Triple Crown

[Sonmi-451]

“Lizzie, Lizzie,” a voice calls, and I wake, for a few moments not knowing where I am as I stare at a dark ceiling. However, my state of ignorance doesn’t last long. In a moment, I remember that I’m in a storage closet, sitting next to bleach and mops, and then everything that happened to get me here and while I was in here floods in. With me being in no mood to see or talk to anyone, I sit completely still, hoping that whoever’s looking for me will give up and go away.
Unfortunately, the voice says again, “Lizzie, Lizzie,” and, with a roll of my eyes, I rise to my feet and open the closet door to be met with a combination of white and light so bright I initially have to look away. I quickly blink away my blindness and shut the closet door quietly, hoping to keep its existence as unknown as possible. I stand and wait for the voice to come to me, as it seems to be approaching as it calls my name, and suddenly my heart skips a beat. I’d know that Texas drawl anywhere…
Jackson.
“Jackson, Jackson!” I cry wildly, running through the door on the left and barreling right into him. I feel his arms tighten around me and smell his scent and I know that it’s him, that it’s really him. After I just let him hold me for a few blissful seconds, I pull back and murmur, “Jackson,” as I look up at him.
“Lizzie.” He smiles down at me, his hands resting on my back, but not even the biggest grin in the world could cover up the bags under his eyes or his hollow cheeks. What has he been doing that’s aged him five years in the last two and a half weeks?
I brush right past his smile and ask him, raising a hand to gently touch underneath his eye, “What happened?”
“I’ve been worried about you Lizzie, so worried. I’ve been watching the live feed of the victory tour every day just to make sure you’re doing all right, and every night I got down on my knees and thanked God that you were, although you could do with eating a bit more, if I do say so myself.” He places one hand over my ribs and gently traces the outline of them through my white tank top. All of a sudden I remember I’m still in my nightclothes and look down to find two inches of my stomach exposed and nearly all of my thighs showing because of my very short shorts. Jackson smiles slightly as he sees me glance down at myself and adds, “Don’t worry Lizzie, you’re going to get a chance to change.”
“Good,” I tell him, nodding my head in agreement but feeling indecent for having so little clothes on in front of Jackson. It’s interesting: I don’t have an issue with being so exposed in front of Luke but I do with Jackson, even though I’ve known him and have been around him longer. I guess I’ve just become so comfortable around Luke because I’ve been around him so much these last few weeks.
“Well, Lizzie, are you ready to go and see Mitchell?” Jackson pulls away from me completely and finds my hand with one of his own as he looks down at me expectantly.
“No, Jackson, I don’t want to leave and face the outside world ever again, I just want to stay here with you and the bleach and the mops forever.” I can’t help but hear the pleading in my voice, but I brush past it. If I sound desperate, good, because I am.
“Lizzie…” he begins, clearly intending to tell me that I have to go outside sometime, that I can’t stay here forever, that I need to go see Mitchell because I have to get dressed, but he doesn’t, and instead pulls me to him and kisses me.
I feel his hands touch the bare skin of my back and I get goose bumps, for a second not knowing whether to kiss him back or not. But then I feel it, that hunger, and it overtakes me and makes me kiss him back as I throw my arms around his neck.
After he pulls away and looks down at me with a small smile on his face for a few seconds, he murmurs, “Ready to go now?”
I shake my head and bury my face in his shoulder, wanting to stay and lean on him forever. As I stand back up and stare up at him with anxiousness in my eyes, I mutter, “I just want to stay here and do that for a while. A long while.”
Jackson’s grin gets bigger and he replies, “Well, Lizzie, I’d love to do that, but I believe that Max is going to come in here and drag us both out by the scruffs of our necks if we don’t get moving,” then takes my hand and gently leads me towards the train exit.
“Jackson, how do you stand it?” I ask him as we stop next to the exit doors and wait for them to open.
“Stand what?” He looks over at me, curiosity and apprehension on his face, and catches my golden gaze with his own yellow one.
“Stand seeing me parading around all over national television with Luke.” I see his eyes flicker and I know I’ve hit a touchy subject, but I don’t really care. I’ve done too much crying and hurting recently to care.
“I stand it by remembering our kiss, in the Champions’ Center, and reminding myself that you don’t kiss him like that, that you love me, not him, no matter how much better for you he is.” I can’t help but smile at the last part. Even though I have kissed Luke like that, just not in front of Jackson, many of my thoughts these last few days have been about how Luke is too good for me, so it's interesting that someone else - especially Jackson, of all people - would bring up the exact same issue. “Why do you ask?”
“Morbid curiosity, I suppose,” I answer, shrugging my shoulders. “I mean, I asked Luke how he can put up with me, keep up with me and love me when I don’t love him, so I guess I just have a knack for asking difficult kinds of questions.” Jackson grins weakly at the last part, but it’s very obvious that neither one of us are very amused by it.
The doors then slide smoothly open and a torrent of light barrages my eyes and blinds me momentarily. When I’ve done enough blinking and shaking of my head to see properly, Jackson offers me his hand, the palm – even larger and more calloused than Luke’s – up and murmurs, bowing slightly with his gaze locked on mine the whole, “Shall we?”
With the same formality, along with the deeper, larger feeling that I’m going to my own execution, I answer in the same quiet tone, as I slip my hand into his and feel his grip tighten around it, “We shall.”

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“Lizzie!” I hear a relieved voice cry as I walk out of the elevator and onto the eight floor of the Champions’ Center, still hand in hand with Jackson, and I look wildly around to see who’s calling my name. However, I know exactly whom it is when I feel a small body fling itself on my midsection and look down to see a little blond head buried in my stomach.
