The Inbetween

Over the next few weeks, Jimmy came to know even more about the Inbetween than just what Faith had told him. They were little, small things. One small change in his feelings could result in a change in the way the Inbetween looked. He also learned that his job was far more complex and emotional than he’d originally thought it would be.

When Faith had told him that their job was to watch over people down on earth and save them, he hadn’t thought he’d become as emotionally invested in it as he had become. He’d thought that, knowing what he was supposed to do would make it a little less hard to deal with when he couldn’t save someone.

He was wrong.

The first time he’d ‘lost someone,’ as Faith had called it, he hadn’t thought he’d be able to do it anymore. He’d been standing next to a thirteen year old boy in his bedroom, doing the same thing for him as he had for the girl Faith had taken him to on his first day. He’d held him and told him that it would be okay; he’d tried to reassure him that no matter what he was going through, things would get better in a few years. But the little boy—the child—had committed suicide anyway. Jimmy had watched as the boy, Jared, had held his father’s gun to his mouth and pulled the trigger. It had been the single most painful, most horrible moment he’d ever lived through.

When they had gotten back to the Inbetween, Faith had been there for him. She’d tried to explain to him again that, though he couldn’t save Jared, there were others who needed him and others that he could help. He hadn’t known how to reply to her. Seeing suicide on TV and reading about it in the newspapers was a hell of a lot different than watching one with your own eyes. It was the most heartbreaking kind of pain one could feel, and in that instant, he realized that Faith must have seen this a hundred times. And unlike him, she hadn’t had anyone to help make her feel better about it.

After Jared’s death, Faith had shown him another part of the Inbetween. It wasn’t really the Inbetween, she’d told him; it was actual heaven. She had taken him to the place that was talked about in churches, nonexistent to atheists, and a place that he’d never thought he’d see with his own two eyes. She hadn’t introduced him to God or anything like that—she told him that things were more complex than what Christianity made it out to be—and she had taken him to a small house on a lake.

He was surprised to find that Heaven, much like the Inbetween, could vary depending on what the people there wanted it to look like. But unlike in his and Faith’s place, he couldn’t change this place. And then, she had done the most kind thing for him that she could possibly have done for him.

She had taken him to Jared.

At first, he hadn’t understood. All his life, he’d thought that people who committed suicide were sent to hell with a big, capital ‘Sinner’ printed on their forehead. That was just how it was taught in the church he’d been raised in, and he’d never thought long enough about it to really wonder if that was how things were.

He had asked the young boy all the things he’d been wanting to know since his death. He asked if Jared had felt his presence, and the little boy had told him yes. When Jimmy asked why he’d gone through it if he felt Jimmy there, Jared had shared his simple answer; an answer that had changed Jimmy’s views of things.

“Sometimes, it’s not about how good things will be for you in a few years. Sometimes, you don’t want to die because the pain is too hard to deal with. Sometimes, you just want to see the people you love again, and death is the only way to do that.”

Jimmy had been completely taken aback by the words that had come from the thirteen year old. He seemed so much more profound than so many adults that Jimmy had known, and he could tell that the words had meant something to Jared. He didn’t know the boy’s story, and he hadn’t asked, but there was something astoundingly brilliant about the boy.

After that, Jimmy had realized that there was more to his job than just simply saving people and shunning the criminals. He had learned that sometimes, a person didn’t truly want to die because they were in pain, or because it was a coward’s answer to running away. Some people, like Jared, just simply needed something that Earth no longer could give them.

In the weeks since Jimmy had met Faith, he had also become much closer to her than he’d been before. He was truly starting to understand what Faith had meant when she’d said they were two compatible souls. They had a lot more in common than he would have assumed they did, and the more he got to know her, the more he realized that she just might be the ‘soul mate’ he’d never found on Earth.

It was true that he had loved Leana with all of his heart, and it was true that he continued to love her even now that he was dead. He wanted nothing more than to someday see her again, and spend the rest of his eternity with her. But the way Jimmy saw it, there were two different aspects of love. There was the person your heart loved, and then there was the person that fate brought you to because that was the person you belonged with.

Leana was the person his heart had loved. She was the person his heart continued to love, because that wasn’t an emotion that could simply be shut off like a light switch. But Faith was the person fate had brought him to. And he was beginning to wonder whether or not she was the one he was truly supposed to end up with.

Faith for the most part was starting to let him do things on his own. She was still there with him in the Inbetween every ‘night’ when they got done, although they never were truly done with their job. She was there to fill in the empty moments when there was nothing for him to do but sit and watch people below like they were some kind of weird TV show, and she was there to fill the moments when what they did became almost too much for him to bear. But she was also starting to let him learn the little secrets of the Inbetween on his own.

Right now was one of those moments when they both needed one another. Her head was rested on his shoulder, her eyes closed, and his arms were wrapped around her side casually as they just sat there. The atmosphere had changed from a forest back into an ocean scene, and Jimmy had to admit that it was both relaxing and romantic. He felt his heart ache, wishing that his family and friends could be here to see this. There was nothing this beautiful on earth, even if Huntington was absolutely beautiful to him.

“Someday you’ll be able to show it to them, Jimmy,” Faith murmured to him, pulling him out of his saddening thoughts as she shifted so that she could look up at him. “I’m sure that if they’re half as decent as you are, they’ll end up here too.”

Jimmy thought about her words and then nodded with a soft smile before he pressed his lips to her forehead. She sighed and settled back down against his chest, and neither of them said anything as they sat there, taking in the sight of the ocean hitting the shore a few feet away from them.

Jimmy found that being here was becoming confusing to him, and it was precisely because of moments like this. He loved Leana, and he wanted her back. He wanted to hold her in his arms and play with her hair, and to tell her how much he loved her. But then, there were those moments when he knew that she’d move on; that her heart would grow to love someone else, and he would no longer be at the forefront of her emotions. And while that was perfectly fine with him—he didn’t want her to spend her life wallowing in grief over him, because she still had a life to live—it made him wonder if that was why he’d ended up here in the Inbetween with Faith. He was wondering if he wasn’t supposed to love her now, and let her love him in return.