Chapter 40: Pretending to Be Brave

Cora stared at Jamie, part of her still wondering if the whole thing might be a dream. It all seemed so surreal. Jamie at her door last night... The way he'd kissed her, how her body had responded... and then waking up this morning to flooding that might last for days and days.

"Shelter in place." That was the advice from the National Weather Service. Here she was back home in her apartment, and yet somehow still stranded on an island with Jamie. The only difference was that they could have this conversation in the daylight. She could see him, casually sitting on the arm of her sofa, pouring out his heart. How was it possible that someone as beautiful as the man before her had never been told how lovable he was?

She had woken up this morning with all her resolutions back in place. Last night would be the final farewell. The exclamation point on the end of a satisfying episode in her life. It didn't change anything, as good as it had been. She would explain to him how her love was not a prize he wanted.

But she couldn't send him away now. For one thing, she didn't have a rowboat to lend him. She had no idea what mischief the universe might be up to with this latest trick...

But besides that, she felt like she was seeing him for the first time since they met. The true Jamie. The real person behind all the references to book characters and impersonations of other people. She understood a small part of what made him how he was.

No one had ever loved him? How could that be true? The only explanation she could fathom was that he'd spent his whole life playing roles, blending into backgrounds, and never letting anyone close enough to see the true colors underneath.

And now he spoke to her of stabilizing hammocks, as if he hadn't just upended her whole universe with that revelation.

It occurred to her he might be onto something with the hammock metaphor. Not that she just "needed to find the right person." That was garbage. The clichéd advice recited to her by relatives at holidays when she told them she didn't have a boyfriend. It was a lie she'd told herself for years when it came to her sensory aversions: maybe she just needed to find the right person... maybe she'd get over it if she kissed the right frog.

No, there was no right person. The other person in the hammock had never been the problem. Not Steven. Not Jamie. Not anyone.

She wasn't a princess, and none of those people were frogs. The toxic toad in every relationship was Cora herself. The faux-Cora she insisted on being all the time. Forever pretending to be something she wasn't. Putting up with stimuli that set her teeth on edge, in an effort to make herself more likeable... or lovable.

She had done that with Steven from the moment they met. She'd never told him not to kiss her. She went through the motions and accommodated herself to him, telling herself that relationships were built on compromise. But all that compromise had poisoned it in the end. Every time she kissed him, she lost herself a little more, and loved him a little less. When they got engaged, she had to face the prospect of keeping up the act for the rest of her life.

No wonder she'd decided she would rather go through life alone.

Jamie had only known her for three weeks, but he already knew her more intimately than Steven ever had. Not because of anything Jamie had done, other than listening. Because she had dropped the act at last. She'd let down her disguise. He'd turned out the lights and coaxed her from her shell, and she'd shown him all the parts of herself that made her secretly ashamed.

Somehow he had loved her anyway. And for the first time in her life, she'd loved herself.

Jamie stood up from the couch and came toward her. He was shirtless to the waist with his jeans riding low on his hips, and the sight of him coming toward her made her cheeks heat up. Would he kiss her again? she wondered. Would she still like it if he did, or had the string snapped back the other way?

But he only slipped an arm around her waist, and pulled her into ballroom dance position. Then he started to sway from side to side.

"What are you doing?" she said into his shoulder.

"Dancing," he replied, "There's a reason all those novels have ballroom scenes, remember?"

She smiled sadly. "Isn't that usually at the beginning of the story?"

"Maybe this is the beginning of the story," he murmured in her ear.

She lifted her head to look at him. "I don't want to hurt you."

He brought his forehead close and looked into her eyes. She had the urge to hide her face. Pull the curtains and turn the lights back out. But she let him look. She let him see her. And Jamie had his eyes unshuttered, too.

Jamie broke the silence first. "All right. Truth or dare. I challenge you to a rematch."

Cora pursed her lips. "I thought we only played that game at nighttime."

"This is the daylight version," he told her seriously. "It's called Truth or Dare for brave people."

"Oh really?" She rolled her eyes. "If you see any brave people around here, please be sure to point them out because I'd love to meet them."

He let go of her long enough to clap a hand across his chest and stagger backward. "The savagery. My God."

Cora pulled him upright, laughing. "OK," she said. "How about, 'Truth or dare for cowards pretending to be brave.'"

"A bit of a mouthful, but very well. Would you like to hear the rules?"

"I'm listening."

"Simple," he replied. "No questions. No truth. Only dares."

Cora groaned. "Oh no. That sounds like a terrible idea."

But Jamie ignored her and plowed on. "Excellent! I'll go first." He stopped swaying and released her. She stood in front of him, supporting her weight on her own two feet. "I hereby dare you, Dr. Cora Glass, to let this be the beginning of the story."

"Jamie..." she tried to interrupt.

"No, let me finish. I can't promise if it will be a long story or a short one, a happy ending or a sad one. But I dare you to let it run its course. Don't abandon it after the first chapter."

