super busy and won’t be able to see them as often and…” I trailed off, my stomach cramping.
“And how would that have gone for you?” he asked softly. “Be honest. Run it through in your mind. You wouldn’t be able to keep up that lie, because you have no way to actually stay in touch with them. Hell is a different realm, communication with Earth isn’t possible—no phones, no email, no internet. We can only visit through the hellgates, and even if you were able to travel with your physical body, the pretense wouldn’t work. Because how would you explain to your mother that you’ll show up out of the blue every now and then, no record of you flying into the country, no calling ahead to let her know you’re coming, and you can’t even stay for a night, not to mention longer?”
My eyes prickled hot, and an uncomfortable ache built in my chest.
“In a world of instant communication and global connection, you would be completely unreachable for weeks and months, something you could not explain away even if you told them you joined a Buddhist monastery in Nepal. Even monks have cell phones and email now. No matter where you said you moved to, they’d expect you to have an address they could at least send a birthday present to. You could provide them with none of that. And when they ask about your new life, you’d have to lie to them, every time, straight to their face, for the rest of their natural lives, while you’ll outlive them, never aging, never changing. Your entire existence would have to be wrapped in one lie upon the other, and over time, it would break you.”
My throat was tight and scratchy, the burn of tears all the more threatening after he so succinctly laid out how naive I’d been.
“You didn’t think it through,” he said ever so softly, “and I understand why. But I think deep down you’ve known that you wouldn’t be able to simply stroll back into the life of those you had to leave behind as if you’re visiting from some exciting new job that took you into a faraway land out of reach of modern communication.”
I furiously swiped at the damning tears spilling from my eyes.
He was crouching in front of me. I hadn’t even seen him get up and come over, but now he was right there, his large frame taking up so much space and air even though he was at eye level with me, his power coiling about him on a tight leash. Slowly, he reached out and wiped at my cheek.
I brushed his hand away, anger like corrosive acid in my veins.
He clenched his jaw. “This is not something I have any say over. I can’t make you have a solid, physical body to visit your loved ones with. I can’t make up a new existence for you to explain your sudden absence and being incommunicado. I don’t—” He seemed to chew on something unpleasant. “I don’t have the kind of power to change human reality.”
“You could have told me,” I ground out. “You could have explained this to me before we even came down here.”
“What difference would it have made? It wouldn’t have changed your decision.”
Because the alternative would have been to burn in Hell as a damned soul. But this wasn’t about whether it would have influenced my choice at all.
“I wouldn’t have clung to false hope!” My voice rose and wobbled precariously. A fresh sheen of tears threatened to cloud my vision. “All this time, I thought I could actually, truly visit my mom, talk to her, hug her, let her know I’m okay. And yes, maybe that was fucking naive of me, but I didn’t know better and I clung to that belief, and now that it’s gone—” I broke off, swallowing the sob that wanted to choke me. “False hope is the worst,” I continued in a small voice. “Because it hurts all the more when you realize you never had a chance.”
He didn’t say anything, just regarded me with tense, quiet focus, and I turned my head, unable to hold the silent lightning of his gaze. Curling my hands to fists in my lap, I tried to blink the annoying tears away. Every breath was a shuddering ache in my chest.
His energy hovered so close, his presence a tempting lure for the irrational, small part of me that, right now, craved connection and touch and some