissing it with a smile. The moment my hand drops from his mouth, I’m filled with that old familiar feeling of disappointment that comes from never having enough of him.
“What are you doing here?” I ask breathlessly.
“I work just over there,” he points to a building a few blocks away.
“Work?” I repeat back in disbelief, feeling like a zombie. “You have a job here?”
He nods. “I’m in school too,” he adds casually. “I’m mostly just saving money, but for now I’m taking a few night classes. I was thinking I’d get those degrees you said I needed. For design and plant management.”
“Oh,” I exhale. “I…I don’t know what to say.”
We both laugh nervously and then he finally wraps his big, muscular arms around me. “It’s good to see you,” he chuckles.
“So…you’re here?” I blink as he lowers me back to the ground. I need to feel the solid earth beneath me. For a brief second, it felt like I might keep going up until I drifted off into space. “Like…here here? You live here?” I hate myself for how stupid I sound right now. Just because he loved me once doesn’t mean I won’t scare him away by suddenly being a babbling, wordless idiot.
“Yeah,” he smiles, melting me like always. “With Theo gone, I figured I could follow through with the original plans I made for him. Maybe start my own company one day or start selling my designs.”
I can’t believe that he’s standing here in front of me on the other side of the country, talking about ordinary things. But none of its really so ordinary considering what we had to go through to get here.
“You did it,” I grin, marveling at the sight of him in front of the California sky. “You made it out.”
“So did you,” he nudges my arm.
My mind races with a million things I want to say, but I start to get angry as I realize why it’s so hard for me to find the right words. The smile runs away from his face as my brow furrows.
“How long have you been here?” I ask, afraid to know the answer. “Why didn’t you try to find me sooner? Were you just counting on randomly running into me on the street in a city filled with hundreds of thousands of people!” I get angrier with every word and suddenly have to stop myself from slapping him across the face.
“To be fair, I’m used to Jameson,” he defends with a smirk. “I don’t think I was quite prepared for what hundreds and thousands of people really looked like.”
I cross my arms and stare up at him, not feeling the least bit amused. “I didn’t even know if you were alive,” I growl.
“I didn’t know if you wanted to know I was alive,” he quips back, his eyes matching my intensity. He never shies away from my bark and it never stops leaving me completely dismantled.
