“No,” she says. “When he called to apologize I was still sort of cut up and hadn’t been able to make sense of what I wanted. Or maybe I had but I’m not ready to tell Jasper yet. He wouldn’t—I don’t think he’d get it.”
“You’d be surprised,” I say, remembering what he said to me yesterday, about wanting more freedom.
“All Jasper’s life he’s known what his future holds. He’s never really had to think about what that means for his life and his ability to choose his own path. Until you showed up.”
“Hey-o.”
“You really shook his tree, I hope you know that,” she says, making my mind race with questions.
What was she privy to during the last six months that I wasn’t? What insight does she have into Jasper and his struggle coming to terms with our connection? Even though everything has worked out for the best, I’m still curious to know.
“So I don’t begrudge him,” she continues. “Because he doesn’t know any better. I just hope one day he’ll understand.” She side-eyes me knowingly. “I think you’ll help him on that front.”
I turn around so we’re shoulder to shoulder. “Yeah, maybe.”
We stand like that for a good minute, not saying anything. It occurs to me that as my destiny seems to be pulling me further into the pack and the pack’s business, Aisha is moving away. Does being with Jasper mean accepting the distance growing between me and the people I care about? Does it mean compromising what I believe?
If that is that case, I don’t want it to. And I decide then and there that I won’t let it. Whatever my future with Jasper looks like, I won’t accept sacrificing the things and the people that mean the most to me—not in service of a pack who accepts people like Clayton and turns away people like Aisha and Troy. I just hope Jasper can understand that.
“You want Froyo?” Aisha says all of a sudden, pushing off the barrier and continuing to walk north.
“Um, always.”
Jasper calls me the Sunday after he’s gone back to college and I’ve gone back to school. The first week crawled at a painfully glacial pace. My teachers struggled to hold my attention. And while I had hoped we’d talk a little more often, Jasper has been weighed down with a backlog of essays and assignments, ones he’s been neglecting because of the situation with the bordering packs.
I happen to be on my way to my spot in the woods when he calls.
“Hey,” he says, his face large and gorgeous on my phone screen. “I’ve missed you.”
“Ohhrr, I’ve missed you too,” I say, a teasing hint in my voice.
“So I was thinking—”
“Uh-oh!”
“Shut up, I was thinking we could try mind-linking, if you feel up for it?”
I reach my spot and plonk down on the rock where I usually sit, dropping my sketchbook beside me on a mossy patch of ground. The stream is full and rushing by at a speedy pace, the spring air is fresh but warm, the afternoon sun is midway toward the horizon and shining warmly on my skin. Much like the trees and flowers coming back into bloom, I feel like I’m being reborn, my leaves sprouting, energy replenished.
“Yeah,” I say. “Definitely up for it.”
“Okay,” Jasper says. “You ready?”
“Ready.”
Jasper places his phone farther in front of him, probably leaning it on a pile of textbooks or the edge of his desk, and I notice he’s already sitting on the floor, a plump cushion beneath him. He’s ready to go. He closes his eyes first, palms facing upward on either knee, so I pull my feet up under me and try to get comfortable on my rock. I close my eyes, relax the walls of my mind, and reach out with my consciousness.
Part of me is scared of another stabbing pain, so I take things slowly this time, hoping I can head off any unwanted howling before it becomes too much to take.
I swim in a dark void as fizzing red streams of consciousness take shape around me. I pull them toward me in my mind and from all directions they come, looming closer, growing larger and more vivacious.
Up ahead I notice one that’s brighter than the others. Could that be?Jasper.I feel his essence like I know his scent. I lock onto the light of his life strand and move toward it.
His presence is like warmth, a hot bath, or my favorite sweater, enveloping me as I move toward it. It expands and spreads until I’m surrounded, bathing in his heat and light.
Jasper?I call out with my mind.Can you hear me?
Could this be it? Are we on the precipice of mind-linking?