Cora closed her eyes. She remembered how she had dared him once to jump off a cliff into the sea. It felt like he was daring her to do the same.

She didn't know what to tell him. She could think of a billion reasons why their relationship made no sense. Surely, it would founder and sink when faced with all the obstacles of real life.

She shook her head as a wave of sadness overtook her. "I can't, Jamie. I can't do it."

"Yes, you can. You're frightened, but I'll do it with you. We'll make each other brave."

He took her hand in his. "I'll be your weighted blanket, your deep pressure, your night vision. I'll be the ballast in your hammock. I can be all those things. I can be anything to anyone."

"But who are you for real?"

He drew her toward him and pressed her hand against his chest. "That's the question, isn't it. That might be the question that frightens me the most."

She looped her arms around his shoulders, and he resumed his swaying. "I can't see why," she said.

He shrugged. "Maybe that's the topic of our next chapter, if you'd care to turn the page. Who is the real Jamie Bowen? Dare me to find out."

"Go dare yourself."

He shook his head. "I can't. I'm only a coward learning to be brave. I need a strict schoolteacher to whip me into shape. Someone to look at me and see something worthy of encouragement."

He locked his arms around her waist and swept her in a circle that sent the whole world spinning. Then he gathered her, safe and sound, against his chest again. "Come on," he said gently. "I dare you."

What choice did Cora have? She used to think life consisted of nothing but choices and consequences, but she was wrong. She had no choice. She would never know a moment's peace if she tried to shut him out. She'd only go back to him again and again, whether in real life or her dreams, until the story had an ending.

"I dare you," he prompted one more time. "If you refuse, you lose the game."

She went up on her tiptoes and touched the tip of his nose with her own. "If I refuse, you lose the game."

"We both do. What a pity."

He hit her with his little-lost-boy look, and Cora knew her answer. She was incapable of saying no to him when he looked at her that way. "Fine," she said at last, as the sunlight hit the water outside her window and filled her living room ceiling with ripples of refracted light. "I accept your dare on one condition."

The light hit Jamie's face, and he broke into a boyish grin. "No kissing? I wouldn't dream of it." He put his hand across his heart. "You have my word as a non-gentleman."

Cora bit her lip, suppressing a small smile of her own. "Occasional kissing permitted."

"Is that so?" One of his eyebrows quirked upward.

"But that's not my one condition," she went on quickly before that eyebrow could distract her. "The condition is, you stop telling me you're not a gentleman all the time. I never want to hear that lie again."

Now he had both eyebrows raised together. "Am I still allowed to think it?"

She shook her head. "No," she said. "Because it isn't true."

***

Jamie's adam's apple bobbed. He felt the old fear welling up inside his chest. She dared him to discover what he really was. But what if he looked inward and found nothing?

For so long now, he had sensed that his whole being was an empty space. A vacuum or a hollow hole in need of filling. But she'd already proven that wrong. There had to be something there inside of him. Some substance. He knew it must be there because it burned. She'd held a candle to it and it caught, and now every time she looked at him, it stoked the flame.

The little lights in her eyes sparkled and danced in the sunlight as they swayed, all different colors at once. It brought back to him a long-forgotten image from when he was quite young—too young to have a say in how he spent his Sundays—and he used to sit daydreaming in church, listening to hymns. For the life of him, he couldn't remember the name or face of anyone who sat around him. But he remembered how the light would stream in through a stained glass window and bring all the dancing colors into his dreary life.

That was what he saw when he looked into Cora's eyes. The same quality of light. The kind of light that gave a man hope for no good reason. The kind of beauty that made him look upward and believe there might still be salvation for him yet.

Tears pricked his eyes, but he didn't dare get emotional in front of her again. Not yet. He swiped away the water with the back of his hand before she noticed.

She went up on her tiptoes and kissed him gently on the lips.

"Don't be afraid," she said. "We'll make each other brave."

He held her tight and pressed his face into her hair.

"I love you," he whispered hoarsely once he trusted himself to speak. "I really do, Cora."

She pulled away to look at him, assessing him with her stern schoolteacher eyes. "I believe you this time," she said at last. "How's that for turning a new page?"

Then she laughed her tinkling laughter and wrapped her arms around his neck. "I love you too, Jamie."

He closed his eyes and soaked it in, savoring the sound. And the embers glowed inside him, brighter than they ever had before.

The End

Dear Readers:
That's the end for now! I'll be back shortly with a longer author's note and perhaps some other goodies... (Do you want to read more about Cora and Jamie? Bonus chapters? Sequel?)

Most of all, I'd love to hear how you felt about the ending and the story in general. Please let me know in the comments!

I also want to say a huge resounding THANK YOU to everyone who supported this story and fell in love with these characters along with me. Your comments and votes mean everything, and this book only exists thanks to you.
Much love to you all! ❤️❤️❤️

- Viv (@adam_and_jane)