Page 15 of Raise Up, Heart
“It’s happening,” you say, creeping toward the shadow of Cole panting a few feet away.
“How?” he breathes.
“Not here. Cole, we should leave.”
“No,” Cole says, backing away from you. “It’s a trick. What do you want from me?”
“Cole—”
“Don’t say my name like that! You aren’t him! He’sdead. You can go tohell. I’ve figured it out. I know the truth.”
You can take this as an out. You know that you can. He’s willing to believe this is a delusion or a con, and you can walk away from this blunder, and go back to…to what? What is there for you to go back to? Your life, the very force of it, is focused on one thing: Cole.
You say, “Listen, this is idiotic. Thetruthis that we’re in the middle of the woods. It’s night. It’s cold. And I’m hungry.”
“What?”
“Let’s go,” you say, pulling Cole up from the ground. You want to kiss him, to press your body against his and feel him close, to smell, and touch. You’ve wanted him so much. He’s so close, closer that you’ve dared in all of these months. It feels so right to touch him, even just to hold his arm.
“Who is paying you to do this?” Cole asks.
“How much iswhopaying me forwhat? No one could pay me enough for this.”
“Enough for what? I don’t understand,” Cole says, and you know that his mind is fumbling for something that makes sense. You understand how he feels, but you don’t have time for it right now.
“It isn’t a cup of tea,” you say. “Come on. We need to get somewhere warm.”
“Is this…? Are you planning to kill me?”
“What? Cole—”
You can’t talk to Cole here. Not now. You have to get him to leave the darkness of the woods before this conversation can go anywhere. You feel his body trembling under the palms of your hands, but he’s not moving away.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” you say. Youarehurting him, though. You’ve been hurting him since Alex drove off the bridge, and this is a mistake that is hurting him even more.
“Then what—?”
You take a deep breath. “I can explain everything, but you have to come with me now.”
Can you explain everything? It’s impossible. What’s happened defies the rules of reality. You don’t believe in it most of the time. It’s a dream. Or the neurons of your brain firing as they die, collapsing, and providing you with some kind of extended experience of reality, but it isn’t true.
At least that’s what you told yourself for months, even as you used the money Alex left behind in a tin box to eat, buy clothes, and to follow Cole around Maryville. Except for the objective fact that it keeps being true, and you keep on being here, in this body, alive and not at all dead, there is no way that any of this is happening.
“Explain it now.”
“No.” You draw the word out, let it linger. “Later. This isn’t the time and it isn’t the place.”
He’s as frustrating as ever. You just want to get him out of here, someplace where you can see his face, look him over, and make sure he’s okay. Someplace where he can seeyoutoo, where he’ll have to admit that this isn’t a dream, and that you have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.
You take his arm and pull, dragging him a few steps behind you, and then you feel him balk.
“Come on,” you say. “We can’t stay out here all night. We need to get warm. We need some light, and I’m sure as hell not waiting for the sun to come up.”
Cole’s feet don’t move, and you turn back around, prepared to shake him, when he whispers, “Damon?”
You step closer. He reaches out to you, his hands run over your face, in your hair, and he makes a soft, shocked noise. “Damon?” he asks again.
“I’ll explain everything when we get out of here,” you whisper gently, trying to keep him focused, trying to stay focused yourself. It’s hard with him so close. You’ve wanted this so much.
