36. LOVE
Aidan—
The door bangs open and hits the wall. Two figures tussle in the opening. Broad shoulders in a dirty red t-shirt fill my vision. Lawson is here. Too late to rescue me this time, but maybe it’s never too late, because humiliation washes away, replaced by warmth.
He jerks free of his opponent and stumbles into the room, shouting, “—maybe I don’t want to be a soldier! Maybe I’m a Real Dealer.”
Maybe?
I have a view of the pair in profile as the Captain stalks in after him, helmet off, gun dangling from her grip. They’re of a height, with almost identical brown hair. Only the cut is different.
“You’re no anarchist,” she snaps. “You’re a little actor who’s lost his way!”
“I am a Real Dealer,” Lawson repeats. “We have no leaders. We have no Gods. Sometimes violence is the lesser evil.” It’s the Real Deal creed.
“Sometimes you’re right,” the Captain says, and she raises the gun.
“No!” he shouts. “Mama, don’t.”
The barrel jerks. Crack. Lawson turns.
“Oh,” I breathe. Of course.
I’m falling. Lawson is falling apart. I see it in his eyes.
It’s okay, I want to tell him. It doesn’t change anything. I try. My lips move.
The Captain, Lawson’s mother, raises her comm unit to her mouth and says, “Yes, that was the last one. You may resume the pulses at any time.”
Lawson’s eyes flick to her; he wants that gun, but then he’s rushing toward me. He drops to his knees at my side, already yanking off his shirt. He wads the fabric and presses it against the wound in my chest.
“Pressure, got to apply pressure.” A tear leaks from his eye as he chokes out, “I was coming to tell you—I’m your Lawson.”
I need to brush the tear from his cheek, grab his hand, hold on, but darkness snatches at my vision. I fight it. For the first time in my life, I fight with everything I have, to stay with him.
Then a great harmony overtakes me. The peace I’ve been looking for my whole life is just suddenly there, wrapping around me like Lawson’s arms. It’s not a pulse, because a pulse is a happiness lid, trying to smother whatever’s underneath, and this…this is what’s underneath. Tenderness and agony, rage and forgiveness, jealousy and sacrifice—peace can take it all. And I understand.
This whole time, I thought I was messing up, failing as a Bee, but I was wrong.
Lawson and I…we got it right.
Memory folds, gathering a selection of moments, and awareness multiplies, allowing me to relive them all at once.
The first person I see is Lawson; maybe I was looking for him all along. His knuckles dominate my field of vision. Black letters tattoo the backs of his fingers.
REAL
DEAL
Without thinking, I grab his hand. The skin on top is warm and soft. “Together,” I say. “We can make it.”
He smiles and it’s like a rare blue-sky morning, when the early sun reflects off the Three Street windows. My breath catches.
“Aidan.” His voice is rich, confident, familiar.
And when he says my name, I can’t see anything—anyone—but him. My hand drops to the waistband of my jeans.
“You bring out the worst in me,” I say.
He takes my wrist between two fingers, like he knows how I’ve been manhandled and doesn’t want to add to it. “Who says it’s the worst? Maybe it’s the best.”
Tension flows away. I smile; he smiles. My weight shifts toward him.
The next thing I know, we’re kissing. He backs me up against the wall, and his mouth threatens to tear open my split lip, while his callused fingertips map my cheeks, forehead, and chin, raising gooseflesh. When we ease apart and stand surrounded by the broken remnants of the world, I feel more at home than I ever have, anywhere.
“Come here,” I say. My body belongs sheltering his body.
He grips my hip and adjusts my stance. “I’m with you.”
He touches the bare skin of my inner thigh. I brace against the wall, and he moves slowly. His heart beats in my ears, his rhythm filling me, while a mental voice chants, Don’t waste this, don’t waste this, don’t waste this.
“Oh,” Lawson groans. “Yes.”
And I’m nothing, and I am nothing but love.
The End
As a child, Láyla was prostituted, raped, and tortured. She is proof that Love wins.
Connect with her at authorlayla.com
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