“Because I’m not whole like this, Fenny. And you deserve a whole man.”
“What do I have to do with it?”
“You’re going to make me say it? That I’m falling in love with you?”
My breath hitches, and I can barely speak. Hearing those words feels better than just about anything ever has. Except maybe for Jude’s kiss.
“Is it true?” I whisper.
He reaches out and touches my cheek. “I’m falling in love with you, okay? And love has side effects. One of them is that I want to be better—I want to be whole—for you.” He closes his eyes. “But it feels out of reach. I’m sorry.”
“Jude,” I whisper, shivering in the rain. What I want to say feels crazy, but then again, so is what he just told me. Sometimes love can feel so close to crazy that their shadows are the same.
“Fenny.”
“Maybe that missing piece of you isn’t an abstract idea. Maybe that piece—physically—is here.”
“What do you mean?”
I tip my head toward Sam’s cabin. “Follow me.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I lead Jude through therain, along the wildflower-hedged path, and up the rickety porch stairs of the cabin at the edge of the island and both of our worlds.
“I don’t understand,” he says, bewildered. “How do you know about this place?”
“Sam.”
“Uh-huh?”
I stare at him. I’d only been answering his question, explaining that I know about this place because of Sam. But Jude replied so naturally. As if I’d been addressing him.
“Why did you answer to that name?”
He blinks. “Samuel Jude de Silva. That’s my given name. Before the accident, I went by Sam.” He touches the front door, his eyes far away. “I went by Sam, and I lived here.”
Okay. So this is actually happening. Sam is Jude and Jude is Sam, splintered off by time and trauma. Somehow brought back together by me. But what happens when I open this door and the two of them face off?
“Are you okay?” he asks. “Have I freaked you out?”
“Did Tania mention anything about ghosts?” Saying the word aloud feels true in some ways, and very wrong in other ways. Sam was no ghost when we saw that sunset on the beach.He was no ghost when I took off my dress yesterday and he got down on his knees.
“Why do you ask?” Jude says.
“Um.”
What if by inviting Jude here, I’m making an irreversible mistake? Will I get stuck in the time loop with him? Will planets wheel out of the sky? But then I think about what Jude said back at the ravine. About the piece of him that’s missing. That he needs to be whole. I think about his explanation for why he wants to be whole in first place…
Because he’s falling in love with me.
He sounded clear. As clear as I suddenly feel right now, standing at his side, at the threshold of a ghost. I’ve spent the past month wrestling with my feelings for what I assumed were two different men.
But they weren’t. They were just one fractured soul.
I don’t know if they’ll even like each other. I haven’t had time to run through all the dozen ways this introduction might go very wrong. But I can’t go on knowing what I know right now and not let Jude in on it. Whatever the cost.
I take a deep breath. “I think there’s someone you should meet.”