“Abby!” Instantly my mood improves and I squat down to give her a proper hug, wrapping my arms around her and squeezing her as hard as I dare. “Oh, come here,” I tell her when she finally lets go, and I gently lift her up and set her on my shoulders, keeping a firm grip on her spindly legs so she won’t fall backwards onto the cold white tile floor.
As soon as she gets settled, I feel her stiffen and glance up to see her staring hard at Jackson. She then bends down and whispers in my ear, “Who’s he?” all the while shooting Jackson venomous looks.
“That’s my…” I begin, knowing I can’t tell her that he’s my best friend who would probably be my boyfriend if I weren’t here, “brother Jackson. He’s really nice, don’t worry.” I smile at him and thank God that we look at least a little bit alike, the most noticeable of our shared features definitely our eyes, although Jackson’s look more haunted than mine. Or at least they used to.
“Oh, okay.” Abby immediately brightens and sits back up, leaning forward and stretching her arm out to shake Jackson’s hand. “Hi Jackson, my name’s Abby,” she introduces cheerfully, and I can’t help but notice that, even sitting on my shoulders, her head isn’t that much higher than his.
“It’s nice to meet you, Ma’am,” Jackson replies, bowing and exaggerating his drawl for effect, then smiles when Abby giggles at him.
“You talk funny Jackson. Why do you talk different than Lizzie?” Abby asks him, and my eyes shoot open. I feel like hitting myself on the forehead with my hand, since I should have thought about his drawl before saying he was my brother. Desperately I seek out his gaze and send him a message telepathically, praying he follows it, “She thinks you’re my brother. Answer accordingly.” Though he probably already heard my comment to Abby about him being my brother, I have to make sure he plays along.
I nearly let out an audible sigh of relief when Jackson nods almost imperceptibly at me, then responds, “Well, Lizzie and I didn’t grow up together.”
“Oh, okay.” I glance up to see Abby nod her head, a smile eternally on her face, and I grin myself. Abby truly does have a gift for cheering others up, and I’m incredibly grateful for that, since it made Hand-to-Hand Combat mostly bearable.
Suddenly a question strikes me and I ask her, my neck starting to hurt from being held at such an extreme angle for so long, “Abby, why are you here on the eighth floor when you’re supposed to be on the fifth floor with the other Section Five champions?”
I see a look of confusion flit across her face for a moment before the light of remembrance flicks on in her eyes and she answers, “Well, I’m the servant girl assigned to your room, so they sent me up here to get it ready for you.” For the first time, I notice that she is, in fact, dressed in the solid-white outfit of Champions’ Center servants and know that her story is true.
“How did you get here, working as a servant girl in the Champions’ Center?” Jackson questions and Abby turns her gaze back to him, her smile fading now.
“Well, when I was eight, things got really bad for my family, and I knew I had to do something to help them, so, since I knew I was just another mouth to feed that my family couldn’t feed, I decided to become a servant girl here and get myself off of my family’s hands, since we get fed and clothed and housed here.” I stare up at Abby with an expression of mingled surprise and empathy, as I can imagine how hard leaving her family because they couldn’t feed her must have been for her. “But I was still entered in the Triple Crown, because I’m still from Section Five, and, well, you know what happened after that.” For the first time in the whole month I’ve known her, Abby’s sad, and maybe even angry, which astonishes me even more. Abby doesn’t get angry. She gets afraid and sad and tired and hopeless but she doesn’t get angry, and so it shocks me to see her mad. To be honest, I thought it wasn’t possible for her to be angry, despite all of the things that have happened to her.
“Well, I wish you the best of luck in the Triple Crown, Miss Abby.” Jackson bows again, then turns to leave, but I stop him with a cry of dismay.
“Jackson, don’t go. I really could use you around for now,” I tell him as I gently lift Abby off of my shoulders and set her down on the floor, hearing the pleading creeping into my voice and not really caring. The fact that I sound desperate – because I am – will probably help convince him to stay.
“As you wish, Ma’am.” Jackson nods his head and gives me a smile, his golden eyes twinkling as he steps closer towards me and finds my hand with one of his. I glance down to see Abby looking at us apprehensively, clearly confused, and I realize that most brothers and sisters probably aren’t this close; Gwillan and Gruffen and I definitely aren’t nearly this affectionate, not even in private.
Suddenly Abby’s face lights up and she grabs at my arm, simultaneously pulling on me and telling me excitedly, “Come on Lizzie! Come on! There’s something I want to show you!” and, knowing very well that I can’t turn her down – and I wouldn’t even if I could – I allow her to drag me, and inadvertently Jackson, towards my room and then wait patiently outside as she slips inside to “check something.”
“So what do you think?” I ask him as we stand there, hand in hand, my eyes twinkling as I look over at him.
“Well, Abby is quite a character, that’s for sure,” he answers, grinning back. “She really does love you, you know. I can see it in the way she looks at you and acts around you and to you. I find that amazing, honestly, that she loves you as much as she does – like a big sister – after only knowing you for about three weeks.” I glance over at him to find him watching me with his intense golden gaze, his eyes glued on me with a distinctly wolf-like look in them.
“Well, how long did it take you to fall for me?” I question him in response, knowing that his answer is going to be a short period of time. Before I came here, I knew for a while that Jackson had feelings for me, but I also knew that his feelings for Alexa were unsurpassed by none, so I didn’t really think much about it until she rejected him for, ironically, Gwillan.
