AllFreeNovel
Share Us
*
(Sea in Welsh: Môr)
“AND THAT WAS HOW THE SNEAKING AROUND started. For all Aslan’s rules that he wouldn’t touch me unless my parents were away; for all our promises that we wouldn’t be stupid, we were stupid.”
I smiled, my heart so full and light in my chest.
God, I’d give anything to go back to that brief moment in time when we tripped and crashed into each other. It was as if the past five years of emotionally falling meant our bodies had a lot of catching up to do.
I caught Margot’s wide-eyed stare.
I smiled with all the smug satisfaction I’d floated on back then. “We literally couldn’t keep our hands off each other. He was all I could think about, dream about. When he touched me, I knew bliss for the first time. I’d never experienced the exquisite joy of feeling another’s soul before.”
“What do you mean?” she asked softly.
“I mean...that raw spark between us. That stinging hum whenever we hovered our hands close but didn’t touch was more than just our bodies connecting, it was us. The part of us that exists within our bodies and our minds. The part that’s immortal and destined to find its missing half, no matter what shell it wears in this life.”
“Forgive me for saying this, Nerida, but you’re nothing like what I expected.” Dylan cleared his throat, looking slightly uncomfortable.
“How so?” I asked.
“Well...you come from a science background. You are trained in facts and tangible data. You created Lunamare out of sheer determination and mastered technology that exists thanks to brilliant leaps in building innovation—thanks to what you envisioned. Yet you seem...”
When he didn’t go on, I sat forward a little, interested to see where he was going with this. “I seem?”
“Well...opposite of that, if I had to choose a word. You seem...spiritual instead of scientific.”
“Aren’t all achievements in this world created by spirit? Van Gogh often said he dreamed his paintings and painted his dreams. That is what I did, Dylan. Nothing in this world has been created without first being a thought, a spark, a hope.”
“Forgive me if I overstepped.” Dylan spread his hands. “I’m merely trying to understand how you created something that no one else has, yet can speak of Aslan as if he was your—”
“Soulmate?”
“Well...yes. As a woman of science, surely you don’t believe such phenomena exist.”
I leaned back and linked my hands. “I was wondering when this question would arise. So allow me to put it frankly. I believe the world we see is not the only world that exists. To believe so is to believe in our own egoic importance. I believe there are many worlds and many paths, and we only have to listen to know that. I’m proud to sit here and tell you that yes, I do. I do believe in soulmates and intuition. I’ve always felt there was something bigger than me. I don’t believe you can free-dive under the sea with creatures that look so alien to our land-dwelling eyes and not realise there are so many different realms in one. We are merely animals, Dylan. As a race, that was where we went wrong. The day we removed ourselves from the animal kingdom was the day we believed we were better.
“And we’re not. For example, to a dolphin, I am deformed. To a crab, my pink skin is unprotected. To me, the mere concept that I could exist in this world and not find my other half is unthinkable...and because I believed that...I made it true.”
My voice softened. “The day I fished Aslan from the sea and knew he was irreversibly mine, it wasn’t childish whimsy. It was the strongest knowing I’d ever had. I used to be very intuitive as a little girl. I would follow nudges that felt so real, only for life to dull those nudges. It took effort to learn how to listen again, but I can honestly tell you, with as much scientific proof and assurances as I can, that Aslan just felt different.
“His kisses made me vibrate inside, and I often felt as if I could fly out of my body and explode into light. His whispers of how much he loved me, how much he’d longed for me, had the power to make me sink into a velvety kind of darkness where everything became achingly intense. And when he touched me...truly touched me as a lover would...nothing was between us. Not flesh, not blood, not bone. We were linked on a level that frankly terrified me.
“After all, I was seventeen. I’d slept with one other boy who had no gift at making me feel such things. I cared for Joel, but I never truly understood how sex between two people could erase who I was and make me become something so much more. And...for all my passionate promises that I knew what I was getting into by falling into Aslan’s arms...I didn’t. Not really.”
“Did that scare you?” Dylan asked gently. “That depth of connection?”
“Oh dear God, yes.” I chuckled. “I’d lie awake at night with my heart suffocating at the thought of losing him. I couldn’t concentrate in class without wondering what he was doing. I could barely hold a conversation with my parents at the dining room table without shouting how deeply I was in love and how desperate I was to make him mine.”
“And he asked you to marry him.” Margot sighed. “On the second day you finally began your romance.”
I chuckled again. “Some would say that was far too soon.”
“I wouldn’t.” Margot clutched her pen. “I’d say love was speaking, not societal expectations.”
“I’d say the same thing.”
“So...what happened next?” She bounced in her chair. “Did your parents find your texts? Did they walk in on you with his hand up your skirt?”
