Courageous: Afterlife Book Four (17 page)

It
was
terrifying, but I knew I would never be completely alone, I thought one day as I Abhik showed me some new tricks on the clouds that he had learned. I knew he would always be there for me. I smiled at him as he fell through the cloud and tumbled onto the next one. "That wasn't it!" he yelled. He stuck his head out of the soft cloud. "I know I can do it," he said with a grin. "I just need a little more speed."

I smiled and waved while resting on my own cloud above the castle. A giant rainbow towered next to me like a huge mountain. But what about Abhik's own life? It suddenly struck me. I turned and looked at him while he stumbled and fell again trying to impress me. There would come a time when he needed to focus on his own life. Maybe that time was closer than I thought? He had been dating Mai for quite some time now. One day they might want to start a family of their own? Then what?

Abhik climbed the cloud again, and then floated into the air. He took a running leap then jumped the cloud again and this time managed to do a handstand while surfing it. I waved and laughed while he screamed proudly at his accomplishment. It was important that I didn't get in the way of his happiness I realized at that second. I waved again. Then I touched my stomach gently, caressing it.

"I guess it's going to be just you and me for eternity," I said.

Maybe that wasn't so bad after all.

"Did you see it?" Abhik asked as he approached me.

"I did," I said, nodding. "You're getting very good at acrobatics. I guess you'll have to teach me when the baby is born."

We both paused and looked at each other knowing that this could be our last time doing this, hanging out like this. None of us knew what it was going to be like once the baby was here, but both of us knew that nothing would ever be the same.

I was approaching my due date when one evening I went for a float at the cliffs by the ocean. I enjoyed immensely being able to come and go as I pleased, and do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it and never having to be accountable to Mick, or fearing that he was going to be in a bad mood. There were no reproaches, no blame, no shame, no right nor wrong, no hurt feelings and no jealousy. It was just me and my unborn baby. So this night I went to smell the ocean breeze and watch the moon rise. The ocean was extremely calm on this beautiful clear night and the stars shone like small suns above my head. I thought about my honeymoon with Mick chasing stars and seeing them be born or die in supernovas. Except for the catastrophic ending I had quite enjoyed the trip. It was one of those memories of Mick that I wanted to preserve. I wanted to remember him for the good things, the romantic gestures. I could never forget all the other stuff, but I didn't want to think about them. They made me too sad, too hurt.

The moon peeked up above the horizon now. It was huge this night and I felt so close to it, like I could reach out and touch it. After being lost in space I had no desire to go out there again, though. That was a done chapter in my life. I wasn't going back.

I felt the baby kicking and chuckled. It was getting stronger and stronger by the day, I thought. I was looking more and more forward to seeing his or her face, to look into his or her eyes. I was also looking very much forward to once again having my body for myself.

"Beautiful, huh?"

The voice coming from behind me startled me and I turned with a gasp. Jason's deep brown eyes stared back at me. He smiled boyishly.

"Thought I might find you down here," he said.

"It is my favorite spot," I said.

"With fear of sounding creepy, I’ve been coming here a lot lately, hoping to find you here again, like I did the last time."

"It's not
that
creepy."

"But a little?"

I shook my head while smiling. "Not at all. It's actually very sweet."

"Phew. I was going for sweet, but you never know, right?" he said and moved closer.

I looked at his beautiful face. I always felt so calm being near him, so at peace. Like everything just made sense. How I had missed being close to him. All those times coming to visit him on Earth not being able to touch him again. Now I finally could, now I was finally close to him, talking to him yet I felt such guilt. Towards who? I asked myself. Mick? The baby? Was it just that since everything concerning Jason had been connected with such shame and guilt that I couldn't shake it even now when I wasn't even with Mick anymore? I reached out my hand and touched his cheek gently. I felt a chill run over my body. A nice chill. I removed my hand again.

"Don't," he said. "It felt nice."

I shook my head slowly while our eyes locked. Then I lifted my hand again and touched his cheek. I breathed heavily.

He grabbed my wrist. "You know what? I have an idea," he said his eyes sparkling in excitement and anticipation.

