Page 101 of The Spirit of Love
“I didn’t know. Not really. Not then. But at that point, the truth was harder for me to admit.”
“What was the truth?”
“That a month ago, I met a man who was training to become a Search and Rescue specialist for the Island Conservatory!”
He flinches. “Really?”
“Hewas my long-distance fling.He’sthe man you advisedme to figure things out with after we kissed.He’sthe reason you left my house that night.”
“Part of the reason,” Jude says. “So that’s why you’re here, on the island? To see him?”
I nod, looking down at my feet. “And it’s over, in case you were wondering.”
“I’m sorry.”
I laugh. Now I’m the one finding the hard stuff funny.
“Yeah. I think he and I are…just on different planes. Right place, wrong time, or whatever. But that’s not why we’re here. You were telling me about some ceremony you and Tania performed.”
“It didn’t work,” Jude admits. “She was trying to help me make peace with the trauma. To ‘bring it in so I could let it out.’ ” He sounds defeated as he raises and then drops his beautiful shoulders. “I couldn’t do it. We stood here, pouring out honey and wine to ‘bless this site,’ to ‘thank it for catching me.’ I wrote down what I felt. Then I shouted out into the abyss.” He looks at me and winces again.
“What did you shout?”
Jude cups his hands over his mouth. “I’m stuck!” he bellows into the ravine. “Let me move on!”
His voice echoes back to us so clearly, I can hear it a full second time.
“Did you hear that?” I ask, looking across the ravine.
“There’s still something missing,” Jude says, distracted. “I know it.”
I know it, too. What’s missing.
“Jude—” I turn to him.
He’s already facing me. He takes my hands in his. “When I failed earlier, with Tania, she told me I needed to ‘find a light.’ The first thing I thought of was you.”
“Me?”
“Here’s the truth, Fenny. I’m doing this because of you. The things you said about me when we first met—about how I believe in my nightmares—”
“I was angry—”
“It was true. But it didn’t use to be. I wasn’t always like this.” He gestures at himself. “When I lived here, I was so connected to the island. To the world. I was young and dumb, but I was also free. And happy. I think I used to feel like I had a purpose. Nothing dignified—I lived to enjoy the day, and to help others enjoy their days, too.”
“That sounds very dignified.”
“Yeah. You would have liked the old me more.”
I smile at him sadly. “Yes and no.”
He inhales, turning to look at the wreckage of the Jeep below. “I was responding to a flare sent up that night. Some campers needing rescue from a storm. After that…I don’t know. I don’t remember.” He swallows. “When they used the jaws of life to pull me out, I’d been dead for three and a half minutes. I was in a coma for a month. I did brutal physical therapy every day for two years after that. And I thought I got better. I thought I was healed. But recently, I’ve been wondering…if a part of me didn’t die that day. A part of me I’ll never recover.”
“It’s okay,” I tell him, near tears.
“No, it isn’t.”
“Why?”