“I think two weeks after I met you,” he admits, smiling at me as his stare loses some of its strength to become less wolf-like in nature. “I saw you kissing Troy – like you did a lot back then – and I realized that I cared, that I wanted you to kiss me, not him. But then, of course, there was Alexa, and I suppose you could say I got… sidetracked.” The grin I had gained at the comment about me kissing Troy instantly slid off my face, because I knew very well that Jackson didn’t get sidetracked. He found the one, his soul mate, the person he would love for the rest of his life. The only problem was, she didn’t feel that way about him.
“Jackson, any girl would be lucky to have you,” I murmur, my gaze locked on his. As a small smile curls my lips, I add, “I know I am.”
Jackson leans down to kiss me, and I stand there with my eyes closed waiting for it, only to hear my bedroom door open and feel Jackson’s lips on my forehead. Instantly my eyes pop open, and I glance over to see Abby standing there, her expression confused and more than the slightest bit suspicious, which isn’t good at all. Abby is one of the people that truly believe I love Luke as much as he loves me, and I know it would negatively affect her trust in me if she were to see me with a guy besides Luke, especially a guy who I had originally told her was my brother.
“Shall we, sister?” Jackson’s gaze flickers back and forth between me and my room, and I let him lead me into the surprise Abby has prepared for me.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

I hear myself audibly gasp in amazement as I look around me at the beautiful wall-to-floor painting now occupying the west wall of my room. It’s a nearly-perfect replication of a picture of Luke and me, both of us smiling as we gaze into each other’s eyes. But the painting itself isn’t what strikes me the most. It’s the small word, printed at the bottom center of the painting, which reads, “Always.” Because of all the connotations I have associated with that word and with what it means in Luke’s and my relationship, I feel a rising tide of emotions surging up in me and fight back against it. After all, I can’t start crying or attempting to scrape the picture off the wall in front of Abby. So, restraining all of the feelings running rampant in me, I tell Abby, completely truthfully, “It’s beautiful,” as my eyes run up and down the painting, taking in every square inch of resemblance, emotion and memory. Reaching a shaky hand out, I gently touch the mural and feel the smooth consistency of the paint over the rough texture of the wall.
“You really like it?” Abby asks, sounding surprised and excited all at once, and I tear my gaze away to look over at her.
“I love it, Abby,” I murmur in response, bending down and giving her a huge hug as I wonder about why she cares so much about me to give me such an amazing welcome-home present. When I finally let her go, I look into her eyes and question, trying to make myself sound happy and not at all sad, “How on earth did you finish it in only two weeks?”
“I worked all day and night on it because I knew it had to be great, just for you.” She gives me a beaming grin and I feel even closer to breaking down and crying than I did before. “See?” She then holds out her hands and shows me her paint-stained fingers, rubbed red and raw by her servant-girl chores.
“Well it’s really nice of you to do this, Abby,” I finally manage to say after I take a few moments to recollect myself, refusing to let myself cry in front of her. I can cry once she leaves. “It really is amazing. Since you’re this good at painting, maybe you should be a stylist and design clothes. I’m sure they’d be awesome.”
“You really think so?” Abby looks up at me, her angelic face glowing with hope and possibility, and I can’t help but smile through the tears welling up in my eyes.
“I know so.” I turn away from Abby and take a few deep breaths to prevent the tears from streaming down my face. Glancing up, I see Jackson looking at the mural with a detached, cold interest, but I can see the anger and jealousy in his eyes and instantly turn back around to face Abby again. I don’t want to have to deal with Jackson’s rage right now.
Suddenly I hear something buzz and I see Abby jump in surprise, her hand going to a little device about the size of a cell phone at her waist. “Well, they need me in the kitchens, so I have to go,” she announces aloud, then runs to me, embraces me quickly and nods her head at Jackson before dashing out the door of my room.
After Abby’s departure, Jackson and I stand in an incredibly awkward, very self-conscious silence for a few moments before he opens his mouth and murmurs, “It’s a beautiful rendition of a lie.” He reaches a hand out and touches my painted face, his gaze searching the painting for answers to unspoken questions.
“Jackson,” I begin, thinking that I’m going to tell him that he’s right, that there’s nothing between Luke and I, that it is just a lie, a camera-made romance, but then I remember those three kisses Luke and I had, and I remember Luke and Max’s conversation, and I remember Luke’s willingness to die for the idea that he was helping me, and I know that I can’t tell Jackson there’s nothing there, because there’s undeniably something there. So I just finish my statement with, “Look at it this way: both Luke and I will be dead soon, so then there won’t be anyone to lie anymore.” Instead of being sad now, I’m angry that Jackson would suggest that my entire relationship with Luke is a lie, that I can’t be truly happy with Luke when Luke has actually made me incredibly happy at times these last few weeks. True, he’s made me cry, though inadvertently, as many times as he’s made me happy, but he has made me happy, and that I can’t and won’t deny that.
Not wanting to be in Jackson’s negative presence anymore, I turn away from him and towards the door, taking a step forward to leave when he grabs my hand and pulls me back to him. “Lizzie, please don’t,” he begs of me quietly as he gazes down at me, desperation flickering like a flame in his eyes. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.” He bows his head momentarily, acknowledging his mistake, but it doesn’t do a thing to convince me to stay with him.
