Northern Daughter

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Sweaty, gasping, I jump out of bed, running into the door frame and probably fracturing my shoulder om my bolt out of the room and into Duke's.

He's on the floor, still asleep. How is he still asleep after that?

I drop to my knees, his pupils trying to bore their way out past his eyelids, his hands forming fists, muscles tight, body drenched in sweat, mumbles and occasional exclamations rolling out of him.

"Duke, Duke, buddy, wake up, Duke!"

I haven't been the only one with nightmares, even if mine have been more vivid. We've had complaints from the neighbors. I'm a lot more violent, I scream more, wake up harder. He's spent countless nights in my bed, holding me through sleep. I remember just a handful.

He's never had one like this.

I hit his face, pull his hair, dig my nails into his chest, do everything mildly painful I can think of to wake him up, failing terribly. He does so om his own. With a time-freezing gasp, he silences the world and his mind.

"It's okay," I tell him, pushing his chest. "You had a nightmare, it's over, it's okay."

He shoves me off, gets up.

"Wish it was a fucking nightmare".

I swallow.

I wait.

I owe him.

He comes back with two glasses, my naive mind enlightened by the smell that they, not so surprisingly, are not filled with water. He drops down beside me, back against the edge of his bed, hand reaching first for the remote to his LED lights, second for the small humidifier beside his nightstand, and last, for the lighter in his nightstand's drawer.

"What did you see?"

"At the very least, I deserve a dinner before you interrogate me about my wet dreams."

I snort. He hands me the joint. "My next birthday? My real one?"

He swallows. Exhales. "I'm turning twenty two."

I wouldn't have guessed. At the same time it doesn't surprise me. "I was fourteen when I met Diana. Or.... Well, Jacob Myers was fourteen when he met Diana, I wasn't born yet. She was a marvel, everything you and I could never be." He snorts. "Good thing that asshat knows you're the absolute opposite of the girl of my dreams, God knows how he would've behaved if he hadn't known."

I smile. "She was a wonder. The beauty. The heart. The light. She was it. And she was mine. She was mine..."

I pass him the joint, wishing we had something stronger now. "I was at that delicate age where  my true physique had started evolving, revealing more and more about a past the East had spent millions trying to protect me from, and meanwhile, you had the Polar gangs turning every stone upside down looking for a lost heir, and then you had a shit ton of non-Polar traitors who would sell us out for prices so low, I'm too ashamed to admit they were on our heads, mine and Avery's and every other male in our generation. Then again, I was older, I showed, I stood out, I wasn't a wallflower like Avery. He could pass unnoticed by himself, but again, it made it a lot easier that he had his dad, Chloe, Bianca, myself. I was the main target last decade, and I wasn't even the fucking heir."