Touching The Surface Part 16

"Well, first it means that you always jump to the worst conclusions, like thinking that I stopped because I didn't like kissing you."

I hated being easy to read.

"You said first. What's the rest?" I demanded.

He pointed to his s.h.i.+rt. " *Boldly going nowhere' is what will happen if we don't finish this. I know you well enough to know you're not going to want to Delve any further. Can't you feel how close we are?"

That was the second thing? What about . . . Secondly, Turner, you jumped to the conclusion that I was saying our relations.h.i.+p was going nowhere. The reality is that I am falling in love with you. . . . Apparently, I had a vivid imagination to go with my chickens.h.i.+t personality. The truth of it was like a scab being ripped off. The ripping didn't hurt, but the throbbing afterward seemed to go on forever. The worst part was that I didn't think I could help being in love with him anymore. Maybe if we hadn't Delved I would've been able to focus on his crabby, mean side. But after falling in love with him in the past, I couldn't help but see the softer side of his soul.

"Elliot? Am I right? Or are you going to surprise me and tell me you're willing to Delve further?"

"It hurts," I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself. I had no intention of ever Delving again. Maybe I could run away. I didn't know what was beyond the beyond, but maybe I could hide from it. I got a sudden chill picturing the Obmil like a giant snow globe, a beautiful place with no escape.

"There's nowhere else to go," Trevor said. I hated how he seemed to get inside my head.

"I can't find out the rest," I said. I felt the knot of terror in my gut and realized that subconsciously I'd been worrying about this long before I'd even understood it. "I can't watch myself commit suicide. I don't want to go back there anymore." I was bottomless in my capacity to fail.

"You don't know for sure that's what happens." His fingers running through his hair gave away his uncertainty.

"It's pretty d.a.m.n likely, don't you think?"

Trevor admitted nothing, but his T-s.h.i.+rt went blank.

"So what if you did commit suicide? What would be the worst thing that could happen?"

I could barely speak. "I believe that maybe the stories are true. I think that taking your own life is unforgivable. The taboo around it is so strong and there must be a reason for that. I'll be sent to . . ."

My voice broke and I was unable to finish. Trevor's face was stone. It seemed so cruel, to struggle through my issues and to come out on the other side, only to figure out that I'd screwed up royally from the start and now I was going to pay the price.

"We have no proof that there even is a h.e.l.l," he said.

"You also can't prove that there isn't one," I countered.

His face softened ever so slightly, yet it caused a painful tightening in my chest. What if I was doomed one way or another, but Trevor needed me in order to find his way out of the Obmil? And what if Oliver was depending on me to finish what I'd started so he could have his own life back? I loved them both. Could I really let them down like that?

"Have you been carrying this around with you the whole time?" Trevor asked, pulling me away from my thoughts.

"No, not originally." I thought back to those early Delves. "It was a likely outcome in the beginning. How do you survive after doing what I did to Oliver? But I was so distracted at first that I just didn't think it through. Then, when I remembered meeting you and saw what you meant to Elliot, I became hopeful. But things have been going downhill rapidly since we went back to school. Cari was sort of the tipping point. I think she just pushed me over the edge."

"Hate her," Trevor said.

Was it wrong that I wanted to hug him for that?

"What do you think it's like? h.e.l.l, I mean. I can't get past the image of heat and flames. Or the absence of fluffy white clouds in a perfect blue sky." I could feel myself choking up again.

"You're not going to h.e.l.l, Elliot," Trevor said. His teeth were clenched tightly together. Under his breath he muttered, "Not without me."

Rah-rah. Go team.

Trevor faced me, palms up, shoulders shrugged.

"We could run away. . . ." I didn't care if I sounded desperate. I was desperate.

"Where would we go?" Trevor asked slowly. Was he searching for a loophole?

The memory snuck up on me. Not a Delve, but a memory that I now owned. A broken Elliot standing up to Cari. A high school hallway that was too quiet considering how many living and breathing judgments were standing in it. I'd pulled myself up because there was nothing else left for me to do, nothing left to lose. It was time for me to surrender again. I couldn't control everything. I had to let this be what it was. More important, I had to do it for the two people I loved the most. The moment I decided to let it all go, a strange calm came over me.

Maybe I could just kiss him a little bit more before I was sent to h.e.l.l and he was ripped away from me for all eternity. It would be the memory that I would hold on to.

"What are you thinking?" His words held a note of suspicion. Some of my calm resignation must have shown on my face.

"We need to Delve again. We need to see this through," I said.

"There's always a chance that what you think happened might nota""

"That's not why I'm going back." I put my finger up to silence him and said, "We've come this far. We've got growth plans to figure out."

"I still think you're beautiful when you're fierce." His voice was gruff.

"I think you're confused. Past-life Trevor thinks that about past-life Elliot. You, on the other hand, think we're *boldly going nowhere.' "

"I think what?" He sounded incredulous.

I couldn't go into this now or I'd lose my resolve. "You want to know what's in my head? I think you just want me to kiss you again," I teased, trying to distract him. No point in examining a losing situation too carefully.

"Well, now that you mention it." He smiled slowly. My heart raced. I was grateful he was so easy to divert, but the ease of it dug into me like a splinter.

