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The brisk of fresh air fills my lungs as I take a deep breath and close my eyes leaning against the huge tree. The surface of the trunk scratches my bare arms, and I welcome the sensation. The ache to feel anything except this overwhelming numbness I’m experiencing is taking over me again.
The past few days have been a whirlwind of inexplicable joy and painful revelations. The more I find out about myself the more I realize that there is to lose.
It's no longer just about me, my sanity, my freedom.
It's no longer just about Aaron, his wounds, his obligations.
Somewhere along the way we've made friends, grew attachments.
Something that was once an unfathomable concept for me: a poor, crazy girl destined for nothing but solitude. I am no longer alone. Now, I know the truth or at least a scrap of it. There is still so much to uncover, I can feel it, something escapes me and I’m too afraid to look closer.
We're all connected by the invisible thread of pain and now it's wrapping around our necks trying to strangle us into submission.
I can't let that happen.
I won’t let that happen.
Everyone is counting on me, on us, to end all of this once and for all.
“Chiquitita tell me what’s wrong” a cracked, out-of-tune voice comes from the other side of the tree.
Kenji.
I've been a bad friend lately. So consumed with myself that I did not even once stop and thought about anyone else. I should do better. Kenji deserves better. The best of me, the best of anything really. He has been there for me and with me through it all. And I left him on his own when he was falling apart.
“You really shouldn’t be out of bed yet.”
He ignores me, gazing somewhere deep into the darkness ahead of him. "So, what are we sulking about today, princess?"
My left shoulder rest against the tree as I turn to get a better look at him.
He looks tired, worn. An echo of a lively soul he once was.
What I wouldn't give to put my hands on Nazeera right now – if it wouldn’t be for a fact that my best friend is in love with her.
"I'm sorry."
The wind carries my words through the silence that settles between us as Kenji nods his head in understanding.
I love that about us. There’s no second-guessing, no questioning looks or doubts.
He gets it. Of course, he does. I don't know if there is any other person in the world who understands me as he does.
What Aaron and I have exists on a different level of us. It’s more raw, rugged, soaked with everything we are and what we’ve done.
My connection with Kenji is not something that can be easily explained with words - it needs to be felt. And the fact that I don’t need to explain it to him is the best testimony to that. What we have goes beyond anything familiar, beyond anything romantic. With each other, we can just be. And to people like us, that’s everything.
Especially since lately I’m not sure who I’m supposed to be anymore.
“Look J.” He slings a look down at me from the corner of his eye. ”I’m not angry with you. I could never be angry with for trying to rest and be happy,” he stops to release a loaded sigh, “but yeah..."
A broken laugh escapes him and something breaks a little inside me.
“It’s completely ridiculous when I think about it. I survived two decades of some serious shit without you and...,” he falls quiet for a moment. “I guess I should get used to not having you around.”
At that, I push away from the tree and stand in front of him frowning in confusion.
“What are you talking about?”
His lips tug in a small, pitiful smile and I suddenly struggle with an urge to punch him in the face.
“Come on, Jello, don’t be dense. We both know that when all of this is over you will go off to live somewhere far with the pretty boy and have a herd of his tiny megalomaniacal replicants.”
For a second I’m speechless. The sheer force of anger and shock that comes over me almost knocks me back.
“I'm not leaving you.” It’s all I manage to say.
“Oh, that's so sweet. You are so sweet.”
I hate him.
“Tell me: are we going to live in the same neighbourhood? Or maybe even better! The same house. Do you think Prince Discharming would mind if we got a bunk bed, for you and me? He can sleep underneath it, I suppose.”
My hands start to shake. “Kenji…”
“I don't want you to hold yourself back for my benefit. If anyone on this godforsaken world deserves a happy ending it's you. Even if it's with Warner.”
“Stop it. Just stop-p,” my voice cracks, my body shakes, my heart has abandoned me. “Stop saying things, I don’t want your stupid words.”
I shove his hand away as he tries to grab me and get closer to him, so close that I feel his warm breath on my face as I crane my neck to be able to look him in the eye.
I can’t believe him. That he would dare to think something like that. After everything, he thinks I could just get up and leave? Leave him, of all people?
“You listen to me now, you're not getting rid of me so easily. War or no war, we stick together, you understand? You and I have a long future in ahead of us and I expect you to be there.”
Something inside of him is brewing and breaking and mending all at once and I can see the change starting in his eyes, his face softening, his knees bending as he falls on the ground exhausted.
We’ve all been through so much, too much perhaps, that at times I wonder whether surviving it all is within our reach. I start to believe some of us were designed to cruise from one heartbreak to another until there will be nothing of us left, but a road wasted good intentions.
After a while, I join sitting beside him on the greenest grass I’ve ever seen, waiting for one us to speak.
“So, now that we got that out of our system, do you mind telling me what’s up with your sudden need for breathing exercises?”
