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The first time, they hate each other. Ren is hypocritical and insufferable, judging Jonas for smoking and then devouring two whole “magic cupcakes” that make him incapacitated for hours at a time. He pushes himself on Nona when it’s clear that she’s tentative at best about their new relationship, and his plan to get off the island is impulsive and, frankly, a bit frightening when it comes off of Ren’s lips.
The first time, Alex takes Ren because he’s her best friend. Jonas is left alone with Nona, who is sweet, but won’t shut up about Ren. She hopes he won’t die; she hopes that she has the chance to tell him how she really feels about him; she hopes she hasn’t screwed things up. He’s blonde and beautiful, with the brightest laughter she’s ever heard and something dark coils in Jonas’s chest. He’s not funny, but she laughs at his jokes anyway.
All Jonas seems to want to do is punch him so hard he bleeds.
But Ren’s plan works and when he beams, giddy and bright at his accomplishment, Jonas feels a little less like murdering him.
“When I was younger, I could remember anything,” Ren says with a voice like his tongue is stuck to the back of his throat, “whether it had happened or not. But soon I shall be so I cannot remember any… but the things that never happened.” He turns to Jonas, who he really should not be asking to interpret the cryptic words of a dead scholar. Jonas has never been the smartest kid in the classroom, after all.
“Yeah, I—I don’t know,” Jonas tells him with a limp shrug.
*
Alex slaps Ren when he lies about liking Nona, but spares Ren the heartache of knowing that Nona doesn’t want a relationship. They wander into the cave and when Ren pulls out the brownie, Jonas almost takes it from him and splits it between himself and Alex, who he has a feeling are really going to need it.
Instead, he watches as Ren pops the whole thing into his mouth and zones out in the entryway of the cave.
This time, they rescue Ren first. Because Ren is Alex’s best friend and Jonas sort of likes him, too, even if he is an idiot who probably won’t make it through the night.
This time, Jonas grits his teeth and bites his tongue at Ren’s plan and feels a stirring of… something in his stomach when Alex takes Nona instead, leaving Ren and Jonas alone in the watchtower. They’re silent for most of it, other than a question or two about how the other is doing, what they think is going to happen, how Jonas likes his new step sister.
It’s small talk and it’s the kind of tedious that always makes Jonas grit his teeth and dig his nails into his arm. He wants to ask Ren about what he thinks happens to them after they die, if they, too, are going to be trapped like flies in the static. He wants to ask him if he thinks true love exists, or whether he has any chance of being with Nona when romance is the most fleeting of all love. He wants to know what Ren’s skeleton looks like with galaxies swirling around it, because Ren’s mind fascinates him.
He’s so much smarter than Jonas, and it’s obvious that he thinks much more deeply than he lets on.
But Jonas can’t ask those questions because he doesn’t know Ren and they’re still angry at each other anyway. Jonas doubts that they’ll ever really be friends.
*
“Do you believe in fate?”
It’s whispered in the early morning when the midnight sky is fading into dawn and painting the island in a sleepy grey haze. Most of the world is asleep now, dreaming soft dreams about the impossible and Jonas envies them.
Jonas barely registers the question at first, too busy bemoaning the ache in his bones and the adrenaline racing through his blood that won’t allow his eyes to rest. It isn’t until he looks over and finds Ren staring intensely at him that Jonas realizes he’s been asked a question.
“What? Fate?”
“No, I mean—it’s stupid, I guess,” Ren says, and Jonas can tell by the way he draws in a deep breath that he’s preparing for a long ramble. “But do you ever feel like something was meant to happen or like you’re supposed to meet someone or… or like you were chosen for this? Like there’s some greater purpose?”
Jonas is silent for a long moment, unsure of how to respond to that. The… ghosts – God, it feels weird believing that when Jonas has spent his entire life being pessimistically realistic about everything – said that they’re testing them, training them for something as if they (or at least Alex) had been hand-picked. Or maybe they lived in an apathetic universe where things just happened and there was no pre-determined path at all.