“Jackson, I have a lie to uphold,” I tell him coldly as I extract myself from his arms, then walk out the door, the only thought in my head being that I need to find another storage closet, the farther away from here, the better.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“Lizzie!” a voice behind me calls urgently, but I ignore it, bent and determined on getting to the storage closet at the end of the hallway and locking myself in it. However, instead of losing the speaker like I had intended, I hear quick footsteps behind me and glance over to see Luke standing beside me.
“Luke,” I murmur in reply, my eyes glued on the storage closet as I run calculations over in my head and wonder, if I suddenly started sprinting for the storage closet door, if I could successfully lock myself inside before Luke got there. Considering that I run a 4.13-second forty-yard dash, and it’s about that long down the hallway to the closet, it’s worth a shot, but I decide to wait and see what Luke has to say before bolting.
“I was worried about you when you left on the train earlier,” he tells me, and I can see out of the corner of my eye that he’s gazing at me concernedly. Well, he hasn’t started professing his love for me yet, so maybe at least some of Max’s talk stuck with him.
“I can imagine you were,” I answer blandly, gritting my teeth and wishing, completely selfishly, that he would just go away because I don’t want to talk about my earlier meltdown; all I want to do is lock myself in a storage closet and cry.
All of a sudden, I feel the air to my left move and I look over to find Luke simultaneously wrapping me in his arms and pinning me against the wall. At first, I try to pull away, shooting desperate glances down the hallway to the storage closet door, but am forced to focus on Luke when I feel his lips press against mine. Placing my hands on his chest, I attempt to push him off me, but it is a truly feeble effort and soon I find myself with my arms locked around Luke’s neck as I kiss him back.
“You know, Miss Lightning,” Luke begins after he pulls away, his ice-blue eyes locked on mine as he leans over me and pushes me gently into the wall, “sometimes I wish I knew what’s going on in your head, what you’re going to do next, but then I remember that our relationship wouldn’t be nearly as fun if I did since it’d be a lot more predictable, and, you know, I like your erratic behavior.” He gives me a small smile, even as the pain in his gaze is almost more than obvious, and I remember that he probably knows about Jackson coming to get me off the train and has also most likely come to his own conclusions about what that entailed. However, I don’t have any time to dwell on that, as I am torn from my thoughts by Luke kissing me again, this time with less urgency and more gentleness, maybe even desire, to the embrace, and, yet again, I find myself kissing him back.
This time I pull back, since I run out of breath, and lean against the wall as I stare up at Luke and watch as he raises a hand and brushes a strand of hair away from my face. He's done that so many times before that it could be our relationship’s signature gesture, if there is such a thing.
“So, Lizzie, what do you want to do, now that we have a week before One-Person Survival starts?” Luke asks me quietly, a small smile curling his lips as he snakes one arm around my waist and finds my hand with one of his own. Even though I can tell that he'd rather I wouldn't, I can't help but pick up on the implied, “and one or both of us is going to be dead in two or three?”
“I want to go out in style, Luke,” I reply, my eyes glued on his. “I mean, now that we’re both basically dead, I’m saying what the hell, let’s just do what we want. After all, we might as well have some fun before we die.” I allow myself a grin for emphasis here even though it’s not exactly a happy topic. “I mean, when I die, I want to die as me, Luke, as Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Lightning, not as one of El Nieve’s pawns.” Luke nods his head, looking like he understands and agrees. “Besides, the Sections might as well have a martyr, a spark, that they can use after I’m gone.”
Now Luke becomes confused and questions, his brow furrowed in a question mark of its own, “What do you mean, about the spark part?”
“Haven’t you seen my dresses and outfits? Mitchell’s taken it upon himself to make me Lizzie Lightning, the spark, and I’m pretty sure my fire-starting capabilities haven’t been lost on the Sections.” ‘Pretty sure’ is an understatement, of course.
“Oh.” Luke drops his gaze to the floor and searches the white tiles, his eyes distant and stormy as he thinks. “But doesn’t Mitchell know that’s dangerous, to make you a spark when you’re supposed to be suppressing rebellion?”
“He knows, Luke,” I begin, “but I think he figures that he’s dead too, and he’s decided to go out in style too.” I find it ironic that Mitchell’s version of going out in style happens to be styling my clothes in a political fashion, but I guess there’s not much else a stylist can do to effectively commit suicide.
“Oh,” Luke replies again, this time adding an “okay” to the end of his answer. We then just stand in silence for a few moments as Luke continues to think and I shoot furtive, longing glances down the hallway at the storage closet door. Finally Luke pipes up and says, “Lizzie, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you since the train thing.” He checks to see that I’m following – like I wouldn’t be – and then continues. “Where’d you go after you left your room on the train?”
Instantly my eyes shoot open for a splitsecond, since I know that this is a difficult situation, a very difficult situation. If I tell him where I actually was, then the fact that I, although inadvertently, eavesdropped on his and Max’s conversation will come out. That could, in turn, lead into a conversation between Luke and I about our incredibly twisted relationship, which could then end up with me locking myself in a storage closet again. Of course, I might do that last part anyways, but that’s irrelevant.
“Um, I locked myself in a closet and cried myself to sleep next to the bleach and the mops,” I answer truthfully, thinking that he doesn’t need to know exactly where the closet was. However, all of a sudden I remember thinking once that if Luke and I don’t have trust in each other, we don’t have anything. I then realize, with an internal sigh, that I have to tell him, I just have to, no matter how much I don’t want to. “And, well, I kind of overheard you and Max’s conversation,” I add almost sheepishly, looking over at Luke apprehensively to see his reaction, which I pray to God isn’t going to be angry.
