26 | Live, Verb: To Be Alive

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Jess's heart seemed all at once to give out, and yet to pound at the thought

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Jess's heart seemed all at once to give out, and yet to pound at the thought. 

Had not she hoped and wished and dreamed and believed, every moment they'd had together? Hadn't she secretly cherished the fantasy they had lived by the stream? Didn't she want it as much as he did? Wasn't that living life to the fullest - going out there, and making sure you did all the things you'd ever dreamed of...?

Was not that what her father had done - had told her to do - all those times?

Make sure you do it all Jess. 

Do all the things - live your dreams."

She watched her father, eyes crinkled, smiling, playing cards and telling her of everything he had done. Jess may have stood by the stream, but in her mind she was amidst the jungles of Malaysia, hiking beside her father, who was telling her to never allow her life to slip between her fingers.

And she stood there still, as a tear slid down her face, away from her closed, unseeing eyes. Her father lay in bed, cold soup undrunk beside them, looking up at her and murmuring, 

"Jess, your dreams don't exist to sit in your mind and collect dust. You remember that, okay? There is so much you can do."

Slowly, painfully, gradually, the world  - of the present - came into focus again.

There was the stream, the gravel path pale and dark as the Sun set. Obi Wan was sitting beside her, clearly having given up on going anywhere. But then he jumped up.

Jess's feet knew, again, that she had somewhere to go; the place she had, all this time, deep down, known she had to be.

She stared down the different paths brushing the cold tear-tracks from her face.

He hadn't gone far. 

"James!"

He whipped around, shocked by something more potent than electricity.

Obi Wan ran happily beside Jess, glad to be moving again; glad Jess was moving again - towards the person she should be getting to.

"James!" Coming to a stop, she cried again, breathlessly, though she could not have run more than twenty feet. 

"I just- I remembered- I mean." She took a deep breath, wondering incredulously how it could be so hard to say these words.

"I know I said that thing about my dad and you know, listening to what my mum wants, but I also remember... uhm..." She paused, and her hand hovered over his, needing the reassurance of touch. "Do you remember that day when I first told you about my dad?"

James nodded, eyes wide, face tense - waiting.

"Well, then I said that- that he lived every day to the fullest, and that he'd want me to too. And I just think," She rushed on, gaining momentum, "that this feels like living. Well, not this," she gestured around them, "but all this time, and I just... It feels too right to give up on."

A smile was beginning to creep onto James's pale face, but Jess felt she had to explain herself better.

"I just- I... I think I just got scared, at the thought of..." She waved her hands vaguely around. Did she know what? Hardly. But James - he knew. The what-ifs that had been pounding in his chest, and turning his cheeks bright red, on the way back from the beach - they knew.

"Jess." 

Her eyes shot to his. 

"It doesn't mean everything has to be different. It's still us." James breathed. "Nothing has to change that you don't want to. And, if anything does change, it'll be better, I promise."

Jess could feel the stinging, prickling sensation in her eyes, so hard to repress. It was as though all the emotion of the past weeks was pressing against the back of her eyeballs.

She nodded. A miniscule jerk of the head, worth so much more than any words. 

She watched as James's eyes lit up (well, she fancied they did) and his weight shifted in a way that made him look as radiant as the pinpricks of light in the night's sky.  A small, but infinitely relieved smile painted Jess's lips.

And then, "You're okay with it? Your mum...?"

Her mother. She remembered how carelessly she had thrown out her name.

Yet the moment James had spoken - had begun to speak the words she had been dreaming of - she had known her mother could not be right. This was not wrong. James was not wrong. He would not do anything to hurt her again, she was sure now. 

Her moment of weakness on the beach path had been born of some strange fear, but now James outshone it in blinding proportions.

So she nodded. "Her main problem is distraction from more important things." Jess allowed herself an eye-roll, "So if we only have these next few weeks, what can I possibly be distracted from?"

Numbers, phone calls, they would be tempting, so tempting. They knew it would - they agreed that dream could not be allowed to be. 

The selfish, harsh part of James's brain screamed for him to demand otherwise, but he had found himself suggesting it anyway. If it was these weeks or nothing, the choice did not even exist. Somehow it had always felt that way, though not a single word had been exchanged about 'after this'.

But even if 'after this' could not be steeped in triumph and bliss, there was nothing to keep that moment from them. 

James did not know what to do with himself. It was strange how a few weeks could create something so overwhelming; stranger yet how a few seconds could transform it all.

He tightened his grip ever so slightly on Jess's hand. He looked on as her eyes flitted to his face. In the fading light, he saw her cheeks colour, but he saw the smile too, as it lit up her cheeks even more; her eyes, her face. She had forgotten putting her hand in his - he had not. 

It was bliss, surely, to know for sure, that he had not been deluding himself. To know she did not hate him. Not because of what he had done; what he felt; what he hadn't, and had only just, said. 

His heart swelled, and for once, he could allow himself to be convinced she felt the same. 

Jess turned a fraction, about to continue walking down the path, but hesitated.

Surely the occasion - the moment - called for something... but what? All she knew for certain was that to stand here again, in safety, beside him, on their path, in the twilight, felt like magic - felt familiar somehow...

"It's getting dark."

Jess blinked. She glanced around. Twilight...

"Oh my god!" She stared back at James, "Damn it she's going to absolutely murder me!"

James gestured down the path, "Hurry."

"When I don't come to meet you after we get back on Wednesday, come and dig me out of my grave in the garden and bury me somewhere nice, will you?" She called as she and Obi retreated into the dark.

Laughing, James replied, before walking back home in the other direction.

Considering the number of things that had happened, the number of emotions that had surged through and battered him that day, James reflected that he should have felt incredibly tired. Instead, he felt more awake than he ever had. Jess had said it was 'more like living than anything'. He supposed that was a good way to put it - like living, truly and completely.

As soon as he could be sure Jess was out of earshot, he let out a small whoop - and began to run the rest of the way home.

Yes, this was living. 

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