“I don’t know,” Jonas admits at last. “Before I would have said no, but after tonight, I don’t know anymore.”
“You think this is fate? You coming on this trip? It can’t just be a coincidence that the first time you meet Alex – or any of us, for that matter – this happens.”
“Are you blaming me for this?” Jonas doesn’t think Ren is accusing him of anything, but he bristles nevertheless.
“No. No, I’m just saying that maybe you’re here for a reason.”
Maybe we met for a reason, Jonas thinks and by the way Ren is blinking at him with pink cheeks and thumbing nervously over his own knuckles, Jonas can tell that Ren is thinking it, too.
Jonas’s heart jolts the way it did when he and Alex found him in the forest. In the back of Jonas’s mind, Ren’s eyes are glowing red and all Jonas can taste is his blood in his mouth and the metallic tang of the radio static in his teeth.
He remembers thinking that he can’t watch Ren die. He just—he can’t. Not in this timeline or any other. Ren is dangling limp in the air like a puppet on a string, screaming out in pain and anger at whatever gods put them in this situation. There are tears in Jonas’s eyes as Alex turns the dials on her radio, and he isn’t sure whether it’s because he fears Ren’s death or his own.
He told Alex to just leave him, but he didn’t mean it. He didn’t mean any of it.
Jonas tastes bile when he reminds himself that Ren likes Nona and very much dislikes Jonas. He has since Jonas stepped foot on the ferry that night, fresh out of jail and reeking of the cigarette smoke that he has tried and failed to quit, even after his mother died of cancer. Jonas is judgmental and stupid and delinquent, everything that Ren isn’t.
God, what was wrong with him?
He and Ren have barely exchanged a kind word all night and here he was, talking about fate and soulmates and thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be such a nightmare if they kissed. Soft and slow with Jonas’s fingers in Ren’s hair and Ren’s hand on Jonas’s hips—
It’s the ghosts. They’re definitely messing with his head.
“Maybe. But I think fate is more terrifying than coincidence, because it’s like everything has already been determined for you. I like to believe that we can change things if we really want to.”
“You don’t think it’s comforting to know that everything will work itself out?”
“Or it won’t and we won’t have control over it either way.”
Ren watches him with eyes that make Jonas’s heart ache. A small, hesitant smile appears on Ren’s lips and it’s soft and scared and Jonas would do almost anything to make Ren forget this nightmare. To allow him to relax and smile the way he did when they first met, his hand firm and warm around Jonas’s own.
“I’m never watching horror movies ever again. I’m ruined,” Ren says, forcing amusement into his voice. He shakes his head, hysterical disbelief playing on his features. “I really hope we don’t die here.”
“We won’t,” Jonas assures him, his voice quiet so as not to disturb the universe. He places his hand over Ren’s and hopes that he finds some degree of comfort in it. “I’ll be okay.”
“I mean,” Ren continues like Jonas hadn’t said anything, “I haven’t even done that much with my life. He locks eyes with Jonas, and Jonas can’t help but flinch back at the raw vulnerability he finds in their depths. “Do you ever… I don’t know, get anxious? When you think about how you’re not living your best life? All I’ve really done is go to school and eat and sleep and do homework, and after that I’ll get a job that I probably hate and work for the rest of my life. Maybe I’ll marry and have kids, and then I’ll die. I’m so terrified of sleepwalking through life and now I’ll never even get the chance—”
Jonas’s bran starts to go haywire, static and radio waves burning his nerves and sending visions of Ren drowning through his head, because he’s already been possessed and stuck in time loops and it’s four in the morning and all he can think about is how he’s wasted his life doing stupid shit that got him thrown in prison. Because Ren is right. Jonas wants to do something that means something. He wants to have something to remember if he dies tonight.
So, he leans forward and presses his lips to Ren’s.
Ren freezes. His eyes, which are still glistening with the tears he’s holding back, go wide.