“Oh,” Luke replies for a third time, appearing more surprised than anything else. “Well, how much did you overhear?” he questions, and I note with satisfaction and some surprise with my own that he doesn’t seem angry, but merely quizzical.
“Everything, or at least what I think is everything. From the part where you said you didn’t know what you did wrong onward,” I respond, leaving off the part that, at the end, I cried myself to sleep again.
Luke nods his head, his eyes on the ground again, and I continue to watch him with a certain degree of caution, knowing that there’s still plenty of time for him to have an angry outburst and for me to lock myself in a closet again. “Well, what do you think?” he finally asks me, and, upon seeing my confused expression, elaborates, “About what you heard Max and I talk about?”
“Well, Max is right,” I say carefully, knowing that I have to choose my words carefully in this situation, considering that one wrong phrase could twist our already-twisted relationship beyond repair.
“About how much of it?” Luke’s gaze is locked on my face, his eyes scanning me so intensely that I feel like I’m being x-rayed.
“About all of it, Luke. About you not being the only source of my problems, about you making feel like a bad person by saying you love me all the time, about the best thing you can do for me being just giving me some time to think and sort things out.” I give Luke a weak smile as I add, “You know, Max is a pretty smart guy. You should listen to him.”
Luke returns my smile halfheartedly, his grin looking more like a grimace than anything else. “But Lizzie,” he begins, looking at me confusedly and almost pleadingly, “why does it hurt you when I tell you I love you? I mean, all I want to do is show you how much you mean to me, and telling you that I love you is one of the ways I do that. So I’m just stumped by how me showing you how much I don’t want to hurt you, how much I care about you, hurts you when it’s supposed to be doing the opposite.” He gives a feeble laugh that is so fake I want to scream and then looks at me in confusion and pain.
“Luke, when you tell me that you love me,” I start, swallowing audibly and refusing to let myself melt down here, “you remind me that I don’t love you, even when I really should, and then I get to thinking about how the least I can do for you, with all that you’ve done for me, is love you, and I can’t even do that, and then I get to thinking that I’m truly a horrible person and that there must be something wrong with me because I don’t love you. I mean, I know you don’t try to hurt me, I know you try to make me feel better, but it just doesn’t work because I’m so screwed up. Trust me Luke, it has nothing to do with you, nothing at all. It’s all on me.”
“So you feel bad about not loving me when you really should?” Luke repeats, his gaze locked on mine as a small, knowing small flitting across his face. “Lizzie, who’s to say if you should love me or not? There are no shoulds or shouldn’ts in love, unless you’re talking about something you did, but not when you’re talking about people. You love who you love Lizzie, and there’s nothing you can do about it, and you loving or not loving those people isn’t right or wrong, it just is. So you need to stop blaming yourself for something you really can’t control and just accept it for what it is, alright? And, since you seem to think that you owe me something, do it for me if you won’t do it for yourself. Please.” Now he gives me a true smile and then leans close to me until our noses are touching. “Promise?” He holds up his fist, with the pinky outstretched, and I grin despite myself. I haven’t done a pinky promise since about fifth grade, and it think idly that it's something Timmy might have me do.
“Promise,” I echo, and wrap my pinky around his to seal the pledge. Looking down at our entwined fingers, I am reminded of Timmy again, but refuse to let myself think about him, because I’ll just end up crying again.
“Good,” he murmurs in reply, then leans a little bit more forward and gives me a short, sweet kiss. When he pulls back, he stands all the way up, glances down the hallway, then tells me, “Well, since you’ve been eying that storage closet for a while now, I suppose I should probably let you go and have some more bonding time with the bleach and mops.” He gives me a partially sad grin, as I know he would rather have me spend time with him than with cleaning supplies, then lets go of me completely and turns to leave.
“Luke, wait,” I call after him, and he turns around again, his eyes glued to my face. “How about we have some bonding time with the bleach and mops together?” I see his eyes light up and I know I’ve made the right decision. Besides, now I won’t be tempted to talk to the cleaning supplies. I begin to walk down the hallway, then pause and look over my shoulder to see Luke just standing there. “You coming?” I ask him and wait for him to catch up to me before I start walking again.
When we get to the closet, I test the door handle, find it locked, then kick the door open, being careful to not knock it completely off its hinges. Glancing over momentarily, I see Luke’s eyebrows go up in surprise and a grin curls my lips. Well, I guess kicking a door down is one way to impress a guy.
“After you.” Luke nods his head for me to go in as he holds the broken door open, having to stop it from leaning since apparently I kicked it at such an angle that it now wants to fall off its hinges.
“Well thank you. You’re quite a gentleman.” I give him a beaming smile and enter the closet, instantly seeing and feeling the cool darkness wrap around me like a blanket, for which I am grateful. I’ve seen too much white lately, so some darkness is quite welcome since it’s a change in the pattern. As I sit down, I glance up to see Luke closing the door and sealing us in the ammonia-smelling blackness. I then reach up and grab Luke’s hand, guiding him to a clear spot on the floor next to me.
“Well, what do you think, with this being your first time hiding in a storage closet?” I ask Luke, breaking the silence that covered us momentarily.
“Well, I definitely know we’re with the cleaning supplies,” he answers, snuffling slightly, and I grin. I guess he’s noticed that the ammonia and bleach smell really strongly too. “But, besides that, I think what strikes me the most is that I’m here with you.” He gropes around in the dark for a moment before he finds me, gathers me up in his arms, and deposits me on his lap, and, even in the blackness, I can see Luke’s teeth glint as he smiles. He then kisses me gently on the neck and wraps his arms around me as I feel warmth spread from the spot where his lips touched me.
