His Sour Lemon #2.1

Part 36: That Second Chance

Author's note: So, it's been a long time, here's the longest chapter I've written. Hope you enjoy it, let me know what you think because every time I write a soppy chapter of romance, I feel like I'm either too cliche or just not descriptive enough. Please tell me! And enjoy!

CHAPTER 36: That Second Chance

November, 2033.
Outskirts of New York City, America.
Fitzgerald Institute for Troubled Youth.

When seconds turn to minutes, minutes to hours, days to weeks and weeks to months...one becomes more familiar with guard rotations, which children stay and which are removed. Which ones used as leverage. I broke one guards neck for attempting to assault the younger girls. I got fifteen whips in front of them.

And not a single tear dropped from my eyes as they screamed for it to stop. Not all of them were so young, one was the sister of a member Sampson wasn't certain was strong enough to hold his own. She was strong enough to stop the last whip from hitting my ripped flesh, but her own skin slid down in pain against me. I looked at her tag.

Iris.

I remember her screams when we were jailed once. They sounded the same as the woman I remember as a child, the woman Oswald kept locked in. She was strong, snarky...but didn't die fast enough to remove the pain no woman should ever have to feel.

Lyndon, the brother...was smashed down when her screams died out.

The first time I saw a name, not just a face.

*******

August 14th, 2042.
City Centre, New York, NY, USA
Creed Mansion, Headquarters.

I take a slow, begrudging seat down on the mattress in her designated room. It smelt of her, everywhere. I couldn't breathe it in fast enough. Tired and weak, I drop my head in my hands, tensing more. She closes the door and I straighten, feeling those alien eyes I've fallen hopelessly in love with. I never thought, not in any nightmare or dark place in my life, that I would understand this feeling and that I could experience it. That warmth. That intoxicating, alluring feeling that makes me hate everything I've ever done that hurt her in the process.

Fuck, it's maddening.

She looks at me as if waiting for a lecture or some scolding, looking bored and disinterested and it hurt. It hurt badly just to see the expression on her face, blank and happy to be alone. She looked so detached, distant, "What are you thinking about?" I asked, trying to seem stoic, but on the inside, I was sobbing. She wouldn't look at me like she use to.

She blinks and shakes her head with a sigh, I felt like a child asking for forgiveness, for acceptance and she couldn't be swayed, "Nothing. What did you want to talk about?" She asks, moving the files swiftly to the desk and glancing through it. Had I truly lost her? Had that stripper seriously changed her mind like that? I thought we were moving forward after everything we discussed before.

She looks at me, waiting, "What's going on, Edmund?"

"I can't sleep." I whisper, confessing.

She shows no emotion when I look at her. Like she just doesn't care.

Fuck, this was painful.

This. Is. Painful.

"I dream of...I saw you with Kenji on the television, do you not think I can see the way you act around him, a familiarity, the chemistry. Fuck, I'm not blind nor am I an idiot, lemon. I know I've treated you horribly and you have every right to push me away...I want to try again. Is what I'm trying to say." She only blinks at me as I ramble on.