Page 55 of Shattered Veil

The knowledge of Claire’s history and how it had impacted the remainder of our group was a tale to be told, indeed—and she had only gotten the abbreviated version.

“That you did,” I replied. “Are you asking for the full story?”

“No.” She laughed without humor. “God, no. Y’know, I normally like details, but, ah…” Cassie waved her hand around her forehead and then allowed her arm to relax once more. “Like I said, my mind’s a bit full for the moment.”

“Yeah, mine’s like that, too,” I murmured.

She seemingly thought to herself for a beat. The fire crackled, we both took another small sip, and then she asked, “Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in between?”

I felt my brow pinch together. “How do you mean?”

“Like the world is gearing up for something and you can—you can feel it. You can feel the shift…but it’s not quite there yet. So…you’re just waiting. Stuck in between.”

I hummed in acknowledgment. “I think that’s called purgatory.”

She disagreed, “Pretty sure that’s the waiting room between heaven and earth. I’m talking about one that’s between two hells.”

“Yeah…” I begrudgingly said, “I know the feeling.”

“I don’t know if there’s a word for it. I’ll call it purgatory, but it’s…it’s not that.” She blew out a rough breath through her nose. “I don’t want there to be another hell, Jay.”

The whisper of a sentence left her, and I felt its gravity. It sat on my sternum, heavy—dirty—sticky, and unable to be washed from me. Her voice had wavered on my name. It was so slight that I could have chalked it up to vivid imagination, hope, or sleep deprivation-induced auditory hallucinations…but I didn’t. I knew it was there.

“It could be nothing,” I reminded.

She admitted in a meek voice, “It doesn’t feel like nothing to me.”

“Me either.”

The conversation itself was nowhere near romantic, but the intimacy was there. The closeness was there, and just like that, the topic of our respective worries withered away to nothing. They were still there in our minds—I knew they were—but they had been tucked away because we were stuck once again. In a routine played several times over, we were locked on each other in a slow-moving gravitation, and I breathed, long and slow.

She finally said, “I meant what I said before…about forgetting.”

I knew that already, but hearing it was a kick in the gut. The reiteration made me want to turn my head—to look away from her—but I couldn’t. And it appeared that neither could she.

“I know.”

“Because we could be messy,” she clarified.

I nodded. “I know.”

“For several reasons.”

“I know.”

Cassie’s eyes remained on me as she shifted forward to place her glass on the table. She snagged mine as well and set it beside hers with a quiet clunk, and she sat back on the couch, turning to face me fully with her legs tucked underneath her.

She whispered, “They’re irrelevant, though…aren’t they?”

It was the same word that I had used the night before to describe my hesitations toward her—her relation to Liam and Zoey, her profession, our age difference, though my concern on that was long gone—it was all irrelevant. My feelings—shit, her feelings—made it all irrelevant.

Her usage of it made my chest burn, realization sinking in at the purpose of the softness in her gaze, and I exhaled a quiet, “Oh.”

“Thanks for joining me,” Cassie murmured. “In purgatory, I mean.”

The tipping point was placed between us, and the edge metaphorically scraped my feet as I balanced upon it. I lifted a hand to her cheek, tracing her freckles with the pad of my thumb, and the burn in my chest spread as she leaned into my touch. With all the honesty in the world, I told her:

“I’d be here in hell, too.”

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