It used to be. And I’m suddenly sixteen again, and the answer he asked of me a few weeks ago hits me like a wrecking ball.Did we lie like this? Or were you on top of me?
Didn’t answer him then. I answer him now, in my head, as I curl up on the couch and screw my eyes shut.
On top of you, Jackie. You were my favourite pillow. My crash pad. My safe place to fall. It’s the honour of my life to be yours now.
An honour that cleaves me apart.
So I force it from my mind and go back to thinking about all the things I shouldn’t be thinking about. All the versions of Jack that aren’t mine to keep.
The way his voice drops deeper when he wants something. His solid weight pinning me down, hand over my mouth to stop metalkingwhen all he wants is to feel. The heat in his eyes when he sees I’m undone—when he knowshe did that to me. When he comes and he’s loud, and I want to be too.
Ineedto be.
Gods, it’s only a matter of time before Mal hears us. If he hasn’t already. If he hasn’t noticed Jack standing a fraction too close to me at any given moment, my emotional regulation dropping through the floor, or the charged silence where easy noise used to be. If he hasn’t clockedsexlike the bloodhound he is.
That’s going to be a fun conversation—an inevitable conversation. Mal doesn’t do diplomacy and even thinking about it has me smothering my face with a couch cushion.
I fall asleep like that, curled in on myself and bracing for impact. A soul-sucking void, until a hand on my shoulder, strong and urgent, shakes me awake sometime later.
“Sol.”
I come to with a gasp, almost tumbling from the couch.
In the dark, Mal catches me, and even this sleep-addled, I see the grim stress lining his face.
Jack.
I make a clumsy attempt to surge to my feet.
Mal’s grip stays me. “Are you awake?”
“Jack—”
“He’s fine. But I need you to wake him up for me.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
Mal swallows hard, muted fear building in his gaze. “Orion and the others—they lost contact. I need togo, do you understand?”
“Go where?”
“Don’t worry about that. I just need you to help me tell Jack, and Sol, I need you to do it now.”
Mal shakes me for good measure. And it works. What he’s saying finds purchase and I nod, letting him know I understand all the things a civilian isn’t supposed to understand. That I can be what he needs in this moment—a solid wall of safety for him and for Jack as they weather this storm.
He lets me go.
I roll to my feet and pad barefoot to Jack’s open door. He’s still sleeping soundly. Peacefully. Waking him up feels like a sin against the gods, but it has to be me, and I’m grateful Mal woke me first.
There’s a red lamp by Jack’s bed. He hasn’t needed it much since Mal came home and his world began to make more sense. But waking him from a deep sleep is always dangerous. So I flick it on, sink to a crouch, and lay my hands on my best friend.
“Jack? Wake up, love. We need you.”
17JACK
Mal is gone within minutes of Sol waking me up. But not without gripping my face and begging me to watch over Skylar for however long we lose him to the past.
He leaves his phone behind. And a mile-wide vacuum. It’s hard to fathom we ever lived here without him. Ican’tfathom it, any more than I can wrap my brittle brain around the fact that he’ll be halfway to another continent before Skylar makes it home from work.