He immediately forces himself to turn his head away.
I remember our kisses perfectly, first shy ones stolen in the school locker room and then the long passionate make-out sessions, all that slow teasing and nibbling and playing with lips and tongues, the closeness and the savoring of being near each other. I loved it.
Is that going to come back?
Bay unlocks the car remotely and settles me into the front passenger seat with such effortless strength that it feels asthough I weigh nothing at all, and for a moment I almost wish the parking lot were more spacious.
He does not say a word, simply walks around the vehicle and gets in on the driver’s side. His face carries a particular tightness, as if he is holding back a comment and wrestling with himself not to let it slip.
For a while we drive in silence, although I am certain he can hear my racing heartbeat just as clearly as I can hear his.
"I miss your touch," slips out of me before I even have time to think, and I probably should not say it, but I just cannot control myself.
Bay’s fingers tighten slightly around the steering wheel, he does not look at me, and instead he says out of nowhere, completely ignoring my words,
"It isn’t fair that you’re the only one undergoing this desensitization process, don’t you think that if I take part in it too then maybe…"
Before he can finish, I cut him off. "It’s my genetic code that was altered during birth, that’s what Blue thinks. It isn’t you who needs to be fixed."
"It still doesn’t seem fair that you’re the one suffering through all of this."
Our eyes meet. The care and protectiveness in his gaze feel like a soft, warm compress pressed to my pain, Bay sees me, he recognizes my sacrifice.
"I appreciate what you’re saying, Bay. Thank you. But my life in this world is in a way borrowed. I have to catch up with the rest of humanity a little."
"It’s so depressing that your body has to go through all of this adjustment now. You’re torturing yourself…"
I sigh. "If what your dad once told me is true, then this body isn’t even my original body."
Bay shoots me a quick look. "What exactly do you mean?"
"Your dad believes you split your soul when you were born, giving me half of it. So my original body is actually… yours."
A faint expression of surprise crosses Bay’s face, maybe even a slightly embarrassed smile.
"Seriously, you believe what my dad says?"
"Lately it feels like it makes sense."
"You know, I thought about this for such a long time… and only recently I found out that my brother Snow has a similar case with his fated mate."
"What do you mean?"
"His fated is living with us now. He isn’t his True Mate in the classical sense, but a Twin Soul. They aren’t one torn soul split apart and reunited, but two souls that naturally divide, like twins."
I stare at him, curious.
"Dad truly believes your body originally held another soul, my Twin Soul, but it left. He thinks I somehow placed half of my own soul in your body instead. Almost like I created my own True Mate in the process, which is kind of strange. That part is something I still don’t understand."
I blink slowly, and mutters, "When he first told me, I thought it was just… you know, the hazy memories of someone who has just survived an accident, but so many things match this theory."
We drive for a while in silence. I close my eyes as I’m incredibly aware of his physical presence next to me, his massive, muscular body, and I want to be closer, so I reach out and lay my hand gently on his forearm. Strange, the feeling seems to be even more pronounced than before, when we dated in high school. I sense him more clearly now, for a reason I don’t understand.
"I believe that you are me and I am you," I whisper. "My body was disturbed by my death, but Blue is bringingmy original state back. I think I sense you more than before. Everything is clearing up. I was living in a kind of haze and our Bond couldn’t start forming, but I feel like that’s changing. I truly believe we’re two halves of the same soul, Bay. And only because I ended up in the wrong body, there is this… desynchronization."
That is exactly when we pull into the driveway in front of my house, or maybe I should say our house, because Bay is still co-owner and I’m still his husband, neither of us ever filed for divorce.
We sit like this for a moment, almost like we’re back in high school, before we ever touched each other, just those subtle glances and that quiet excitement. I can feel it again, that buzzing hope for the future I carried through the first two years of high school, and now… it’s waking up.