Jonas has kissed a decent number of girls and boys in his life and at this point he’s pretty confident in his abilities. So, when Ren continues to stare wide-eyed and bone-stiff at him, Jonas takes the hint.
“Sorry,” he mutters, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“We just kissed,” Ren says smartly, no longer frozen, but still blinking up at Jonas with eyes that shine with awe.
“No. I kissed you. God, I didn’t even ask. I’m sorry, I—”
“It’s okay!” Ren waves his hands wildly, his entire face burning red. He’s so cute that Jonas almost pulls him in for another kiss, consequences be damned, but Jonas isn’t the type of person to toy with other people just for the fun of it, so he holds back, pushing his nails into his palms to force his brain to focus on something other than the way Ren is leaning toward him, his lips full and tasting of chocolate and beer. “You might not get another chance, so….” Ren sighs and leans back, thumping his head again and smearing his palm down his face. “I like Nona.”
Jonas knows that; Ren wouldn’t shut up about her back on the beach. Jonas just thought… well, he’s not sure exactly what he thought, other than that he’d like to kiss Ren very much. He still does.
It’s stupid and impulsive, but the only reason Jonas is feeling like his heart is drowning is because of all the stupid hormones pulsing through his body and taking control of his mind just as easily as the ghosts did. Because he and Ren have been pissing each other off since they stepped foot on that boat and Ren has yet to exhibit even a single redeeming quality.
But all of that began to crumble when Ren laid a warm, soothing hand on Jonas’s back and asked “are you okay?”
It’s such a simple question, but few people ever ask him that question except for Alex, who, he supposes, feels obligated to care. Ren is dizzyingly smart and kind and funny in the way he is because he is definitely not funny, but doesn’t seem to care if people laugh at his jokes or not. He’s small and scared and the instinctual part of Jonas wants to protect him.
“I’m never going to get that chance with Nona. She knows I like her, but….” He sighs again and leans into Jonas’s shoulder, his fingers twitching where their hands are still joined together. It’s warm and grounding and when Ren shifts so their fingers are threaded together, Jonas doesn’t want to move away.
He’s getting mixed signals from Ren, and although it’s driving him crazy, it’s better than being pushed away. So, he allows himself to enjoy the company.
“There are plenty of other girls,” Jonas tells him, throat tight. “And we’re not going to die here tonight, so you’ll have plenty of chances.”
“Is that why you kissed me? ‘Cause you know you’ll have plenty of other chances?”
Jonas stiffens and pulls his hand away. “Why are we even talking about this? I kinda just want to forget that it ever happened.”
Ren grins mischievously at him and pushes so far into Jonas’s personal space that Jonas is forced to lean back on his hands. “It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, you know?”
Suddenly all the air is outside of Jonas’s lungs and all of the summer heat is in his veins. He has no idea what to say to that. He’s been rejected, already carved his name into his gravestone, so when Ren erases it all with a single sentence, all Jonas’s bladed words die on his tongue.
All he can manage is a very squeaky “It wasn’t?”
“Nope. Where’d you learn to kiss, anyway?”
So, they’re just going to pretend this is as completely normal as the ghosts in the static? Sounds about right.
“Uh… juvie, mostly. But I’ve kissed a few girls before that.”
“Girls?”
Ren stares at him like he’s never heard of a bisexual man before, and Jonas almost laughs, hard and biting at him.
*
Jonas doesn’t know why Ren is so familiar to him or why it feels less like he’s getting to know him and more like he’s remembering who he is. Every smile, every whisper brings Jonas closer to the conclusion that he has known Ren before, has loved him before, in another time, some other existence.
What Jonas does know is that Ren is in love with Nona. He can see it in the way he smiles at her like she’s the only one in the world who matters. She flushes and looks away, the heat in his gaze too much for her to handle, and Jonas sympathizes with her because he knows what those eyes can do to someone.
