the secret of distance

Chapter 12

Notes:

"That's what it was like to love you. It was like waking from a dream."

—Lang Leav

Josie drops her hands from Hope's, having the decency to look abashed. The ceiling immediately stops shaking, and Hope swallows rough and loud as the pair dissolve into silence. The siphoner's face turns slightly pink as she realizes what's happened, and Hope raises her eyebrows with a playful smirk.

"Stop," Josie whines, feeling embarrassed. Hope decides to stop mocking her, but she can't ignore the giddy feeling just beneath her skin. She feels like she's floating on air, and even if Hope's not Josie's soulmate, hearing her say that she loves the tribrid is enough.

It's more than enough, actually—it's everything she has always wanted. It's the dream she's woken up from too many times, it's what she imagines when her thoughts stray too far and she finds herself staring at nothing. It's the confession that she allows herself to hope for when the distance has gotten too much, it's the words she yearns for when there's barely any distance at all.

At the same time, she can't quite catch up. Her mind is still half-stuck in the past, back to when she thought there was never a chance Josie could love her, back to when she was constantly sad, alone and pining. But now she can hardly remember what that had felt like.

It's too much at the same time, and she feels like if she stays here for too long she might start crying. Her head is pounding in that addicting, intoxicating way, and there's a pleasant lump in her throat that she can't swallow over. She thinks she might have to sit down, she's so dizzy. She's too happy.

"Why didn't you say anything?" the tribrid asks, her skin buzzing delightfully.

"I...I was scared," Josie starts, wringing her hands together. Hope can't take her eyes off of her. "I was going to, I swear, but every time I tried, Lizzie would say something, or my dad, and it became that much harder."

"Do you remember that day we first met?" It's so out of the blue that Hope doesn't immediately nod. Of course she remembers, though. She can't forget the way her heart had stopped so completely upon seeing the other girl she thought she had died. "I was twelve, I think, but I knew right away that we were meant to be."

Hope's eyes widen minutely.

Is it possible..?

"The second we—my family, I mean—left, I knew something was wrong. I felt like I was dying, like I would never be whole again, and it was the pain that told me that, that—"

"We're soulmates," the siphoner says, smiling like she can't quite believe it herself, like she's been hiding it for so long that it's now a distant memory.

At least, for Hope, until this moment, it had been. She had always tried to keep the soulmate bond buried deep, but it had always rose to the surface just enough to linger, and she could never truly forget it. She could never forget the thirteen-year-old girl who had locked herself in her room for days on end, who had felt like she couldn't tell a single soul, who had suffered the loss of her parents alone, wondering why she hadn't told them before. She could not forget the girl who had spent hours denying she even had a soulmate, who had spent hours pretending the pain was all in her head, who had shifted into her wolf week after week to escape it, only to make it worse.

"Yes. We are," Hope repeats, the words just setting in. How could she have missed it? How could she have tormented herself this entire time when she was Josie's soulmate as well? How could she have put Josie through that pain to even begin with? Just minutes ago, she had been ready to tell Josie that this didn't have to be serious, that when Josie found her own soulmate she was completely free to leave her. God, she really needs to sit down. She thinks she might fall over. "Are you...okay with that?"