I let out a contented sigh and lean back against him, feeling his muscular torso behind me. Resting my head on his shoulder, I look up at him and touch his cheek gently, then sit up and kiss him right where I touched him. I feel him start in surprise and can’t help but grin, since you’d think that he’d be used to me kissing him by now.
However, I can tell that him jumping was from being jerked from his thoughts when he asks, “Lizzie, what happened between you and Jackson that got you to where you are now?”
I sigh again, this time from exasperation at myself for not seeing this coming, and slide off Luke, thinking that it’s best to be able to look straight at him when I tell him. Of course, I can’t tell him the truth: that I helped bust Jackson out of the government testing facility he was being held in. However, I don’t feel like lying to Luke again either, considering I’ve been doing too much of that, so I guess I’m going to have to compromise and tell him the a version of the truth.
“Well, you know that Jackson transferred to EHS at the beginning of last school year, right?” I look over at Luke for confirmation, see him nod his head, and continue. “Well, he and I were in the same Weights class, and we played football together too, so we became friends pretty quickly. I didn’t know this until after, but he started seeing me as more than a friend about two weeks after we met. However, Jackson was hopelessly in love with Alexa from the moment he laid eyes on her, so Jackson never flirted with me or asked me out or anything. But when Alexa rejected Jackson for, of all people, my brother Gwillan on Valentines’ Day this year, Jackson came out and told me how he felt – after he was functional enough to – and I just…” Here I pause, not knowing what to say or even if I can continue. Taking a deep breath, I realize that, if I don’t get everything out right now, I probably won’t be able to talk about it ever again, so I force myself to keep on talking. “I just… I think I felt so bad for him that I kind of made myself love him, and I think that’s part of the reason why I feel so bad about not loving you, is because I made myself love Jackson when I didn’t originally love him, so I think that I guess I feel that I should be able to do the same thing with you.” I shrug, dropping my gaze to the floor shrouded in blackness.
I look up to see Luke nodding, his eyes on the ground as well. “You don’t really love him then, if you’re just loving him out of pity,” he finally says, and my eyes shoot open in surprise, which quickly turns into anger. Who is he to tell me I don’t really love Jackson, just like who is Jackson to tell me that my whole relationship with Luke is a lie? Luke, however, apparently senses my anger and quickly continues to talk, making sure that I have no chance to interrupt him. “I mean, it’s not really love if you force yourself to be attracted to someone, because you can’t force real love. Real love, at least in my opinion, is unconditional love. However, the love that you have for Jackson is conditional, because you wouldn’t love him if you didn’t think that he needed you to love him, right?” I bow my head in admittance here, knowing that I can’t deny a fact that I’ve explicitly told Luke is true. “And, if you were really in love with Jackson, you’d love him no matter what happened or how much circumstances change or even if he got Alexa back.” I grit my teeth, feeling that Luke’s talk really isn’t helping my mood that much. “Lizzie,” Luke begins again, scooting around to face me in the darkness and finding both of my hands with both of his own, “I will love you no matter what happens between us or how far apart we get or even if one of us dies. Lizzie, you’re my whole world – you have been since I first laid eyes on you – and I’ve been planning out how to tell you that since the first day of eighth grade, and, while this isn’t exactly how I envisioned everything panning out, I’m still going to tell you that you’re my whole world and that you are everything to me because it doesn’t matter what the situation is, it doesn’t matter where we are or what we’ve done or what we’re going to do. I will love you always Lizzie, always, and it’s crucially important to me for you to understand that, alright?” He gently reaches forward and cups my chin with one large hand, and, when he lets go, I feel obligated to nod in conformation. Luke then smiles and leans close to me so that our faces are only a few inches apart, even though, in the darkness, the inches could be feet.
As soon as I feel the air in front of me move, my heart begins to race and I close my eyes, figuring that I’ll be able to see about the same with them open or closed, and then sit in silence and wait for Luke to make another move. When I feel Luke’s hand on my cheek, my eyes pop open and I tense up, my heart rate still increasing, and see Luke staring at me, our noses a few millimeters apart.
“Why are you so tense Lizzie? We’ve been around each other and kissed each other many times before, so I don’t know why this time is so much different.” He gazes into my eyes with a concerned expression, and I can’t help but smile at how much he cares about me. His undying devotion for me really is amazing.
“Because,” I begin, then immediately stop when I realize my head is completely empty and that I have nothing planned out to say. After blinking a couple times and trying to form rational, organized thoughts so I can respond to Luke, I start again, “because… because this time it matters, this time there’s something there.”
“Lizzie,” Luke murmurs, that small, knowing smile he’s given me so many times before curling his lips, “it’s always mattered, at least to me. And, as for something being there…” He leans forward enough to make our noses actually touch, then continues in the same hushed tone, “I think there’s always been something there, even if only at the basest human-to-human level.” Gently he caresses my cheek as he kisses me lightly, and scoops me back up into his lap after he pulls back. “Lizzie, when it comes down to who you are, in your heart and as a person, you are no concrete girl.”
And, instead of protesting or fighting back or coming up with reasons as to why he’s wrong, like I would have a year or a month or maybe even a week ago, as I return Luke’s smile, I just reply, “I know.” However, somewhere deep down inside of me, I know that I will not let go of the idea that I am invincible, that I do not feel. In my heart, I am still a concrete girl.

[Sonmi-451]

More added, and I put a poll up too, so please vote.

