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“I know,” he said, nodding. “Logically, I always knew. Especially the way that people were outside of my family. This is Portland, for chrissake. Everyone is super accepting here and open and, fuck, come as you are. Everyone in this town seems to be this way… everyone except my own damn parents. And… that was the problem. No matter how much I told myself my family was wrong, their voices stayed with me wherever I went. Haunting the living shit out of me.”
“God, Jamie, that’s so fucking awful,” I said. “Your mom and your dad?”
“Mom’s a lot kinder, but she never stopped Dad from saying such… hurtful things to me. And she, too, seemed to believe I felt too deeply for my own good.”
“It all makes sense now. Why you never opened up. Why you never, ever wanted to talk to me about anything.”
“I knew you wouldn’t have judged me. I knew people outside of my family were different. Especially you, Jems. It’s just… when you’re conditioned to be a certain way during your early life, old habits die hard.”
“I know that feeling.”
He smiled at me. “I know you do, love.”
“Love,” I said back to him, the fluttering working its way through my body. “I like the sound of that.”
“Me too.” He kissed my cheek. “Jemma? I wish I hadn’t been like that. I don’t want to leave you. But I have no say.”
“I know.”
“I know you do but… I blame myself. For everything. I could’ve had a good life with you. I blew it.”
“You didn’t blow anything.” I lifted up, so I could gaze directly into his eyes. They were clouded with so much regret, so much pain. “We live forever, right? You’re proof of that. I may have to wait for you. But you’re not permanently gone. I’ll come home one day.”
“I know, but…Jemma. I want to go back to be with you so badly.”
I pressed my lips against his. “It isn’t your fault. What happened between the two of us, I mean. You were only acting the way you were taught to act. You were a kid, Jamie. We were both… kids.”
“I wish we had met later on.”
“Me. Too,” I said, putting emphasis on each word. Silence overcame us. I didn’t know what else to say. Quite obviously, he didn’t either. So I added the only thing I could think to say. What seemed to be the right thing to say after hearing about his parents.
“You know I want to know everything about you, right?” I asked. “Before you go. I want you to open up to me about it all. The things you never would’ve shared with anyone else.”
“This boring ghost?” He smirked.
“This very spirited ghost.” I kissed him again.
“I promise, Jems. I’ll tell you everything I can tell you. But for now? Can we do something?”
“What?”
“Just… be here with me. Let me feel you.”
He squeezed me a little more tightly, and I leaned into his chest. Our fingers clasped together, his thumb tracing the back of my hand. And, as we lay there together, Jamie began to whistle.
It didn’t take me long to figure out the tune.
“‘Ocean Breathes Salty,’” I said. The Muse song he’d sang the night we ventured to the roof after Inkwell at Stony Point. Right before we actually started to date.
“The song that always reminds me of you,” he said. “Especially now… when we are two souls so far apart from each other. So, if there’s one thing I can ask of you… know that if you ever hear our song, once I’m gone, that it’s my way of reminding you I’m still around, watching over you.”
He whistled once again.
We fell away like that, relaxing into the night, as he whistled our song.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Team Jemma
