Carry Me Home - A LEGEND trilogy (Marie Lu) fanfiction

15: Day

I let June cry on my shoulder. Even if I don't know what I am supposed to do, I let her cry and embrace her tightly, my protective arms trying to comfort her against anything that may hurt her or the reason of her tears.

All she mutters is, 'I'm sorry, Day.'

I don't know why she apologized to me. Because I know that I should be the one to apologize for I am the one who asked in the first place.

"It's alright," I try to comfort her with gentle words, even when I know that those words aren't enough. And when something finally sinks in my mind why she did apologize, I mutter softly against her hair, "Oh... it's all fine now. It's all fine with me."

I let her cry a little more. I repeat my words of assurance and I don't stop until she stops crying. Actually, she doesn't dare to stop. I just place my hands on her shoulders and make her look at me directly. Her gentle and beautiful eyes are blurred with sweet tears, ruining her make-up.

June immediately pushes me away, moving farther from my arms. It gives my heart a sudden, silent breaking of emotions. The feeling is so foreign to me. It is as if my heart was too heavy to continue beating and fighting for a hope of survival. She brings her hands to her face, so that I don't see how messed up she is.

Given the fact that I can hear her sobs, she tries to contain her tears, not allowing me to see her like this and not letting me brush away the tears on her eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Daniel. You don't know what I meant by those words," replies June. "You may tell me that everything is fine. That it's alright for you. But..." She shakes her head slowly. "You don't know what those words were for. They meant more. They meant everything to me on this world, Daniel."

I remain still and quiet. I don't want us to fight and I know that if I interrupt her now, she'll be angry at me or even shout at me. Yet, my goddy instincts suddenly rises. "But I do care about you, June. Can't you see that?"

June removes her hands from her face and moves backward from me. "You don't know who I am."

"You are June Iparis, the girl I've loved ten years ago. The girl I love now, and the girl I'll love for the rest of my life," I answer as I run a hand on my short blonde hair.

She shakes her head again, even when tears are still streaming down her face. I reach out to brush a few drops away but she holds up her hand to grab my wrist, holding my hands with her own. "No. You can't. I've done a lot with your life already, Daniel. Because of my insolence with revenge for my brother, I broke your dream for a complete family. Because of my stubbornness, I caused you pain. And because of my carelessness, I lost our child." She stops for a moment to clutch my hands together. "Isn't it enough for you to hate me than to love me still?"

I stay quiet for a while until she lets go of my hands. Then, I decide to cup her face in my hands. I can't feel a broken dream. I can't feel the pain she caused me. I can't even feel my anger even after I heard from her that she lost our child, the one that might have bound us together again. I can't feel any hatred against June. All I feel for her is simply love.

I lean forward to kiss her on the forehead. "Remember this, June, I may not remember fully who we are in the past. And it may one day return slowly, I have faith that it would. No matter how hard it is to accept and even make myself understand why you did that..." I nod at her gently. "We were just some goddy teenagers that time, all innocent who didn't care about anyone but our own selves. All we think about was our own selfish desires to survive and be superior to the others, thinking that the whole world would never know or even care about us. I might have hated you, but it was shadowed by a new feeling." I stop and level my eyes to her watery ones.

Despite her ruined make-up, June still looks beautiful, invincible and strong. June is still June, that's why no matter how she looks, she'll always be the girl I know I will always love.

"June Iparis, whoever you have been in our past and who may you be in the future, I will always love you," I state.

June first looks at me, confused and afraid at the same time. Then she runs a hand on my cheek and smiles sadly at me. My hands move to her waist. "You're so innocent, my love. The world isn't pure bliss alone." She then leans closer and kisses me on the lips.

I move closer to her that our bodies are so close against each other. I deepen our kiss just as how I want it to be. And it may be true that I have a lot to know about her.

With what happened in our past, I might have hated her so much. But every single thing in this world is lightened by love.

Only love is the real winner of war, the most powerful feeling against anger and fear.