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I turn my head an inch and look into his eyes. They look like they’re a thousand miles deep. I could tip forward and fall right into them, plummeting until I hit bottom. That wouldn’t be a bad way to go. Drowning isn’t peaceful, but drowning in Rome’s eyes might be.You never know until you try.Something’s come unhinged in my mind. Unhooked. I’m like a boat. Unmoored—that’s the word I was looking for. Even huge yachts can get into trouble if they’re not anchored properly. If someone forces you to become unmoored, you could float away into the ocean and never, ever come back.
Never coming back appeals to me.
I could ascend to another plane. Or descend. The direction doesn’t particularly matter, as long as it’s notthisplane. This room. And as long as Rome can come with me.
That makes me laugh. It’s more of a high giggle. That’s not like me at all. Little girls giggle, and I haven’t been a little girl for a very long time. Then again, nothing about this situation is like me.
I don’t even know who I am anymore.
“Now you have to tell me.” Rome’s voice is firm, like an anchor. “Laughing? Come on, Aves. It’s fucking creepy when you laugh in here.”
I turn on my side, so it doesn’t take as much energy to stare into his eyes. “I’m wondering what heaven is like.”
A dark cloud passes over the blue of his eyes, but his expression doesn’t waver. If he’s hopeless, he hides it from me. It’s his right, I guess. He can hide the fact that he’s hopeless. I’m not going to be able to hide the fact that I’ve moved past hopelessness and into active planning. Because I know the truth.There is a way out of here.But Rome’s not going to like it.
A smile breaks over his bruised face. It’s unexpected, this smile, and it makes me pay attention.
“Did I ever tell you about the place where my dad lives?” Rome asks.
“I don’t know. Tell me again.” I half-remember the details, but maybe they’re all wrong. It’s not like Rome and I have spent the last several years trading stories like old friends. That’s my fault, obviously. Obviously. “Tell me about this place.”
It feels like I’m hovering above the king-size mattress now, looking into his eyes. I’m ready to fall. It’s funny how the pain bleeds out of my body sometimes and then I feel like nothing at all. I’ve slept in a lot of beds over the years, a lot of luxury mattresses in five-star places, but this is the first one that feels like a cloud.
“My dad lives in this hippie commune at Joshua Tree.”
Joshua Tree.An image springs into my mind.Two deserts crashing against one another. Gnarled trees under a vast midnight sky.I looked into glamping there once, but I didn’t go. Still, those two words paint the vivid image of sprawling stretches of desert sand and vast mountains rising out of the ground.
“Did you say...a hippie commune?”
I’m dreaming again, and my hallucinations burst to life around me, as if I were actually lying in the middle of this magical place Rome is describing.Tents burst from the land below the mountains, springing up like enormous desert flowers. The tents are made of giant flowers. Bare-feet women wearing long dresses carry stacks of neatly folded laundry. There are children running around, men talking as they build a giant bonfire.It makes me laugh again.
“That’s where my dad lives with all my half-siblings and his new wife. His wife of the earth. He says she’s timeless.”
“And they live in tents made of flowers?”I imagine a giant petal, as big as a house, bowing over me like some kind of shelter while I stare up at unfamiliar constellations. The constellations would be the same, I know, but maybe in Rome’s dad’s magical land they’d be different. “Flower tents?”
“Jesus, Avery, no. They live in trailers.”
It’s so serious, those trailers, that I crumple in on myself, shaking with laughter. I’m laughing so hard I’d cry if I had any moisture left in my body to spare. Rome and me—we’re like two deserts crashing together. Only deserts have more water, don’t they?
“They’re nice trailers.” Rome laughs too, his muscled arms lifting, covering his mouth with his hands. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was high. Maybe he is high. They’ve got to be drugging our food. All I know is that nothing, nothing is funnier than the way he said trailers. How many? All in a row? Joshua trees coming in through the windows? “There’s almost no cell phone reception. No internet. No television. No neighbors. No skyscrapers. No cars. There’s no pollution. You can see the stars at night like you wouldn’t believe.”
Rome stops long enough to brush a thumb across my bottom lip. “It’s not heaven, but it’s pretty damn close.”
That is possibly the most sincere thing I’ve ever heard Rome say. It sobers me a little, but not enough to stop the laughter that bubbles up like champagne in the middle of my chest. In my heart. In my veins. If I died right now, it wouldn’t be so bad. I’d be able to go out with the warmth of laughter covering all my wounds.
“I want to go there one day,” I tell Rome. It’s half-wish, half-storytelling. In another story, I’d tell him that, and we’d get on the next flight out. I don’t think I’ll ever go to Joshua Tree in this version of my life, unless I swing by on my way to hell.
Rome takes both of my hands in his and raises my knuckles to his lips. He kisses each one, lingering for just a moment. Ten kisses. Ten promises.
“I’ll take you there, Avery,” he vows.
He doesn’t have to sayif we survive.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ROME
I’m losing my grip on time. Who could fucking blame me? It’s a hellhole down here. I’ve seen hellholes before, but nothing like this. Being a Montague taught me a thing or two about kicking down doors, but not doors with four locks. I keep trying to think my way around it, but I always end up in the same place.