There are times when Ren glances over at Jonas with concern or sorrow. It feels overwhelmingly hot on his desolate skin. He hasn’t felt the gentle touch of another person since his mother died and Jonas’s entire life was ripped to pieces. It’s at once too much and not enough, and when Ren returns to Nona at the end of the night, Jonas’s heart is heavy with it.
Because Jonas has been a ghost since the day his mother died and he isn’t sure where home is anymore, but home is beginning to sound startlingly like Ren on his lips.
It scares him because people can’t be homes. Human lives are too fleeting, their unconditional love too conditional, and Jonas knows that better than anyone.
It scares him because Ren is Nona’s, and Jonas has never been good at letting go.
*
Alex brings Michael and Ren brings Jonas. Jonas thinks it’s because Ren feels sorry for Jonas, who is new in town and carries a heavy air of mystery around him. And Ren, naturally curious to a fault, befriends him immediately. He’s jovial and loud and Jonas has never had to deal with anyone like him before, so he just sits quietly and listens when Ren rants to him about Edwards Island, which is super cool and full of history, the first which Jonas doubts and the second which Jonas finds incredibly dull.
But he goes anyway because his mom is dead and he still has dirt under his nails from prison and he thinks that Ren may be the only person in the entire world who is willing to be Jonas’s friend.
Ren doesn’t mention Nona on the way to the beach and Clarissa doesn’t ask if he likes her, and something about that fuels Jonas’s soul in a way that doesn’t make sense, because he’s never met Nona in his entire life. Nona doesn’t tell Alex that she isn’t ready for a relationship right now and when Ren pulls out the brownie, Jonas does snatch it away and stomps it into the ground.
Ren gapes at him in disbelief. Alex laughs. When Ren pulls out the other brownie, she takes it and splits it evenly between the three of them. Ren grumbles something under his breath, but eats his portion anyway.
“There’s like… this is going to sound stupid, but there’s, like, something in here.”
“Famous last words, famous last words,” Ren tells him, blanching. “I called it.”
“No, I see it, too,” Alex says, and this exchange feels eerily familiar. Jonas’s stomach flips with nausea
“I’m sure there is something in there, like a giant rabies-filled bat or… a… maniac who wear mannequin wigs,” and wow, even sober Ren sounds like an idiot.
Ren still stays behind this time, leaving Alex to trot after Jonas alone.
At the watchtower, Alex takes Jonas and even though Jonas loves her more than he should after a single night, his body is steaming with a heat that shouldn’t be there. His lips tingle and when he sees Ren again, it takes every last ounce of self-control he has not to pull Ren against his chest and kiss him.
*
Ren slots himself into Jonas’s life like he’s always belonged there. The moment he lays eyes on Jonas, huddled in the corner with a black eye and a hoodie over his head that screams don’t talk to me, Ren makes it his mission to become Jonas’s friend.
Jonas doesn’t really understand it. There’s no reason for Ren to try this hard when Ren has so many other friends that are cooler and smarter and better than Jonas will ever be. But Ren drags Jonas to their lunch table with Alex and Clarissa and Nona, and he strangely doesn’t feel out of place. He feels like he belongs there, with Ren’s elbow in his ribs and Alex making witty and honestly hilarious jokes at his expense.
When Ren asks if Jonas wants to go camping on Edwards Island, he’s greeted with an immediate yes. Something in Jonas’s stomach tells him to say no, that nothing good will come out of returning to that island.
Returning?
But he goes anyway because Ren is Jonas’s best friend. Because when they met, Ren smiled at him despite the rumors and shook his hand with a glimmer in his eyes that Jonas hasn’t been able to get out of his head since. Because they do everything together, Jonas being unexpectedly clingy and Ren reveling in the attention. Because when Jonas told Ren that he likes boys, – and girls – Ren only gave him a shrug and a light teasing about some of the objectively hot boys in class.
Ren makes his stomach flutter and his pulse race and Jonas finds himself constantly staring at his lips and his hands, calloused and strong from playing the bass guitar. Jonas wants everything that Ren has from his quick smiles to his easy compliments that make Jonas flustered. But Jonas supposes that he’s always been like that, stealing things that he knows will never belong to him any other way.
