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

26: Day

I am not surprised to find myself in a luxurious hotel room such as of Babel. I am also not surprised when I find out that I am naked and not all alone in bed. I am not at all surprised to find out that the person next to me, sleeping contentedly so close to me, will be June. Everything that happened between the two of us last night... I can remember every single detail of it. And I don't regret what happened.

Since I finally started to slowly get to know June again, throughout the last few days, layers and layers of memories have started to return. At first, I thought of them as dreams. But when Eden told me about most of them, weeks ago before that banquet night... I could say that life had never been too good for me. My teenage years was wrapped by complete tragedy and sorrow, that there was even a very small glimmer of light among such thick dark clouds. Still, whoever I was before shaped me to be this person. I'd been dying once, and here I am completely alive. I'd been haunted once and countless of people tried to kill me, and here I am pretending to be someone whose memories were still tampered to the woman I'd loved years ago.

June stirs next to me, and I suddenly close my eyes and pretend to continue sleeping. I know too well that June has been the observant one as always, and she'll instantly realize that I am just pretending. She knows—as I do—too well that a person's breathing pattern when he sleeps is different from when he is awake. But for some reasons, she doesn't seem to realize it since I feel her turning to look at me fully. Also, she has been so bold as well for her fingers to trail my cheek lightly, even to the extent of shyly touching my lips. I have every intention at that very moment to embrace her and kiss her once again, equally as passionate and as hungry as I did earlier. But I will myself not to, and I even tell myself not to smile because it will give her a hint that I love what she is doing even if those actions are completely out of character.

Few seconds later, as if she realizes what she is doing, she pulls away and turns away from me and to the other side of the bed. I hear shuffling and shifting. Only when I conclude to myself that she is moving out of bed that I finally move to wrap my arms around her, pressing her back closely against my chest, wanting not to lose her yet, wanting her to remain here with me.

She doesn't even elicit a sigh or tried to let go. She allows me, and I allow her to succumb closer to me. Few minutes passed again, and I am slowly feeling sleep pulling me back that I hear her mutter, "Why?"

"Huh?" I inquire, feeling my eyelids about to droop close.

"Why did you?" she asks again. "I thought we were to keep our relationship on professional level. Anything going on—"

"So you admit that there's something between us," I interrupt, and once the words are out, I so wish that I could take them back. But I know too well that there's no way that I can cover it up anymore, and June is not someone who will take such words easily.

"Two times that I've lower my defense to you," she answers, visibly shy with her words. "Still knowing that I've done countless of horrible things in the past that caused you too much pain. All the while knowing that you may not remember most of it and I used it to my advantage to—"

I hold her much tighter, stopping her right there. I bury my face against her dark thick loose hair. She smells like roses and lilac, of strength and beauty and intelligence all at once. I mutter, "I know. But it is all in the past. Nothing that you have done in the past can make me stop loving you."

"No," she replies as she looks at me. Her eyes, with visible burning tears, glimmer in the dim light from the bedside table's lampshade. "You don't even know. How could you love someone like me?"

I move to hover above her and place my hands on her cheeks, looking at her straight in the eye. It breaks my heart seeing her this way, seeing her doubting my love for her. Well, I can't blame her. After all, I am the one whose memories were lost for quite some time. It is I who've been gone from the Republic just to be in Antarctica for a decade. It is I who've fallen in love with her before my memories returned, and will always love her still. The man who is bound by fate to love her despite the circumstances.