Page 20

She scrambled out from under me, yanking at her clothes and stumbling to the furthest wall of the large common room. I sat on the mat as she retreated from me like I had a plague and tried to gather my thoughts. Everything was hazy, clouded with memories and the gut punch of what I’d just done.

I tried to come up with a reason, a good lie for why I’d called her that. But every spin I came up with was thin and it would only hurt her more if I tried to deny it. Perhaps it was finally time to face my past, to face her.

“You can’t be…he’s dead,” she rasped out, hugging herself as she leaned on the wall like she’d fall without it.

I took a deep breath that made me feel like I was inhaling glass, the ghost of old injuries I received that night aching as if they were fresh. My head fell into my hands and I tried to calm down.

“Say something!” she demanded. “Say fucking anything but just tell me…how do you…who…?”

“It’s not easy is it?” I finally said, my voice sounded as bone tired as I felt. “To find the words to ask or explain the impossible thing your mind is telling you is the truth.”

“No,” she shook her head so violently that she hit it on the wall. “No, he’s dead. You must’ve known him or…”

I met her gaze and just let her see me, for once, instead of darting my eyes away.

These were ‘original’, my eyes were the one thing on my face they had let me keep that night.

I took a deep breath, deciding to drop the lower pitch I was giving my voice to disguise it.

This would kill her, and me by extension, but it was time to show her what the commander had done, time to dispense with the lies once and for all.

“It’s me, Daisy.”

At the sound of my real voice without any kind of disguise, her eyes filled with tears and a whimper left her mouth that seared me to my bones.

Christ, this hurts.

“It can’t be,” she whispered, sliding down the wall onto her butt. “You’re dead.”

The way her voice broke on a sob at the end, the betrayal and pain that cracked like thunder through the room from that simple sentence, hit me worse than any blow from that night. I damn near crumpled to the floor. Instead, my shoulders fell and my head hung in shame.

I couldn’t find the words for…minutes? Hours? All I knew was that by the time Zephyr had cried enough to clear her head, I was ready to tell her what had happened, every sordid detail.

“It was the commander’s idea,” I croaked, not daring to look her in the eye. “Or order, however you look at it.”

I relayed what had happened in my apartment that night, my voice hollow, divulging just the facts in the most straightforward way I could. She sniffled, breaths catching as I spoke, but otherwise didn’t make a sound. And still, I couldn’t look at her.

When I was done, Zephyr still didn’t speak, just quietly cried across the room from me.

“All this time,” she hiccupped finally, “y-you were a-alive? A-and you n-never tried to find me?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Bullshit.”

An empty chuckle escaped me.

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

“You guess?” her voice was getting stronger, heat bursting off it like a solar flare. “You guess? What kind of fucking response is that?”

Something sailed past my head and I looked over to find the baton laying nearby. When I looked up she had another one and her hand was cocked back to throw it.

“You let me think you were dead,” she threw it and I dodged, “for twenty years! And for what? Because that old bastard,” she threw a canteen this time and it struck my chest, “told you to?!”

“Daisy—”

“Fuck you!” She charged me and now it was my turn to scramble to my feet.

I caught her as she threw herself against me and started to pummel my face and chest. One fist connected with my face before I could seize it and I tasted blood.

“Stop it.”

“No! I hate you! You fucking coward, you let me think…I hate you!

She screamed in my face and I understood it at a marrow-deep level. What else was there to say or do other than screech and cry? Twenty years that could’ve been spent together, stolen from us because I didn’t stand up to her uncle, because I was too afraid of killing her just by being me.

Her scream became a sob and I found my own face damp with tears sliding hot and quiet down my face.

Her entire body shook, and I was enthralled by the sight of her raw emotion.

She’d always been one to feel deeply and out loud, but the entire time I’d known this version of her, Zephyr had been even, almost logical.

But this being now in my arms was wild, a storm that would rip me apart if I held on too long.

So that’s what I did.

I wrapped my arms around her as she thrashed and sobbed. I let her bite and scream and kick me, tears wet my shirt and her braids whipped me in the face. Still, I held on, the calm in her storm.

Finally, she tired out and slumped against me, her face pressed to my chest as she continued to cry.

“It killed me,” she sniffled against me, “to lose you.”

“Me too,” I whispered. “I’ve never gotten over it. Never forgot you.”

“Me either.”

For a few precious minutes, Zephyr let me hold her, and I closed my eyes to savor it. All too soon, she pushed against me and I reluctantly let her go. She stared up at me, at my eyes and then slowly, her eyes took in the rest of me.

“He really did change you completely,” she croaked. “Just to keep you from me?”

“I was pretty broken so it would’ve happened anyway. But, he had the good doctor do a bit more than was necessary to make sure you could never track me with facial recognition.”

She swallowed hard, like she was forcing herself not to be sick. My hands were too damn empty without her, my arms cold without her warmth. I needed to hold her, to reassure her and myself that we’d get through this but…would we?

Twenty years of growing apart, of becoming different people had changed everything.

All I could think about was trying to find that girl hidden inside of the woman in front of me, to prove that something of what we’d been to one another had survived.

I wanted to claw it out of her, to shred my own chest and dig for the tiny part of me that could still be Jacen.

But what if that wasn’t enough to build anything together? What if we had missed our chance?

I would’ve thought that all this time would’ve hardened me to the idea of love, yet here I was, yearning for it like a child.

Maybe that’s why the only thing I know to do is try and find who we were instead of looking at who we are now. It’s a child’s wish.

“I can’t…think,” Zephyr finally said. “I need some space.”

No, stay with me! Let me show you that it’s going to be alright!

“Of course,” I said instead, trying so hard to hide how it ripped me up inside. “You take the bedroom tonight, I probably won’t get much sleep anyway.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

I tried not to, but I watched every step she took away from me until the door closed with a finality that cut me in half.