“Ren!” Clarissa shouts. They’re playing Truth or Slap and even though the game is explained to Jonas, he somehow already knows what the rules are. “C’mon, fess up. You wanna go out with Jonas, right?”
Chills prickle across Jonas’s skin even as his cheeks flare. He can feel it in his bones that something about this isn’t right, because his heart has played this game a hundred times before and Jonas’s name has never replaced Nona’s. Not once.
“Clarissa,” Nona says like a warning.
“Wait, wait, wait. I wanna hear his answer.”
“Clarissa, c’mon,” Alex says, “you’re supposed to ask, like, ‘have you ever stole something,’ not… super weirdo probing stuff.”
“You ask probing stuff if you play the game right, Alex.”
“Look, it’s uh, tough to gauge something like—” Ren starts, his voice quiet and raspy and God, Jonas wants to trail his tongue across Ren’s teeth.
“Enough stalling. I know you want to sample the goods, now just say so.”
“No, I mean— I like him as a friend, right? That’s— I’m not even gay.”
Jonas’s heart sinks, the words sitting heavy in his chest. He knows Ren is straight, and even if he’s not, he would never go for someone like Jonas, who is stupid and delinquent and dependent on Ren’s friendship to be happy. He knew that the moment Ren batted his pretty golden eyelashes at Jonas, but it still hurts.
“Alright, great,” Alex says quickly, trying to shove the conversation in another direction. “Let’s just move on.”
Ren doesn’t eat the brownies this time, he doesn’t even pull them out. Instead, when Jonas wanders into the cave, Alex on his heels, Ren is right behind them.
“What is that thing?” Ren gasps, pressing himself up against Jonas’s side and sending electricity down his arm. “It looks like a… triangle? Like the illuminati or something?”
Alex sighs. “No, Ren. Not like the illuminati.” She pulls out her radio and begins turning the dials with confidence. While Jonas and Ren flinch back from the growing shapes in the sky and the voices in the static, Alex continues as if she’s done this a hundred times before.
She has, a voice in Jonas’s head tells him. He jumps, head snapping around.
“Did you guys hear that?” Jonas asks, trembling.
Alex waves her hand wildly at the triangular rip in the matter above them. “Uh, yeah? The ghosts, or whatever, are talking to us. We can all hear them.”
*
“You’re beginning to bore us.”
Clarissa has fire in her eyes and static in her voice. She curves her mouth like she’s never smiled before and looks at Jonas with an intensity that cuts into his soul.
“Bore you?” Alex’s knuckles turn white around her radio and sweat beads on her forehead. “Well, I’ve had enough of your little games, so whenever you’re ready to move on….”
Clarissa sighs. “No…. We haven’t won yet.”
“No, you win.” Alex holds her hands up in surrender, irritation lacing her voice. “I’m done. I’m so done with all of… this. Just—just let us go.”
Clarissa eyes her for a moment, but Jonas can tell that she’s not really considering anything that Alex has said. Instead, her eyes slide to Jonas.
“Aw, Jonas,” she purrs. “How we missed you.”
Jonas shivers, even with the heat of Ren pressed wordlessly against his side. He is buried in the back of Jonas’s jacket, trembling and terrified and as close as he can possibly get.
“Missed me…?”
Clarissa bares her teeth in a contorted version of a smile and waves her hand gracefully through the air. Darkness coils around her, spilling into him and digging its claws into his mind.
He cries out, collapsing to his knees.
Ren and Alex are shouting his name, but he can’t focus on anything except for the visions dancing in his eyes and the pain that threatens to split his head open, spilling blood and secrets for them all to see.
He thinks he blacks out and when he comes to, Clarissa has vanished. Alex and Ren are crouched over him, Ren pressing his freezing hands to Jonas’s cheeks and Alex looking like she’s going to burst into tears.
“Ugh,” Jonas groans as his head still throbbing, pulling his thoughts in two different directions.
