“No. It isn’t that.” Jude shakes his head. He swallows, stares hard at the water, then looks up at me. “This is hard for me to say.”
“Just say it,” I encourage him. “I’ve told you a crazy thing or two before.”
“I know. I’m kind of leaning on that.” He takes a deep breath. “The thing is, I wasn’t always like this.” He gestures at himself, grimacing. “And I want to explain, but I don’t talk about this much.”
“Did you talk about it with Tania?” I can’t help asking.
He nods. “And she and I both agree I need to tell you.” He takes a deep breath. “So here goes. Ten years ago, I was in an accident. I fractured twenty-eight bones and spent six weeks in the ICU.”
“Oh my gosh. Jude!”
“I’m okay now,” he says, waving off my concern. “But my recovery was long and painful. There were whole months when I didn’t think I’d make it, when maybe I didn’t want to make it.”
“Jude.”
“I don’t like to think about that period of my life. Until a few weeks ago, I tried hard not to. But recently, I’ve been having these flashes.”
“Of the accident?”
“No,” Jude says. He stops rowing. I reach out and take his hand. He squeezes mine, and his strength reminds me of the foot massage he gave me at Olivia’s wedding, but this is different—as if he’s asking something of me instead of giving it. And so I try to receive a piece of what’s making this so hard for him.
“I don’t remember the accident at all,” he says, running his thumb over mine. “It’s my recovery I’ve been having flashes of. The pain. Waking up in the hospital. There was this fog around me. And a jagged void inside.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“I tried to put it behind me. Once I was well enough, I changed everything about my life. Rebuilt myself, from scratch. I thought…all I had to do was be careful, so nothing like what happened to me before would ever happen again.”
I put my other hand around his, wanting to reach him, but not sure how. “You built something great, Jude. Your body is healed now. You’re strong and talented, and everyone wants to work with you. You’re having a brilliant career. If that’s what came out of the accident, maybe it’s okay.”
He shakes his head, looking very sad. “There’s more I want to do,” he says, “but I still feel like I’m broken. I’m sorry about what I said in your trailer today. If I made you doubt yourself behind the camera, even for an instant, I’m not sure I’ll forgive myself.”
“That’s just another Thursday, Jude. You didn’t do it. I doubt myself without any help all the time.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Okay,” I laugh darkly. “I’ll just stop then. Look, I know what it feels like to be guided by crystal-clear intuition. But I can’t seem to get there anymore. I doubt the clothes I wear, the things I say. I’ve doubted every date, every relationship I’ve been in for years. I break up with people because I’m neversure. I thought, with my work onZombie Hospital, I was finally on this path toward what I wanted. But then you showed up. And…what if nothing is clear? What if I’ll never be as sure again as I was when I was ten years old and not even in my body? What if I lost something essential on reentry? What if my intuition is busted?”
Jude smiles sadly and scratches Walter Matthau’s ears. “I assure you, Fenny, it’s not.”
“When you’re on set,” I tell him, “you seem to know exactly what you want. I did okay today, but I also realized I’ll never be a great director until I know what I want.”
“For what it’s worth, behind the camera is theonlyplace I know what I want,” Jude says. “Everywhere else, I’m lost. I think you’re underestimating yourself. I think you know a lot more than you give yourself credit for.”
I squeeze his hand. “I didn’t know about your accident.”
“Because I never talk about it.”
“Maybe you should,” I say.
“I only told you tonight because you seemed so brave the night you told me what happened to you. I’ve spent years trying to pretend my accident didn’t happen. That I didn’t lose something irretrievable that day. But I realized recently that I did. Lose something. And that I want it back.”
Our knees are touching now, and there’s a pulsing energy between us, drawing us closer. I don’t want it to stop.
“And what is it you want?” I say, my voice soft.
He stares at me. We’re still holding hands when Jude’s other hand slides forward so that he’s gently holding my knee. He leans in. I must lean in, too, because suddenly his face is close to mine.
Just right there.