Then it occurred to me, this would be it. Our Delves always seemed to happen in the midst of some huge, emotional upheaval. Reaching for him would be the charge we would need to drop into a Delve and find out my final, ugly little secret. Thinking of one more kiss with him was making my legs feel like jelly already. We might not even make it to that last kiss.

I ran at him full force and leapt into his arms, determined to outrun time.

25.

falling

or

flying?

This kiss was an electric shock, but something wasn't right. We hadn't Delved. I raggedly pulled away, confused. We were still standing in the same spot. I wriggled myself out of his arms, spun around in disbelief.

"Am I boring you?" asked Trevor.

"No. I just thought we were going to Delve. We didn't go anywhere." Couldn't anything about this place be predictable?

"You trying to get rid of me?"

"Nah," I said, still trying to figure out how it was that we could drop into the past without a moment's notice when I was unprepared and now that I was determined to meet my fatea"nothing. Nada.

Trevor glanced down. "Unbelievable. Is that the best you could come up with?" he asked.

"What? Best of what?"

"Your T-s.h.i.+rt. Very romantic. Is that your way of telling me you love me? You're quite the tender heart, Turner."

I pulled out the lower corners of my s.h.i.+rt to read the words emblazoned across my chest: I PEE IN POOLS.

"I didn'ta"that was not me! You did this, T-s.h.i.+rt man. And what do you mean romantic? Love you?" I sputtered indignantly until I caught his playful expression. He was such a goober.

"You . . ." I punched his arm, which he did not find the least bit painful or intimidating. It didn't have the same emotional fuel as my earlier right hook.

"Do you also pee in lakes?" he asked.

"I don't pee in pools or lakes, smarta.s.s."

"Well, that's good because it's time to figure out the rest of our story." He pulled me close. "Do you trust me?"

"Why?" I asked with hesitation, thinking that I might be starting to understand where he was going with this.

"We've got to take a leap."

"And how do you think that's going to help?" I asked, feeling dizzy at the thought of going anywhere near the tip of that rock. I grabbed his hand for an anchor even though I wasn't anywhere near the edge.

"It was your idea."

"Are you insane? I would never suggest jumping off a freaking cliff! I'm not the old me anya"oh." My voice stopped short, as I pictured the old Elliot standing on a ledge, leaping into the Hudson.

"The good news is that we're already dead. What's the worst thing that can happen? We get a little wet in a weird, unwet kind of way. You'll definitely have to change your s.h.i.+rt, though," Trevor said.

"Change my s.h.i.+rt?"

"You know, from pool to lake. I have a feeling your bladder won't be able to handle a leap like that." He shrugged.

He was deliberately baiting me to buck me up, but I didn't care because it was working. I walked toward the edge of everything, pulling him along behind me. Filled with calm and purpose, I kissed him gently on the lips and then stood to face my past and my future all at the same time.

He stood behind me and I felt his arms lock tightly around my waist, his chin resting on the top of my head. I thought Trevor might say something but he simply breathed in deeply, smelling the scent of my hair, pulling me in tighter.

Locked together like the eagles I'd seen so long ago, we pushed off from the stability of the rock beneath us. It was a leap of faith and he was following me into the unknown. I flung open my arms like I could ride the wind. For one brief second I couldn't tell the difference between falling and flying, then we raced toward the surface of the blue water.

26.

remembering

blue

The drop, which should have taken mere seconds, seemed endless, as if we were hanging between earth and sky. We were momentarily suspended between the best and the worst of us. It occurred to me that as scary as this was, falling together was better than falling apart.

I saw shades of blue beneath me and I angled our bodies to enter the water in a dive. There would be no last-minute change of direction for us. I could feel Trevor's breath warm in my ear as he whispered the single word remember . . .

a a a I barely noticed the trail or the rain. The only thing that drummed through my head was the need to escape. The calm that had bucked me up moments ago had been replaced by blind panic and rage. I moved along the slippery rocks without a hand to hold, imploding with the realization that I would never be allowed to love Trevor.

I knew that if I stayed in this life, with these people, I would have no hope.

More gut-wrenching sobs racked my body as I stumbled and slid back down five feet of loose rock, sc.r.a.ping my knees and cutting the palms of my hands.

It seemed wrong to welcome the distraction of physical pain, but it also kept me from thinking. I couldn't live this life anymore. I'd had a taste of forgiveness and losing it was like dying twice for the same crime.

b.l.o.o.d.y and bruised, I reached the top, my haven. Instead of sitting in my usual place, feet dangling, snuggled up against Trevor, I stood, threw out my arms, and looked to the heavens.

It was a primal scream. An infinite howl of emotion, caught by the slate-gray clouds that thundered toward me. As I screamed, the ugly things that were sitting on my soul hitched a ride out into the storm.

Spent, I stood there, trying to sense what had changed. It wasn't just my voice that was carried away on the wind. Something angry and broken had taken flight, leaving room for something new. A seed of defiance had been planted earlier, but now it had room to grow. In a single breath, I'd decided that Trevor was worth the effort. One Trevor was worth a population of Caris. The wind roared and the rain battered me. The storm bellowed, but for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, I felt a pocket of peace inside my soul. It was mine and no one else could take it away. I was the eye of the storm.