The In Between

Chapter 32

Tara

It isn't a dream this time. He's either really standing there, or I am really crazy.

The world goes shimmery and swimmy and blurry. Justin steps closer. My knees buckle, but I manage to stay upright. 

"I'm here," he repeats, his deep, achingly familiar voice echoing in the quarry. "I'm here."

"You're really here?" I ask incredulously—a question, a statement, a prayer—as tears flow down my cheeks.

"I'm really here."

Emotion chokes the spaces between his words. He leans closer, his hand hovering above my forehead, his lips so close to mine. "Tara." His voice splinters with longing and relief. I stare up into his eyes, a shiver of elation running down my spine as I wipe the tears from my face. 

Justin kneels beside me, his face just inches from mine, but I can't quite bring him into focus; his edges are blurry.  

 "I can't believe it, " I whisper to myself, to him. "I can't believe it," I repeat, my heart swelling, exploding through my skin, my throat. "You're here."

"I'm here." Tears blur his eyes, too. "You look so beautiful," he tells me. His expression is filled with all of the awe and desire, all of the gratitude and hunger, that I feel coursing through my own veins.  He reaches over to kiss me. "I love you, Tara."

"I love you, too. Oh God, I've missed you so much," I sob.

I reach for him, my breath sputtering in anticipation. I shut my eyes, warmth clustering in my belly, his lips are so close to mine, about to touch...

But we are stopped a quarter-inch from each other by something we can't see, an invisible film separating us from each other. We come achingly close—but we can't reach each other, we can't touch.

We push against it. It doesn't give.           

"What's happening?" I ask.

"I don't know." Justin shakes his head. "I don't know how this works, I don't know how to do this," Justin says, frustration wracking him.

We both sit stunned, staring at each other with a desire we cannot satisfy and a relief we cannot believe.

"I thought I would never see you again," Justin whispers.

"I know."

He reaches to wipe a tear from my cheek, forgetting—until his hand is stopped mid-air. Our eyes lock, drinking each other in. I moan, biting my lip. 

"Justin...how?"  I don't finish the sentence, I can't.

It's both the craziest thing in the world that he's here, and somehow not crazy at all.  Justin could never be truly gone from me. Not when I love him as much as I do.

 "I thought I'd lost you," he says. "I thought I'd never see you again. And then, when they told me..."

"Told you what? Who are you talking about?" I have so many questions, but they're all overlapping in my brain. All I can think of is that Justin is by my side. I keep blinking and looking at him again and again to be sure. Justin is here. Justin. Is. Really. Here.

 "It's so much different than we thought," he says slowly, searching for the right words as he speaks. 

"What is?"

"Everything. Life and death and everything in between."

"In between?"

"I don't understand it all myself. It sounds so crazy. All I know is that the boundaries are not as clear-cut as I used to think. There's all this....co-existence. I don't know how else to put it." He stops, struggling to find words, and I see the tears once more in his eyes. "I thought I'd lost you, Tara."