He’s been here before. He knows he has. But another part of him tells him that’s impossible. Time is linear, continuous, so it isn’t possible that they’ve been walking in circles for years and years and…
Oh God.
“Alex,” he rasps and she looks at him with shattered glass eyes. “What—where’s Michael? God.” He holds his head in one hand and grips her fingers with the other. “I remember being your brother? I remember going to college and… and seeing Michael alive. But—”
“Jonas,” she says, her hand squeezing Jonas’s until his fingers are no longer numb, "you are my new step-brother. Michael… he’s been dead for a year.” She purses her lips and ignores the growls from the static that are demanding her attention.
Time is swirling around him like a riptide, and he isn’t sure which way is up or down. Michael was here, Alex brought him on the boat and Ren was the one who—
“I’m not sure what’s real anymore.”
“I think it all is.”
Ren is looking between them like they’ve lost their minds. “Uh… so, did you guys eat something weird, or…?”
“Pretty girl. Give us. Your ears,” the ghosts say, and their attention is stolen away by the ghosts trapped in time.
They wake up in front of Harden Tower and Jonas and Alex listen patiently while Ren has a meltdown.
“What the hell?” he squeaks. Jonas would think it was cute if there wasn’t a headache throbbing at the base of his skull and if Ren’s flailing wasn’t making it worse. “They transported us again or something, and now Jonas—he’s… he’s crazy, right? We obviously haven’t done this before, Michael is dead, and—”
“We can’t stand around talking about this all night,” says Alex, irritable and already trudging up the hill to the watchtower. “Where is Nona?”
Nona is already waiting for them at the top of the watchtower, calling to them using the comm radio to call “Hello? I’m up here, you guys!” It rings out across the hillside and Jonas’s head spins.
“Oh!” Ren shouts when they finally make it to the top of the tower, and if he doesn’t stop shouting, Jonas is going to punch him. God, he hasn’t felt like this since that one time he stole his dad’s bottle of vodka and splatter painted his room in vomit. He had to get his stomach pumped, and Jonas thought that there might be an exorcist equivalent to that. “I’ve got it. I know what to do.”
“You…do?” Nona asks, squinting at him.
“Yeah, totally. It’s Maggie Adler.”
“Maggie Adler?”
“Yeah. She has a boat. Had a boat. I mean, the boat’s still here, but she’s not. She’s dead.”
“Oh, thank God for that memory,” Alex says, managing to sound both relieved and sarcastic at the same time.
“Yeah, finally something jarred loose through all the hysteria. My sister Allie worked at the Parks office in town, she had to deliver that old woman her mail every day. I know they have the key.”
“Okay, so we’ll go get the key from the Parks office,” Nona says, crossing her arms over her chest, and this time Jonas doesn’t interrupt her. Because Ren’s plan never fails to work and he’s smarter than Jonas will ever be.
Ren eyes him like he expects him to say something.
“What?” Jonas asks. “It’s a good plan. Let’s do it.”
“I mean, I know it’s a good plan.” Ren hesitates. “I guess I just expected someone to tell me to piss off. It’s the first plan, right? There might be better ones.”
“It’s our only plan. And it’s always worked so far.”
They all frown at him, but say nothing. Alex takes Nona.
“We’ll find Clarissa,” Jonas assures Ren when he won’t stop pacing. It isn’t doing anything but making Jonas anxious. Jonas wants to wrap him up in his arms and tell him that everything is going to be alright, but he isn’t even certain of that himself. “We’ll find her and then Alex will bring Michael back and everything will work itself out.”
“Look, I know you think that you’ve done this before, and that Clarissa probably scrambled your brains into an omelette or something, but I don’t really trust that. I don’t trust this island, I don’t trust the ghosts, and I don’t trust your wacky brain. At least not right now.”
Jonas scowls and grabs Ren by the arm when he passes by, yanking him to the floor. “Ren, I get that I’m kind of an idiot slacker, but time has been messing up this entire trip and the only person who has been able to remember any of it has been Alex. Don’t you think that maybe the same thing could happen to me?”
