Today feels brighter. Vi actually smiled when we collided at the entrance to our bathroom, and the breakfast gruel wasn’t as gross as usual. Even the stairwell smelled less weird. Two robins sang outside our window, dancing across the ledge like they knew I needed a show.
Sure, my fairytale is just an exhausted brain overcompensating the second it glimpses a ray of light. But the problem with optimism is that it also sends your head toward the impossible. It makes fantasy attainable and reality downright gorgeous in its display of hope. Optimism combined with thoughts of Kaleb Novelli is pretty much the worst combination for a girl who… well, any girl. It makes her think things. Consider questions that would insult a rational brain. Questions like, would she get to choose him one day? Could he choose her? What would those lips feel like pressed in furious passion against her body? It makes her remove his clothing. Visualize hard lines and breathtaking angles. It makes her believe the important obstacles are concerns about rules on soldier-resident relationships. Timing and opportunity. It makes her ignore the fact that even after a month of constant contact, she’s still fighting for friendship.
Okay, it’s me. I’m that girl, and that optimism is absurd. Dangerous for my heart, maybe even my body, since I’ve only scratched the surface of the secrets behind those eyes that make me forget things, imagine things, hope for things.
Because fact: I don’t haunt his thoughts at night. He doesn’t fantasize about a world where our smiles belong to each other. Where our hands trace the path of our eyes.
No, of course not.
Double fact: I have an alarming crush.
Kaleb’s door is closed when I arrive. Conditioning has trained me to fear that fact, and I suddenly miss my optimism.
Door hinges can be temperamental beasts, so I try to peek through the window blinds. The only clue is the presence of light, and I take comfort in the reverse fortune that we don’t have to worry about exposure when we think we’re alone. Timing. Opportunity. Hard lines… yep, my brain sucks sometimes.
Then again, I’m acquainted with the hazards of hovering, so this time I bang out a knock.
Muffled voices filter toward me, and my nerves accelerate into an overwhelming fear for Kaleb. I would care if he were hurt, if I lost him. Oh god. He’s mine to lose now?
It’s everything I can do not to expel a confusing exclamation when those eyes peer through a crack in the doorway.
“Andie, good. Come in quickly.”
I shriek when I do. “Mom!”
She returns my embrace amidst Kaleb’s critique of my volume.
“How did you—where—Did you do this?” I stammer. My boss’ shy smile tells me everything I need to know. “Thank you.”
“Oh, honey, I’ve missed you!” My mother proves it by hanging onto me. “How are you? Are you being treated okay?”
“I’m great, Mom. You’ve already met my supervisor.” Kaleb returns the acknowledgement and moves toward the door.
“I’ll give you some time alone. You have about twenty minutes,” he says and slips from the office.
My mother draws me toward the couch, her arm still tucked around my waist. “You have no idea how happy it makes me to know that you’re safe and doing well.”
“What about you? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I’m in one of the senior buildings, 3A. Two of my other roommates are also teachers, and the fourth is a retired notary. I’m working over in the classrooms with the children.”
“Classrooms?” So many facts I still need to collect about my new home.
“Yes. There are two academic buildings onsite. It’s not bad, Andie. I love working with the children and the apartment is nicer than ours was in Region 12.”
“Mine too.”
“Are you eating enough? You seem thin.”
“I’m fine. I have all the gruel I can keep down.”
She takes my hands. “I’ve been waiting to see you since the moment we were separated. I had all these things to say and now…”
Tears cut her off, but I understand. There isn’t enough time for a real conversation. No topic seems important enough to consume the little that’s left. I wrap my arms around her instead, clinging like I’m six years old again. Like catnip tea is our biggest trial.
“I don’t know what to make of this place, Mom. Sometimes it’s like a prison. Other times… I don’t know. I feel safer than I did outside.”
I rest against her shoulder as she squeezes. “I know what you mean. But we’re strong. We survive. This chapter will be no different.”
“Do you remember when we went to Zone 1 for my registration?”
“How could I forget? My baby girl all grown up.”
“Well, thirteen, anyway. It was the first time I’d been outside of 489.”
“Travel passes are hard to get. We couldn’t afford them.”
“I know. But that was the first time I realized how big this world is. The first time I felt hope that somewhere things are different.”
She leans toward me for another hug. “The world is enormous, sweetie. There’s always hope because there’s always good in the evil, light in the darkness.”
My gaze flickers toward the vacant desk. “Kaleb.”
“You.”
I smile and nestle into her familiar strength.
“You okay?” Kaleb asks after delivering my mother back to her assignment.
“Yes.” It’s not even a lie since I used every second of my fifteen minutes alone to pull myself together. “Thank you. It means so much to me that you did this.”
“I wanted you to know she was all right.”
My mind skims through images of spotlights slicing through darkness, candles. A lighthouse. But suddenly those happy pictures become red folders and threatening stamps. “What about you though? You won’t get in trouble for this, will you?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“It was probably a big risk for you, so thank you.”
