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It must be a joke. This is—it’s impossible. In no world, no universe, could Cardan Greenbriar be standing in front of her, Jude Duarte, genuinely asking this.
Thick sheets of rain are pelting down outside, and Jude is here, standing in the shelter of her doorway, watching as Cardan Greenbriar, high school royalty, stands on her front porch and gets soaked with water. Listening as he says what should be the most impossible thing of all.
He hates her. She hates him. They’ve hated each other since they were little kids on the school playground, kicking and screaming and delighted at the idea of never growing old. She wishes, for just a moment, she could be back there again. That she wasn’t here, as the sun slowly rises above the horizon, hating Cardan as she always has, like she’s living her last breath, as he asks her, begs her to kiss him.
“Kiss me,” he says. “Kiss me until we’re sick. Kiss me until we’re drunk and foolish. Kiss me until we both know nothing but each other.”
This shouldn’t—this isn’t how it works. This is not what’s going on between them. It’s pure, visceral hate running like a thread between them, vibrating with shock every time one of them tugs at their end and makes this rivalry just that bit more terrible.
But she can’t deny what's been happening lately. The strange, instinctual pull of her heart towards him, his sharp features and his dark hair and his abrasive personality. It’s something beautiful. It’s something terrible. It’s something dangerous.
Jude doesn’t fall in love. She will not, has not since Locke played her like a fiddle and turned her into something else entirely. Something darker. Something harder. Someone with a heart of stone.
Someone who shouldn’t be feeling it crack because of Cardan Greenbriar, drenched and desperate, on her doorstep.
She steps outside. She shuts the door behind her.
Immediately, she is hit with an overwhelming coldness as she gets soaked by the rain. She’s in a vest and shorts, eyes bleary from sleep.
Up close, Cardan is even more beautiful. She knew he was beautiful. It’s impossible not to know that. But somehow, up close like this, there’s so much more there.
There’s faint freckles, dusting across his nose and scattering his eyelids. There’s a singular one, just above his top lip, that she is struck with the inexplicable urge to kiss.
She steps closer to him. She takes his hand in hers.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she says. “We hate each other.”
“We shouldn’t,” he affirms. “We hate each other.”
“And we want to kiss each other.”
“…And we want to kiss each other.”
This is never how it goes. Rivals don’t kiss. At least not in real life. But here they are, standing in the early morning light, with their breaths mingling and their lips almost brushing. Cardan is leaning his head slightly down, and Jude is slightly eased onto her tiptoes.
“If you want to stop, tell me to stop,” she says.
“Don’t stop,” he says. “Never—” A crack in his voice. “Never stop.”
Their lips touch. It takes one moment, two, to ease into it. But then, suddenly, it’s like—well, it’s not fireworks, and her life doesn’t change like she thought it would upon kissing him, her rival and the person she’s hated since before she knew what hate was.
It’s something soft. It’s something gentle. It shouldn’t be like this. It should be hard and fast, but, impossibly, this is what feels right. It feels like… peace. She feels at peace.
And she never wants to stop kissing him.
But they have to pull away from each other eventually, and when they do, her breath hitches in her throat and Cardan’s nose brushes against hers lightly.
“Thank you,” he says.
“Don’t thank me,” she tells him, crossing her arms and taking a step back. The door handle nudges against her back, and she blindly reaches for it, never taking her gaze off Cardan.
There’s this look in his eyes that she can’t quite place, but something in her tells her that he’s lingering for a reason. That maybe he doesn’t want to go home. Especially not today.
“Do you—” she starts. “Are you… okay? Do you want to… come inside?”
There’s another seemingly impossible thing. Jude Duarte, inviting Cardan Greenbriar into her home.
“That’s—no, I don’t want to intrude.” He goes to turn, but Jude catches his arm before he can completely.
“You won’t be intruding. Just—just don’t go home, okay?”
She may have hated Cardan her entire life, but that doesn’t change that she’s perceptive. It doesn’t change the bruises on his skin, hidden under his clothes, old and new.
“Okay,” he says.
Later, at midday, Vivi wanders down to the living room only to find the credits of a movie playing on the TV and, strangely, Jude and Cardan Greenbriar, asleep on the couch. His head is resting on her shoulder and her hand is resting over his.
Jude looks peaceful, the most peaceful Vivi has ever seen her look. It makes sense and doesn’t make sense that it would be with Cardan, of all people.
Maybe this will be a good thing.