Covet

| Mathematics

We sat in silence until the sun dipped below the boundary of the horizon. The shifting coolness within the air helped stave off the sudden drop of my head drop as my eyes threatened to close. Then, when a gust of wind blew the first specks of rain onto our faces, we abandoned the bluff and retreated inside.

I lay on the bed as Paul rested in the armchair by the double- doors. Shadows stole their place over his face, no longer illuminated by the moon. The breaking waves echoed and rolled into the house through an open window. The house had stayed the same since my arrival, with only fresh bedding and towels from home. What would Lucille think of us now? Me, being with Paul, in her house, and all his wild conversations?

"Are you a believer, Dana? Do you believe me that there's life after death?"

"I'm not sure. But you believe it?" I asked. My mind wandered to those god-fearing televangelists who would condone the idea, and then those reality medium shows where everyone gets to speak to their dead relatives—first time, every time. It was ludicrous.

"Yes," he said, with the simple confidence of someone who had accepted such things without further question. "Nature changes what we are but we never really leave."

"It's a nice thought." And I meant the notion, not the reality itself. To imagine a spirit world where the dead had a front-row seat to all your indiscretions was nothing short of mortifying. But it would be nice to think my parents were around in whatever capacity the laws of nature might let them. It would always be clear that entertaining ideas of the supernatural would always take work from me.

"Thunder and solar eclipses used to be considered supernatural. It's only a label until scientists prove it with their biased rulebook. Once they do, it just becomes nature. What if there was a different rulebook?"

"What are you saying? The supernatural is nature's way?"

"Science, like math, is the human invention of imaginary numbers to explain everything. So how can they create a rulebook when they've never played the entire game?

Up until recently, you thought mind reading and Wattpad werewolves where an impossibility."

Paul was near-on impossible to understand, but he had me there. It was worse because his analogies made complete sense, and yet, everything still seemed like a smokescreen for something else. I had answers but the instinct Paul wanted me to tap into said I did not have them all.

My eyes bounced to the clock on the wall and then to Paul. "What else aren't you telling me?"
"I'm trying to put ideas to you without influence. This new knowledge must be learned on your terms."

My eyes rolled.

"Now that,"—he pointed at my face — "is the hurdle I'm up against. When you open your mind to all possibilities, this becomes so much easier. You need to prepare yourself for Lucille. Here, I'll show you another way."

Paul stood, cut across the room, joining me on the bed. He traced my freckles with a single finger down the stretch of my neck, gliding across my collarbone. His touch was painstakingly slow, but his wavering restraint as he bit his lip built tension with my heartbeat. The atmosphere became charged. There was a sense that something was about to happen.

"Look at me," he said, his voice soft with no sharp edges. But I couldn't because his mouth drew me in, and I couldn't do that without thinking about what it would be like to kiss him again for the hundredth time. The wall that kept him out and the butterflies in was fast crumpling, and it annoyed me he could make that happen so quickly.

He smiled before I'd even finished the thought. For the first time, a kiss didn't take us by surprise. Planned, intentional, and with my lips wet and slightly parted, he leaned down and claimed my mouth in a soft lingering moment. I became lost. For the glorious minutes it lasted, I would have given him everything—believe anything he said.