“We’re not monsters.”
“You’re not,” I correct, and he looks troubled by my response. Or maybe it’s the optimism that seeps onto my face. “I’m sorry. It’s just…” My heart pounds as the words leak out, and his eyes reach for something, haunting me with flashes of all that I’m longing to explore. I fight the confession we’ll both regret. It’s right there, saturating the air between us.
“Don’t.” He’s almost pleading. “Please, Andie.” His gaze strikes right to my heart, and an entire conversation passes between us before I break away.
“I’ll get to work,” I mumble instead. But my files can’t protect me. I still feel him. His presence so incredibly dangerous. His existence. His light.
We’re silent for the rest of the day.
“Give us a minute.”
Kaleb nods to me at his commanding officer’s abrupt greeting the following morning. Sergeant Max Dennel, the Director of Residential affairs at this compound which means he’s basically Kaleb’s double boss. I also know I’m not allowed to voice my concern about the anger on his face or the way his jaw clenches for me to leave them alone.
“Why don’t you take a break, Andie?” Kaleb’s smile is too weak to be reassuring.
I decide to take it right outside his door.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No? You know they’re looking for an excuse. Any excuse. Why do you keep insisting on giving them one? Fuck, Kaleb!”
“I get it. I’m not stupid.”
“No? You’re sure acting like it. You can’t afford any more of this. You know what’s next.”
“Exactly. Go down swinging, right?”
“Dammit! This isn’t a joke. You can’t keep doing this. You have to protect yourself for once!”
Kaleb doesn’t respond, and I flinch at the echo of a fist on a desk. “Here’s your fucking letter of reprimand, Lance Corporal Novelli. Good luck.”
I’m pretty sure the sergeant doesn’t see me as he marches from the office. He’s too furious to be observant; I’m too torn up to move. It takes several seconds for me to brave an entry, and Kaleb curses when he sees my face. “You were listening again.”
“Is that about the visit with my mother?” I point to the seal on his desk, and he shoves it under a folder.
“It was my decision.”
I shake my head and approach. “You’re in trouble again. Because of me—”
“No,” he says sharply. “Because of me. Because of a choice I made.”
The red folder is empty the next time I get a moment alone to check it.
“Kaleb.” Even his name is a challenge for my tongue as he leans over me. Pushing, panting his desperation with the weight of muscle and power. Or maybe that’s my plea for him. To wrench him deeper. To be filled with him. I need explosions in the recesses of my soul. Pulling, harder, then…
“Don’t stop!” Words are so useless sometimes. Oxygen is already low in this moment, so irresponsible besides.
I gasp at the fire. Orange flames turn blue, then white. Climbing, scorching as they rip through my body. “Don’t. Stop.”
A sharp inhale blasts me to consciousness, but my body still trembles. Air circulates the room in a thin veil. Disappointment. Hunger. I clench my eyes shut at the graphic memories I want to forget and explore at the same time. It’s a mistake, granting freedom to my subconscious, but the rules change in the hazy plane between sleep and consciousness. Briefly, I consider how I’ll face him tomorrow after our night of one-sided passion. What I’ll see when confronted with his uniform hours after stripping it off. After exploring how every inch of him feels. How he tastes.
I loosen my grip on the sheet. Soft from wear, it tickles my skin as it flutters around me, releasing the scent of detergent. Another reminder. Another swell that aches deep and pushes me back to that place I shouldn’t indulge.
But I can’t let go of this mistake in the darkness that offers plenty of protection from reason.
Kaleb’s smile is different in the morning. Or it’s my disloyal brain that interprets everything he does through a mask of perfection. His smile. Perfect. His voice. Perfect. The way his fingers hold the pen that scales a list he made of today’s goals. Yep, perfect.
“You okay?”
My pulse races at the vivid images flooding back. I try to force them away and stay rational. People have dreams all the time.
“Fine, why?”
He shrugs, and I’m not sure he wants more than that anyway.
“Nothing. I’ll start on the infirmary inventories. Can you sort the bathroom counts for floors one through six? I’ll get the rest tonight.”
“Absolutely.” Not a problem. Why would it be a problem? Oh, because he didn’t shave today, and all I can think about is running my fingers along his cheek, his jaw. Because he’s discarded his jacket giving me a full view of every defined line of the chest and arms beneath his t-shirt. Because he has no idea how many times I made love to him last night.
“I love counting,” I say. “Um inventories.” My correction only makes his eyebrows sink into a confused crease.
“Okay... Great.”
I swallow and try to prove my love of inventories. They’re full of numbers. So many numbers and handwriting. Perfect handwriting.
“Hey, Andie?”
“Yes?”
“Do you need me to adjust the temperature in here? You look warm.” He grins. “Now you look really warm.”