Chapter 38 I'm Not Doing This Anymore

— Darren —

I was pacing for the thousandth time the length of the small room inside the cabin we set base in. Brandon was sitting in a corner trying to ignore me and focus on the comm system and occasional buzzing of voices.

“Target acquired.” Was the only one that really got through to me.

I’d gone insane in the last hours, and never had any minutes felt this interminable. I’ve also never felt this useless, and I hated it.

I knew why I was told to stay behind, I knew the logic behind it and it was sound. I would have done the same if it had been me. But it was a harsh reality to contend with.

And I made myself this promise, ‘never again’. Never again will I be this useless. Whatever has to be done will be done. But never again.

How long was it to bring Eva back?

Was she too injured to move quickly? Did she need medical attention? How bad was it?

I was spiralling, with nothing better to do. It took a full century before someone came to the door, and I jumped out of my skin, my eyes madly fixed at the door.

One of the warriors opened the door to let another one in, and behind them stood a gore-splattered Eva.

Her eyes were sunken, her expression that of a lost woman, but when her eyes landed on me, I saw the ghost of emotions ready to burst.

I was already rushing to hold her in my arms. I think we mumbled a few things but none made sense.

I felt it when she broke. Her muscles that were hard with anxiety went rubbery, her hug lost the strength of elation at finding one another, to become softer and more desperate. Her body began to shake uncontrollably. Her face dug into my shirt as tear wet it all the way to my skin, and her voice came out in whimpers of sadness.

I let her emotion settle in this heartbreaking display, and moved slowly, until I was carrying her in my arms.

I didn’t try to shush her, or to tell her everything was okay. It would change nothing. Just empty words without any meaning.

I moved to the bedroom on the upper floor. There was an adjacent bathroom.

It was a cabin, small, three small bedrooms upstairs, kitchen and living room downstairs, open-concept. The walls were all wood. Inside and out. It was on the fringe of Ghealach Territory.

I took Eva to the bathtub, I turned the water on and took out the telephone shower head.

I went about, rinsing the blood and gore. Slowly, softly. Making sure to notice injuries. I stopped only to help her out of her clothes. She let me.

She was lying down at the bottom of the tub, and I washed her carefully, but thoroughly, lathing the soap on her skin, rinsing, then to the next zone, working the muscles. I saw the tension ease out as the tear flow slowed.

When it was finally done, and I’d cleaned the blood she smeared on me too. I dried her carefully, then wrapped her in a towel, and carried her to the bed.

I went to close the light, and she made a sound that would have been more appropriate for a wounded cat, as she probably feared I was leaving her.

Once the lights were closed I went under the covers and pressed her body against mine, her figure, supple and smaller than I’ve ever remembered, letting go.

It didn’t take too long for exhaustion to overtake her, and she fell in a coma-like slumber.

* * * * *

I felt it when she woke.

I opened my eyes feeling as if I’d slept only for an instant. There were dried tears on her cheeks and redness to her eyes. In movies, you see women crying all prettily, but that’s not how sadness works, that not how pain works. There is nothing pretty about having your heart shattered. There is no scenario telling you how to act it, and what comes next. There is just the pain.

I rubbed my thumb in slow circles on her cheeks, as if erasing writings in the sand, erasing words of violence, of loneliness, of grief, of fear. I kissed her forehead. “I love you,” I told her. Three simple words. Three short words. Like all the most significant things in this world, love is a little word with so much weight to it that it could shatter the crust of the earth. Like hope, pain, war, hate, faith, truth, love. But of course, love is the sweetest, the bitterest, the loneliest, and the most joyful. Love is the sum of it all. We go to war for love. It is the source of most pains and hopes. Love is so simple, yet it’s the greatest endeavour someone may ever seek in one’s lifetime.

“I love you,” she said, resting her hand on the side of my face. “I should have said it before, but I didn’t. I don’t know why. I don’t know what I’ve been afraid of. Why I hesitated. I love you,” she said again, pressing her lips against mine. It was a small kiss, a chaste kiss, but a good kiss. It ended so I could get lost in her eyes again, and her in mines.

“I’m sorry,” was the only thing I found to say.

She shook her head softly. “I never understood. I was a bitch to you after the earthquake. I’m sorry,” she told me.

“What for?”

“I saw things,” she said. There were no tears in her eyes, but if there had been, they would have shrouded the depth of her sadness. “I did things.”

I kissed one eyelid, then the other. “You’re alive. It’s all that I want. We will get through the rest together. If your brother would have let me, I would have gone on a murder spree.”

She petted the side of my face softly. “I’m glad you weren’t there,” she said.

“I’m not.” There was a hardness in my voice for the first time, a sharp edge.

“If you’d been, you might hav—,” she choked on the words, then shook her head slowly. “You would have protected me, you’d be dead. And it’s your blood that would have been on me.” She kissed my nose as delicately as the wings of a butterfly. “I love you. I need you.”

“I’m here,” I murmured.

“We should move in together.”

I smiled. “Maybe we should.”

“And we should mark each other.” My heart fell down a flight of stairs, before endorphins crept in.

I nodded.

“We’ve been stalling, afraid. I’m not doing this anymore.”

I kissed her, deeper this time. I took the time to savour her lips. Her arms wrapped around my neck, pulling me to her like gravity. I rolled atop her, savouring her mouth, pressing myself against her, crushing her to the mattress. There was still the towel, half-wrapped around her and it was easy to move it out of the way.

By the time we deepened the kiss further, our bodies were just naked heat, fusing with one another.

When I took her, I did so slowly, our movement in cadence. We made love. There is no better words to describe what we did. There was no acrobatic, no violent ecstasy, it was all softness. Our bodies never apart. The heat rising along with our heartbeats. Our mouths fused, breathing in the air the other exhaled. At the peak of our ecstasy, we marked each other. There were no signs, no words, but we did it at the same time. We just knew.

It took us hours to find the calmness of each other’s arms again, resuming our conversation as if it had never been interrupted. Whispering little nothings in each other’s ears.

“I want to train with the others,” I told her after a while. “I want to know how they fight. How they operate.”

“Why?” Worried lines appeared between her eyebrows.

“Because I’ll never be left behind again.”

“Babe—,” she began.

“I’m not saying I’ll fight every battle. But if I have to fight one, I’ll be able to.”

She nodded understanding. “I want to train too,” she said. “And also with firearms.”

“Is that why there was a gun under your breasts?” it had been a surprise when I’d undressed her.

“It’s a loaner,” she said with a wicked little smile.

“You used it?”

Her smile broadened, but there was a faint sadness and emptiness behind it.

“I was pretty badass out there.”