I smiled. "Now what?"

He pulled my hand towards the ocean. "Come. I want to show you something. It's truly amazing. You have to see it."

"If you say so," I said and let him guide me out over the cliff and towards the water. When we came close to the ocean, he grabbed my waist and like a torpedo we shot through the surface deep into the dark ocean.

C
HAPTER 32

I
CLOSED MY
eyes when we went through the surface. Now the water surrounded us as we shot further into it. I opened my eyes and stared into the deep darkness. My stomach flinched and I felt a little frightened. Where was he taking me? I had been swimming in the ocean before and that felt amazing, and only once had I been under the surface when Mick jokingly pulled me under and I felt like I was suffocating. Now I knew I didn't have to breathe but still the claustrophobic feeling overwhelmed me as we shot further and further down in the complete darkness of the ocean. I felt Jason's arm around my waist and sensed he was holding on to me tightly, not wanting to let go. It felt nice even if it was a scary situation. I hoped he knew what he was doing. Part of me feared that we wouldn't be able to find our way back to the castle. My heart beat faster and faster. The darkness surrounding us reminded me of the many hours I spent alone in the black hole. I put my hands on Jason's to make sure he didn't let go. Was it possible to get stuck down here like I had been stuck in the darkness of the black hole? Could we get lost and never find our way back? I fought my rising sense of panic. Jason's strong arms held me tight as I spotted something in the distance. It was light. Light ahead of us? How could that be? Was it moving? Were the lights moving?

Jason brought us closer to the lights that soon looked like stars in the sky, only they were moving fast, leaving long lines of light in the water. What were those?

We came closer and little by little the light became brighter, soon I could see Jason's gentle face above me and the coral reef in front of us. We reached the bottom and I looked around. Fish in so many colors and shapes, reef and all around us these small glowing fish that lit up the entire area so we could watch it, and watch each other.

"This is the best part," Jason said.

I looked at him startled. He talked under water? Jason laughed and nodded. "I know. It's weird, right. But we can actually talk under water. I discovered it by coincidence one day when I went for a swim. Next time I went in I dove down here and saw all of this."

I stared at him in disbelief. "Try it," he said. "Say something."

I wasn't sure. It felt so wrong, I thought. Then I opened my lips and spoke. "Like this?" I said. I gasped, and then I laughed. My mouth was filled with water, but it didn't matter. We had no lungs, no heart, and no internal organs like the human body. It felt like we did. I often told myself I felt my heart beating or my pulse pumping, but it was just something I thought I did. It was like phantom limbs, I had been told. The brain still believed that we had our human body and therefore we had sensations from the organs that didn't exist anymore. It took years to stop thinking of your body as human as we had been used to all of our lives.

I laughed again feeling the tickling sensation of the water entering my body and mixing with my fluid body.

"Now see this," Jason said. He took in a huge amount of water, and then spurted it out so fast it caused his body to spin really fast.

It looked amazing. When he was done he swam to me looking dizzy. "Now you try," he said.

I opened my mouth and took in loads of water. Then with all my strength I spurted it out and started spinning. It felt wonderful and I had to laugh out loud. I spun and spun until I was so dizzy I hardly knew what was up or down. A flock of pink jellyfish was above my head and caused me to stumble in the water. Jason reached out and grabbed me. I laughed and laughed like I hadn't done in a very long time. It felt so good to finally just be happy, to finally let go. It was like my entire body was bubbling with joy. Jason laughed too while holding me. I stared at the jellyfish above us. They were pulsating as they moved slowly across the ocean. Then a stream of small blue fish darted across in the other direction. It was all so alive, so bubbly. Kind of reminded me of being in outer space except this was more intense. There were animals and life all over the place. Plants vibrated and waved in the water, fish, seahorses, clams it was all moving like it was dancing in the waves of the ocean. It was breathtaking.

"What are those?" I asked and pointed at the different types of glowing fish that was both above and beneath us.

"Fluorescent fish. There are a ton of them. All kinds of shapes and colors. They only live in the deep sea. We are in deeper than any human has ever gone."