“Yeah, but bringing Michael back from the dead… it’s impossible. Plus, you’re talking about time looping across the span of months or years.”
“God, Ren. Everything that has happened tonight should be impossible.”
“Jonas—”
“No. I have a theory, actually.”
Ren sighs. “Fine. Fine, just… yeah, just tell me your theory. I’ll pretend for a minute that you’re not completely crazy.”
Jonas scowls.
Ren gestures at him. “Go on. I insist.”
Jonas huffs. “Fine. Michael… he’s been dead for a year, right? Alex said so earlier. Well, I think that he has, but he also hasn’t.” Ren raises a skeptical eyebrow at him. “No, listen. I’m serious. It’s all very complicated and psychic and I’m not really sure of all the details, but time doesn’t flow in a straight line, at least not here. Everything that is happening, has happened and will happen. I remembered Michael being alive because in the future, Alex has already stopped him from dying and all of the things that were supposed to happen if Michael stayed alive, have happened. But they also haven’t happened yet.”
“Jonas,” Ren says, groaning, “I love you, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Jonas flushes and looks away. “It’s just… hard to wrap your head around, I guess.”
“I guess.”
They’re silent for a while, Jonas working through the timeline in his head. It makes sense to him, but when he tries to put it into words, nothing comes out right. It sounds as contorted and garbled as the ghosts on the radio, and Ren, as smart as he is, doesn’t know what he’s saying.
But Alex does. Somehow, she knows. She understands this island like she’s walked it a million times, and maybe she has. Maybe she’s lived a million lifetimes, roaming this island again and again, meeting Jonas and fighting with Clarissa and raising Michael from the dead.
Jonas stops, counts as many resets as he can remember – recounts them several times, too, because they start to run together. Eventually, he comes away with thirty. Thirty resets, about six months each, and wow, how has Alex not lost her mind?
“Are you alright?” Ren asks, resting his head on Jonas’s shoulder. “You seem stressed.”
“I am stressed. We’re all stressed.”
“No, like, more than usual. Does your head still hurt?”
Jonas shrugs, jostling Ren’s head before he remembers that he’s there.
Ren sighs and falls silent, a brief reprieve from his usual boisterous rants, and Jonas decides that he doesn’t like quiet Ren. He’s the one who fills the silences and keeps the conversation flowing, and without him, the tower feels eerily quiet.
Jonas frowns and glances over at him. He’s picking at a loose nail, one arm resting on his knees.
“Are you alright?”
Ren doesn’t look up at him. “I don’t know. I’m just confused, and scared. And I’m not sure whether I should believe your crazy theory or not because, honestly, it sounds bat shit insane.”
Jonas chuckles. “Yeah, I know. I’m not even completely certain that my brain isn’t glitching out.”
“But… but say that you’re right and that I believe your story… is everything going to be okay?” He looks up at Jonas with an intensity that makes him shiver. “Tell me the truth.”
“I don’t know.” Jonas scoots closer, pushing their shoulders together. The contact is comforting. “We always make it off the island, and as far as I know, Alex has never sacrificed Clarissa and she always brings Michael back. But… but it always resets eventually. We always end up here. I have no idea if I’ll remember next time, or what our relationship will be or what Alex will do. I don’t know when the loop will end, if it ever ends.
“So… I guess we’ll all survive if that’s what you’re asking, but I don’t know if everything will be alright.”
Ren bites down on his lip. “Do you remember what happened last time? Is anything different now?”
There were so many things that were different, like Jonas remembering and Ren deciding to follow them into the cave. It’s thrown everything off, and Jonas isn’t sure what else is going to be affected. But all Jonas can think of is the one time they kissed, right here in the watchtower, and he becomes overly aware of Ren’s body pressed against his own and the way the lights glitter in Ren’s eyes. That kiss is still fresh in his mind, even if it never happened
“What happened last time?” Ren asks.
