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I could always make Rachel laugh. Even when she was barely holding back the urge to throttle me, I could make her laugh. She was as beautiful angry as she was happy, but I still took pride in being able to make her smile.
Later, when the war was at it's worst, I was just grateful that I could make her feel something besides the berserker rage that was consuming her towards the end.
*
When Rachel was killed there was no time to grieve. I had watched my father's life turn to rubbish around him and saw that it didn't change anything. It only made it harder for him to pick up the pieces when he was ready to start living again.
I knew that letting loss consume you doesn't solve anything, so I did my best to push the loss aside and focus on the moment. We'd sent the Yeerks running, but the war wasn't over. It soon became apparent that there was still something I needed to do.
For all that Jake could talk the military over to our side and go toe to toe with the Andalites, he was at a loss when it came to dealing with the media.
He handled the initial media frenzy well enough, summing up three years of war in a few minutes' time. But later, when the public wanted pieces of us, the few interviews he gave were full of thoughtful, awkward silences. Jake couldn't give them the glib answers they wanted.
I could, and I stepped in, spinning them a story that made the battles sound heroic and exciting rather than bloody and terrifying.
After that it was easy for me to become the public face of the Animorphs. I directed the media attention away from the others and towards me. It might have been a mistake, because it gave Jake too much time alone with his guilt.
Rachel wouldn't have let it go as far as did. Rachel would have dragged Jake out into the world and out of his depression long before we finally intervened.
That's what I liked to think, anyway. For all I knew she and Birdboy might still be on their honeymoon and one less death wouldn't have made a difference to Jake with the 17,000 that came before.
With the media so focused on me, I was careful to never allow myself to grieve too publicly for Rachel.
Jake had lost a cousin, Cassie had lost her best friend, Ax had lost a fellow warrior, and Tobias had lost his reason for holding on to his humanity.
I had lost a remote possibility.
Even if Tobias had turned away from her, choosing the life of the hawk after the war, there were no guarantees. I might have made my play for her and lost.
To an outsider what I didn't have with Rachel seemed to pale in comparison with their more genuine losses. I kept my grief private so that I wouldn't have to rationalize it.
*
Whenever someone asked about my love life during an interview I liked to say that I was making up for lost time. After all, I didn't have time or the opportunity to date during the war.
And what better way to make up lost time than by dating supermodels?
This always got a laugh. Jon Stewart displayed a picture of the woman I was dating, took a good long look, and nodded appreciatively. Other, more serious newscasters, asked the same sort questions: was the most recent girlfriend 'the one' and would I ever settle down. I played along, laughing, and told them I liked to play the field.
No one was really surprised when I showed up with yet another blonde on my arm a few weeks later.
*
Sometimes I wondered what Rachel would have made of the media frenzy.
We'd fought the war for three years, but it seemed like much longer. When I thought about what I'd do after the war, I imagined having a roof over my head, indoor plumbing, and not having to live in fear any longer. I hadn't been prepared for the way the media had gone crazy for us. I hadn't imagined anything like it, and I doubt anyone else did either.
Rachel wouldn't have expected it, but she would have thrived for a while. The cameras would have loved her, but she was so volatile, even before the war brought out the darkness in her. Rachel wouldn't have lasted long under all the scrutiny before she lost her temper. She might have shouted at a curious reporter or broken a camera when someone got too close, or she might have even started a fight if she had to deal with a particularly annoying paparazzi.
One of the beloved Animorphs blowing up publicly would have caused a scandal. It would have been a headache and I would have been asked about it for weeks afterwards whenever I made an appearance on television.
I wished I could have seen it, but I tried not to let myself dwell on what might have been. Rachel would have approved. She wouldn't have wanted any of us to live in the past.
Rachel wouldn't have wanted Tobias to pull into himself, or Jake to fall to pieces, or all of us to grow apart.
It didn't matter what she might have wanted of us, because Rachel couldn't hurt anymore. Grief is selfish, and when we mourned we were mourning our loss, not hers.
*
I lost my virginity to Sherri, third in the string of models. She was four years older than me and eight inches taller.
Sherri and I didn't last long, even though (because) she was a sweet-tempered person. When she laughed she was laughing at my jokes, never at me. We didn't have much in common. She was dating me largely for the boost to her modeling career, but I knew that going in and was ok with it.
I could always make Rachel laugh, and I was sure she would have found this hilarious.