A booming echo, like that of a cannon shot, awakes me, and instantly I sit straight up in the blackness, holding my hand out in front of me and finding that I can barely see it, even though it’s only a few inches from my eyes. Feeling around in the dark, I hit another warm body with my hand…
Luke!
I bend over him to whisper in his ear and wake him when another blast sounds, this one closer, and I know that he and I have to move quickly.
“Luke, Luke!” I nearly yell in his ear as I shake him vigorously and he awakes with a start. “Luke, we have to go!” I tell him urgently, then drag him to his feet, kick the storage closet door open again and stand in the doorway for a second to let both of our eyes adjust to the torrent of light sweeping over us.
I let out a gasp of surprise almost unconsciously when my eyes have gotten used to the pale brightness as I look around in horror at the wreckage of what used to be a perfectly immaculate white hallway. Broken, shattered doors torn off their hinges lay strewn around the hallway on top of cracked white tile, and the colorless walls are pockmarked with numerous holes. As soon as I take in all of this destruction, I know exactly what the cause is: Jackson.
When Jackson was experimented on, the hormones they frequently injected him with caused many side effects, one of those being outbursts of extreme rage. Of course, he learned to keep them in check with practice, but, in the first few weeks after his escape, I had to calm him down and clean up one almost every other day. However, he went nearly six months without having a fit of anger – until Alexa rejected him. Since then, he has had one every other week, so I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning up and calming down lately. The only this is, this fit is far more violent than any other frenzy I’ve seen him throw, and that concerns me greatly. Generally his outbursts are very short and not nearly this destructive, which means that I have to find him and control him before he runs into anybody else.
“Jackson, Jackson!” I yell at the top of my lungs, running down the hallway with not a thought about Luke or anything else in my mind. My mission is clear: find and control Jackson, and, for now, nothing else matters.
“Jackson!” I continue to call, detachedly feeling shards of tile enter the soles of my feet but ignoring the pain. Until I get Jackson, everything else can wait.
“Lizzie!?” a strangled, unsure voice shouts in reply, and, as a wave of relief spreads over me, I follow the voice to find Jackson, minus his shirt – which I had seen torn and bloodied laying in a different hallway a little ways back – standing with a pained, confused and enraged look in his eye.
“Jackson!” I run to him, not bothering to think about the fact that he could very easily want to kill me as part of his rage fit.
“Lizzie,” he murmurs in my ear in a stifled, but thankfully not murderous or angry tone as embrace him, but I am instantly alarmed and afraid when he places his hands on my shoulders and pushes me into the wall. I look up at him, my eyes wide with shock and fear, to feel him wrap his arms around my waist and press his lips against mine almost violently. At first, I try to push him off of me, shoving against him with all of my might, but, when I don’t succeed, I just stand there and hope that he’ll stop soon. I breathe a sigh of relief when he pulls back for a moment, but he immediately leans back in and kisses me again, his hands working their way up my torso and into my shirt. At this point, I begin to panic and try with renewed energy to push him off of me, knowing very well where this is going to go if I let it continue, and finally manage to shove him away from me for a second.
“Jackson, Jackson, stop!” I yell, and he seems to come to, his eyes shooting wide in surprise as he looks around at me, the surroundings and himself.
“Oh, oh my God Lizzie, I’m so sorry!” he cries as he shoots desperate glances at the wreckage around him. “I didn’t mean it, I really didn’t! I didn’t mean to destroy everything and kiss you and make you hate me even more than you already do; I just was so angry about that picture and about you being Luke’s and not mine when all I want is for you to be mine. I mean, I know that’s not an excuse,” he adds, his gaze dropping to the cracked tile beneath his feet, “but I was just so angry.”
“Jackson,” I begin, grabbing his face between both of my hands and giving him the best smile I can muster with the memories of him kissing me against my will still in my head, “I don’t hate you, and I could never hate you. I mean, you’re my best friend Jackson, and nothing you do will ever change that, ever, so please don’t think that I hate you, alright?” When I get no sign of conformation from him, I repeat, “Alright?”
“Yes Ma’am,” he mutters to the floor, his golden gaze searching the broken floor with an almost pitiful dejectedness. My heart goes out to him and his scars and his own broken heart, but now is not a time to be empathetic, I remind myself. Now is a time to show Jackson tough love, not the mushiness he’s almost begging for.
“Good.” I do my best to sound authoritative, then grab his chin and force him to look me in the eye. “Jackson, I love you, alright?” I tell him, pleading him with my eyes to understand and accept it. “Just know that always, ok?”
A huge grin breaks out across Jackson’s face, a sight that relieves me greatly, and his eyes begin to twinkle as he replies, this time with much more enthusiasm and happiness, “Yes Ma’am.” He then steps forward and wraps his arms around me again, this time with gentleness and care, leans in so that our foreheads are together, and murmurs, “Lizzie, I’m sorry. I never meant to kiss you against you will – and I definitely didn’t mean to start feeling you up – but I just was so angry and jealous and-”
I cut Jackson off by placing one quieting finger on his lips and smile slightly when I see how much happier he looks. I then just stand there and hug him for a while until I hear a gasp at the doorway in front of me and facing Jackson’s back. Pulling myself away from him, I look over to find Luke standing in the entrance of the room we’re in with a look of pure shock on his face. Jackson soon quickly whips around too, then stands and stares at Luke with an expression of pure distaste on his face.
“What are you doing here, Gates?” Jackson asks him with hostility, his eyes narrowing as he looks Luke up and down, sizing him up like he’s prey to be killed. However, the really scary thing is that Jackson might actually be doing that.