"It's incredible. Look at that one with the sharp teeth. It looks like it has a nightlight on his head," I said laughing.

"It might need it for a little night reading," Jason said. "What about that one." He pointed at a jellyfish close to us with bright fluorescent green tentacles. "I read in a book from the library that the red fluorescence in the middle of it comes from algae it eats."

"Wow," I said and stared into the deep water with all its life, colors and light. Who would have known, I thought. That there could be this much life and light this deep down?

Jason laughed and grabbed my waist. "I told you it was awesome," he said grinning.

We spun in the water and suddenly we were face to face. He closed his eyes with a sigh. Then he leaned forward and put his lips on mine. The kiss was warm and soft.

After spending hours and hours under water we finally found our way back to the cliffs in front of the castle. We played in the waves on our way back and jumped light and freely like dolphins, laughing, playing, enjoying.

We sat at the cliffs shaking the rest of the water from our bodies. Jason grabbed my hand and kissed it gently. A feeling of guilt made me pull it away.

"I'm sorry if I am moving too fast," he said. "I know you're recovering from a broken heart. It's just ..." He lifted his head till his eyes met mine. "It's just that I can't stay away from you. I think about you constantly. Day and night. I wonder where you are, if you're okay, what you're doing. I’ve been fighting it for so long and I'm not sure I can fight it anymore. It's eating me up. It's like ... It's like ..." He moaned. "I know it's going to sound phony, but it's like I need you. Like I can't live without you any longer. My whole entire being craves and demands to be with you. If you tell me you don't feel the same way, then I'll leave right away and let you go. It will be with a crushed heart, but I will do it anyway. But, Meghan. If you feel the connection as strong as I do, if you feel just slightly the same way that I do, then ... well then I really think we should give in to it."

Jason looked at me like he was expecting me to rip his heart out and crush it right there on the spot. If he had only known how long I had longed for him to speak words like those to me. If he only knew.

"See there it is again," he said. "I'm scaring you when I talk like this, don't I? Why do I insist on coming on so desperate?"

I chuckled. "No. No. It's just... Well I can't explain it to you."

I thought for a second about Mick and how he had kept everything a secret, everything about my life. But I also knew I couldn't tell him the truth. It was something he was going to figure out later. The Academy was a journey and I wasn't going to ruin it. "It's nothing," I said. Then I grabbed his hand and held it in mine. "I do feel the connection," I said. I lifted my eyes and met his. "I feel it very strongly. And I am attracted to you. Immensely. But I am also about to give birth to a child belonging to another man and I have no idea what the future holds for me, how it's going to be like to be alone with a child."

Jason smiled. "Does anyone really know what the future holds?"

"I guess not," I answered.

"Then let's face it together."

Jason grabbed my neck and pulled me close to him. Then he kissed me again. That was when I decided to finally let go. To just give in and let my love for him flourish again. I let go of my fear of rejection, the fear of repeating my mistakes, the fear of getting it all wrong once again.

We kissed for a long time not wanting to stop, not wanting to let go of each other again. Soon it was like it had been back in the beginning when it had all started.

C
HAPTER 33

W
E KEPT IT
a secret the next few weeks. We met secretly at the cliffs at night and went into the deep ocean to watch the fish, or we met in my chambers and talked for hours and just enjoyed being together when we weren't stealing kisses in the corridors when no one was looking.

During the day Jason was in school and had to focus on his classes while I was busy preparing for the arrival of the baby. I was getting tired now and my body was weighed down by the extra weight. It made it more and more difficult to fly and slowed me down considerably when I did. It was only normal, Raphael told me one day when I went to my weekly check-ups. He had taken it upon himself to deliver this baby with me. It wasn't something he usually did, but since he knew me and felt like he was somehow part of my story he had promised me he would be there and help me on the day of the birth. He also did my check-ups and told me that everything was perfect and the baby a healthy spirit that weighed about eighteen to nineteen grams, about two-thirds of an ounce now and thereby almost doubling my weight.