They’re alone in the watchtower again, like the very first time Jonas kissed Ren, which might have happened seven years ago.
Jonas can’t believe Alex has done this thirty times. Thirty resets and thirty endless nights. Thirty different Rens and thirty different Jonases and thirty different ways this could pan out.
“One time we kissed,” is all Jonas says.
Ren’s entire face turns bright red. “What?”
“Well, I kissed you. You were in love with Nona.”
Ren snorts. “I was in love with Nona? Why? I mean, she’s cute and sweet and all, but she—I don’t really—” He clears his throat and stares down at his hands. “I can’t really see us together.”
Jonas shrugs. “You two were nice together, I guess. I don’t really remember much but the days on the island, and even those are hazy.”
“Did I ever kiss you back?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t remember much. I just know that we’ve done… all of this,” he gestures at the space around them, “before.”
Ren looks at him like he’s thinking that Jonas sounds really stupid, his eyebrows pinched and his lips twisted into a deep frown. Then he looks up and into Jonas’s eyes, his cheeks lightly flushed. He looks at Jonas with an intensity that steals all the air from his lungs.
“Do you still want to kiss me?”
Jonas’s breath hitches in his throat and fire pools in his stomach. Ren’s hand is on his and everything is too hot and Jonas can’t think about anything other than how close they are and how desperately he wants him. “I always want to kiss you,” he breathes, his voice trembling.
Ren hums thoughtfully and then he’s leaning in, pressing his soft, full lips to Jonas’s. Jonas gasps and opens his mouth to receive him, sliding his tongue across Ren’s teeth and into his mouth.
Ren shudders and his arms come around Jonas’s neck to pull him in closer. He’s objectively bad at this and inexperienced, too eager and too hesitant at the same time, but Jonas can’t bring himself to care. It’s perfect. They’re messy and they don’t make sense, but they somehow fit, like the pages in Ren’s book.
When they pull back, they’re flushed and breathless. Jonas nips at Ren’s bottom lip hard enough to make him whine, and satisfaction settles low in his stomach.
“Wow,” Ren breathes against Jonas’s lips, sending a coil of electricity into the area between his shoulder blades. “You’re good at kissing.”
“And you’re terrible at it. You slobbered all over me.” Not that Jonas cares. He definitely does not care even the smallest amount, but this is their dynamic, so it’s all that he can think of to say.
“To be fair,” Ren pants, still red and breathless, his golden hair all over the place and Jonas wants to run his fingers through those locks and pull until Ren is a writhing, whining mess on the floor. “That was my first real kiss.”
“Wait, what?”
Ren laughs nervously. “Yeah. Unless you count that one time my cousin kissed me, which was weird and gross and I really don’t like remembering that—”
“That was your first—you kissed your cousin?”
“Yeah. We were, like, seven, and we didn’t really know what we were doing, but yeah. Anyway, first kiss. Very nice, by the way. I could do this more often.”
Jonas rolls his eyes and leans in for another kiss. “Idiot.”
“When I was younger, I could remember anything,” Ren says, his eyes flicking over to where Jonas stands a few feet away, “whether it had happened or not. But soon I shall be so I cannot remember any…, but the things that never happened.” Ren looks at Jonas with hazel eyes that drip with honey and desire.
“I think I finally figured out what that means.”
Ren quirks an eyebrow at him. “Finally?”
Jonas wraps himself around Ren’s body, trying to force himself to remember the feeling of Ren’s soft baby curls at the back of his neck and the pads of his fingertips on Jonas’s cheek. “We’re going to forget again. We’re going to have to start over, and I might not get to keep you next time.”
Alex is watching them with eyes bruised with exhaustion, her lips drawn down. She’s fiddling with the hem of Michael’s jacket, who has an arm around Alex’s shoulders and is blatantly not watching them.
“Come on, Jonas,” Ren says, nudging him softly. “Don’t you believe in fate?”
And maybe Jonas does. Two souls don’t find each other by simple accident.