How can I form into words what I myself don’t understand?
“Hey,” he says softly, nudging me with his shoulder.
“I just feel I haven’t processed everything as well as I thought I have. And the chances that I will get time to do that are substantially small.”
“What’s there to process?”
I raise my eyebrow at him meaningfully, and he smirks in response.
“No, seriously. The only new thing is that you have a sister and are apparently from Australia–”
“New Zeeland, actually”
“...everything else is pretty much the same.”
“Is that so?”
He starts ticking off on his fingers, “Parents? Still shitty. Your taste in men? Still questionable. Superpowers? Unfairly high. The rest is only made of insignificant detail that will make you feel shitty the more you think about it. So...you know, don’t think.”
With a sigh I toss my face up to the sky, “Easier said than done.”
Stretching his long legs out in front of him, he crosses them at the ankles, while folding his arms across his chest, and leans back against the tree. “People put too much value into thinking. Thinking hasn’t changed anything in the world. Sure, sometimes it’s a good thing to do, but most of the time if you want to have something you have to get it done.”
He stops me before I get to say anything.
“And what we want right now is Adam and James back, Anderson dead, and your sister not pulling a plug on all of this,” Kenji points around them at the reminder of what her sister is exactly capable of.
“You make it all sound so simple. But I don’t even know who is supposed to pull it all off.”
“What do you mean ‘who’?” he frowns. “We are. You, me and the rest of them.”
“Yes, but...me as who? Juliette or Ella?”
His mouth opens in silent realization.
“Oh, Jesus, is it what it’s all about? Your name?”
“No, it’s not just that. It’s...what it mean..ugh…”.The frustration sweeps through me cresting in my chest. “I can’t explain it logically.”
“Maybe because it lacks any logic, hm?” he squints his left eye at me as to emphasise his point.
Suddenly, my head starts to feel heavy so I let it rest on my knees. Communicating your problems is difficult when you don’t know what the problem is, or even if there is one. But I keep feeling this pressure in my skull and weight in my heart, so I need to try, try to speak about something I don’t even dare to think about.
“It’s like this,” I close my eyes and let words flow. “I was born as Ella, that’s who I am to Aaron and to my sister, and to many others who knew me since I was a child. But then I became Juliette, not by my own volition, but that’s who I’ve been for over a decade of my life. And it’s Juliette who discovered the true potential of her powers, it’s Juliette who rebelled, it’s her who fell in love and it’s her who made all of those wonderful friends. But Juliette is a creation of horrible design, but then again so is Ella. “
I open my eyes at last. They feel gritty. My throat is so dry I can't swallow the wad that despair lodged inside of it.
“There are times I’m not sure which I am, and which I’m supposed to be.”
It is dark, but I can still see him, looking at me like he’s seeing me for the first time, noticing something he hasn't before. His expression gentle, understanding, and surprisingly sharp, almost determined.
Kenji knows.
“Your name is just that. A name. Bunch of letters put together that don’t mean a thing. And don’t say a single thing about you.” He leans in closer, pulling me in with his eyes. “What do they mean? Did everything you went through as Juliette became erased when you found out your birth name?”, he shakes his head, “No.”
“Did your family stop exist when you were living as Juliette?”, he shakes it again, “No.”
His hand finds her in the dark. “You’re badass, you know that, don’t you? You survived hell and you keep coming back because you want to help people. It doesn't matter whose daughter you are and who is your sister, not even who are you dating right now. You can’t figure out which name to use? Use both, use neither. Choose a new one. For the first time in your life, you’re free to make a choice for yourself. Do you know how powerful that is, J? To be free? To be you? Because you've got to be you. No one else can.”
He knows he knows he knows
Me
With tears in my eyes I reach for him and he tugs me closer. I don’t need any powers to feel him, the certainty that there will always be at least one person who will understand me.
“Ella!”
Kenji groans against me and glares over his shoulder at approaching Aaron.
“I swear he has some sort of radar when it comes to you. Are you sure he didn’t implant any microchip into your skull? Actually never mind. I’m gonna check myself.”
He continues to work his fingers on my head until I elbow him, laughing.
“Kenji!”
We're standing up, smiling at each other as if we have no other worries in the world, and at this moment I’ve never been more grateful that amidst all the tragedy in our lives we’ve found our ways to each other.
“Thank you,” I say, hoping it conveys all the gratitude and love I feel for him.
He messes up my hair, the way an older sibling might do a younger, to break the tension, but mostly because he knows I hate it when he does that.
Throwing his arm over my much smaller frame, he starts walking towards the camp. “So, how about that plan? How much are we going to make Anderson suffer? I vote extremely much, the Spider-Man 3 level of pain.”
I may not know everything about my past yet, and my future might be even more uncertain than ever, but what I do know, is that this, this is the best side of love. And there’s no chance I’m losing that.