Page 18 of Raise Up, Heart
You want to comfort him and pull him close, instead, you say, “Well, that was unnecessarily stupid of you.”
Colesmiles. Your breath disappears, and your chest hurts. He’s beautiful.
“No, it wasn’t,” he says. “I had to…I had to know. Damon, I’vemissedyou.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” you say. He can’t begin to know how much. Though, when you’ve told him everything, how it was, feeling the pull of his need across the barriers of Alex’s flesh, he might have an inkling, and you won’t blame him for hating you. For being terrified of a love so horrific.
“Then where thehellhave you been?” Cole demands, anger lighting him up. You can see how it strengthens him, and you’re glad he’s got the energy to ask.
“I’ve been dead,” you say, and watch his face shift through ten thousand emotions.
“Dead?” He sounds confused. It’s confusing. You can’t blame him for being slow on the uptake.
“You saw me die. You were there. Remembering you, how upset you were as you held my hand and I…left. It’s tortured me.” Your throat is tight, and you swallow hard.
“Tortured you?” He’s so lost. You start to reach out to him again, but you hold back. He’s got to come to terms with this on his own. You messed up badly in the woods, and now you’re going to do this right. “No…no…” he says. “You’re not dead. You didn’t die. You’re right here.”
“I died. My heart was put in Alex’s chest to save his life.”
“Yeah,” Cole says, breathless, wide-eyed.
“And then I took it back,” you say.
Cole is prettysure this is a dream. Except now that he’s seen Damon, he’s confused about that. Before, in the darkness, it hadn’t been real, hadn’t felt like anything but a nightmare, but now here in the light of the cabin, it’s starting to seem possible.
“You took it?” Cole repeats, and he’s going to stop repeating everything Damon says soon, once he understands.Ifhe can understand. Damon himself looks a little iffy about all of this, and it’s kind of freaking Cole out. He’s on the verge of hysterical laughter, the bubble of it frozen in his chest.
“I don’t know how,” Damon says. “It’s impossible. I can’t explain.”
“Well, here’s an idea:try,” Cole says, surprised by another flash of anger. He puts the coffee mug down on the floor away from his feet so that he won’t accidentally knock it over, stuffs his hand in his coat pocket and grabs hold of the stone heart, squeezing it until the sharp point digs into his hand. He’s awake. Right at this moment, he’s pretty sure he’s awake.
“I can only tell you what I know,” Damon says. “It’s stingy on the details and it isn’t pretty.”
“Tell me,” Cole says.
“I don’t believe in life after death,” Damon says. “It’s a fairytale concocted to make little kids behave, or to make them feel better about the realities of life. People die. They go away forever. I knew that from the time I was a kid. My grandparents didn’t go to some great beyond with halos and barbeques on Sundays. Theydied. And when my favorite aunt died, she didn’t hang around and watch over me, either. She wasgone.”
Cole stares at him. Damon’s babbling now, talking fast like he does—like he did—when he’s nervous and uncertain. Cole wants to kiss him, wants to touch him so badly, just like the very first time he witnessed Damon losing control. But he can’t risk it. Cole is sick with fear, terrified of hope, of Damon, who should be dead, of reaching out and there being nothing there.
Damon talks on, “It was what drove me in a way. I knew that every patient I failed to save was wiped out for good. Pfft, gone. No coming back from it. I had a mission to save those kids before that happened.”
“Damon,” Cole says, and he wishes Damon had shared this with him before. He wishes he’d known this for a long time.
Damon rolls his eyes. It’s endearing and it hurts to see. Cole has closed his own eyes and remembered that very expression so many times.
“I don’t believe in life after death,” Damon says again. “But…I died. It was endless noise and pain. Clawing, scratching, ripping pain.” Damon says it like he’s listing the symptoms of a patient, matter-of-fact and serious. “There was a glaring light, and a loud, screaming sound of indistinguishable origin, and the sensation of being squeezed. Pressure.”
“Squeezed?”
“It was tight, small. There wasn’t enough room, and I had to fight for every inch of space.”
“Like being born,” Cole murmurs, trying to understand, and he feels like his mind is on the verge of getting it.
“I don’t do well in small spaces,” Damon says.
Cole nods.
“I did anything to get out. I think murderous is a fair term to describe my emotional state and motivation.”
