Page 59 of The Quiet
He exhaled as if caught under the strain of a great burden, one perhaps that had been thinly concealed under every look andlingering touch. It broke now with the nature of their closeness, as if it had been waiting to break for a while.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he said, and the words were filled with such grief and longing that it didn’t matter that they didn’t make complete sense. He said the words like that first kiss had happened years ago and like they hadn’t been spending every day together since.
He said the words as if he’d been suffering for her forever.
Time seemed irrelevant, because with all of the emotion that those words embodied, it felt as if they’d known each other for a century and been separated for a century more.
Almost urgently, she leaned toward him, her hand finding his face. His words didn’t speak to reason, but the heart, and she was compelled by the mixture of sadness, want and something akin to a deep and mysterious bond.
She leaned forward and kissed him to medicate that mysterious wound. As if he’d been waiting all this time for permission, he wrestled her into his arms. Close and tight into his chest, his body surrounded her, hands guiding hers against his chest and into his hair, predicting the paths they wanted to take.
Very soon, this no longer felt like a second kiss, but one of a million and she had to lean back if only to ground herself back in a version of reality where she recognized herself again.
He let her go, but still said nothing, and the silence seemed to speak volumes in a language she didn’t know how to interpret yet.
“Ella,” he whispered, tipping up her chin and kissing her again, pulling her close to his body as if in a moment he might have to let her go forever. Breathing her in a final time, he stepped away, “don’t jump to any conclusions.” He warned her, puzzling her as he stepped off and looked to the door a moment before someone opened it.
She jolted as if from a daydream and turned, catching the eyes of her visitor who seemed to notice the alarm on her face immediately.
“Jackson?” she breathed and then looked into the room to find it empty.
Jackson, no longer dressed in black, but in standard brown pants and a lose white shirt, searched the room and then his eyes landed back on her. “What’s wrong?” He asked, scanning the room again as he re-read the shock on her face.
Ella walked through the room in a circle and then back to her desk, hands pressed to her face and then her lips where his touch had lingered. She eased into her chair. Was she losing her mind? She wasn’t just imagining this. This didn’t exactly feel like the ‘adjusting’ Paris talked about, and it certainly wasn’t her coming to her senses. She clasped her hands over her ears. The present moment was too painful again and her mind wandered elsewhere.
“Ella–” Jackson started, but before he could continue, he vanished, and there the other version sat, back on the couch, teacup in hand.
“If you want to keep talking to the present version of me, you’ll need to keep your mind trained on the moment. Don’t let your thoughts wander,” the Jackson wearing black said.
Ella stared, blinked, and he was gone. She imagined herself back in the room with Jackson in the doorway.
Jackson was focused on the couch as if he’d just followed her eyes. “You were talking to him,” Jackson said.
“You,” she whispered, and her heart raced as the realization of what had just happened crept in. “That was you, a version of you, but you’re,” she gestured to him in the doorway.
She stared at Jackson, whispering the word in awe as he mirrored it with alarm.
“Lambspeak,” they both said.
CHAPTER 16
LOVE
SHE OBSERVED THAT when the weather was good, it seemed to move him. Today was one of those days and in the courtyard of The Bleeding Grin, Baker watched Peter chop wood. He swung a long, sharp ax, splitting a piece in two. Sweat gave a subtle shine to his high cheekbones and straight, narrow nose.
The way he used the ax made him look like a machine, without staggering or shaking. Every swing and reset of the tool looked exactly like the last, and the perfect motion was a picture of his energy.
It had been fourteen months now, but to Baker it felt like years. She’d grown more accustomed to her accommodations, several floors above the slaves. The Strike were now almost her peers, and under Peter’s direction, she’d become untouchable to them.
In the eyes of everyone, she was unreachable and suddenly, every single person saw her.
A shadow flashed over her face, and she shielded her eyes from the sun. She looked up to see a crow flying overhead.
Without looking, Peter beckoned for the cloth beside her, and she tossed it over. Wiping the sweat off his face, he set the ax down and they walked up the stone courtyard path to the Bleeding Grin.
“Flyleaf,” Peter said aloud as she glanced at a nearby plant and made eye contact with him. “You remember the chemical reactions behind how plants grow don’t you?”
They passed another plant and Baker caught his eyes again.