Luke, thank God, brushes right past Jackson’s less-than-friendly question and instead asks him in reply, “Jackson, what happened to your back?”
The effect on Jackson is almost instantaneous. Suddenly his face loses its suspicious look for an intensely angry one, and I place a hand on his forearm, not wanting another fit of rage to happen that I have to clean up after. “None of your business,” he shoots back, his hands balling into fists.
“Jackson,” I murmur, forcing him to wrap his hand around my waist in the hopes that it will calm him down and prevent another outburst. He glances down at me momentarily, sees the warning on my face, and seems to calm down a little.
“Lizzie, I know,” he sighs, turning away from me so that his back faces Luke again, but this time warping the air right next to his back to give the appearance that he has no scars. “And Luke,” he begins, looking over his shoulder at Luke with the even, measured look that he takes on when lying, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“Lizzie, what on earth happened out here? And why is Jackson bleeding and shirtless?” Luke asks me, looking at the wreckage around us with horror and shock. He then shoots me a furtive, questioning stare, and I know that I’m going to have to be creative with how I lie my way out of this one.
“Um, well…” I begin, glancing wildly around me for ideas as I stall for time. “Um, well…” I start again, “Jackson, he has his… moments. He gets really angry and then there’s just no stopping him.” I shrug to make Jackson’s fits of rage seem commonplace and try my best to pull the lie off, which I do, if I do say so myself.
“Oh,” Luke murmurs faintly and nods, looking even more perturbed now. “But… why does he get so angry? I mean, normally you don’t get angry enough to rip doors off hinges and put holes in walls and crack floor tiles on a regular basis. And, for that matter, how is he strong enough to do all of that stuff?”
Well, that worked well. Now I have a bunch more questions to answer. “Well, Jackson had a pretty traumatic childhood from what he told me,” I answer carefully, thinking that traumatic doesn’t even begin to describe it. “And Jackson’s naturally really strong. I mean, he benches something like almost four hundred pounds and he was the number-one overall high school recruit this year for football, so…”
I’m incredibly relieved when Luke nods again, this time actually looking convinced, and says, “Yeah, didn’t he sign with ASU or something?”
“Yep,” I confirm, smiling slightly, as that means he, my brothers and I are all going to be going to the same school at some point. “So ASU better win now, especially with all the good things I’ve told my dad about Jackson.” My dad, Tom Lightning, played as a cornerback for four years at ASU, during which time the school won two national championships and my dad won two Heisman trophies while he broke school records for interceptions, punt returns and kick returns, and interception touchdowns scored. He then went on to be drafted number-one overall in the NFL draft, played seven years in the pros, won three Super Bowls, was MVP in all four of the Super Bowls he played in, broke NFL records in interceptions, punt returns and kick returns, and interception touchdowns scored, and made enough money to marry the love of his life and my mom Amanda, a neurobiologist who played in the WNBA on the side and live comfortably with her for the rest of their lives. “Um, by the way,” I begin, seized by a spur-of-the-moment idea, “if we get back alive, you are most definitely invited to go see ASU kick CU’s ass with us when they play them this fall, since they’re playing in Boulder this year.” I give him a smile, thinking that inviting him to one football game we probably won’t even get to see is the least I can do after all he’s done for me.
“Well, thanks Lizzie. That’s really nice of you.” He returns my smile, then wraps his arms around me, embraces me and kisses me gently on the cheek. “So I presume your dad has season tickets to ASU football?”
“Actually, he has season tickets to every ASU sport, so, if you want and if we make it back, you can come with us to Oklahoma City to see the Lady Sun Devils play in the Women’s College World Series, and, you never know, we might see them win the whole thing again.” I’m a huge fan of Arizona State softball, considering that I most likely will be playing on that team sometime, and, while I don’t think that they’re as good as they were when they won the WCWS last year, I know they’re definitely good enough to make it Oklahoma City and maybe even win another championship.
“Ok, cool.” Luke’s grin gets bigger, but seems to become deeper if that’s possible, and his eyes begin to twinkle as he looks down at me. “But I wouldn’t be going for the softball.” I feel his hand on the sliver of bare skin on my back and suddenly get goosebumps, which causes me to pull back and look up at him uncertainly.
I see the question, “Are you alright?” brimming in his concerned eyes and hear it echo around in his head as I read his thoughts and answer impatiently, “Yes, I’m alright Luke.” Feeling slightly annoyed, I add, “I don’t why you have to ask that every damn time I do something impulsive or move quickly, because just because I do something unexpected or unplanned doesn’t mean I’m bad or not alright, it just means that I’m impulsive, which – shocker! – I am.” I shoot him a look of mild contempt and march off, fully done with Luke and his caring and planning and deliberation, as I have a certain amount of loathing for all of those things.
“Oh, what in the hell did I do this time?” I hear Luke groan, and a small smile creeps onto my face. However, I refuse to turn around and talk to him or apologize, since that would ruin my resolve and unplanned plan, so I just keep on walking down the decimated hallway with my head held high as I curse my back for getting goosebumps.

[Sonmi-451]

More added, since I didn't add that much earlier.

“Lizzie, I’m sorry,” are the first words out of Jackson’s mouth as he sees me walking down a not-destroyed hallway towards my room, jogs after me and catches up to me. I knew this apology of his was coming, but I don’t want to hear it, because it’s just a reminder of what happened in that destroyed room, and I don’t want to remember that. However, I am happy to see that he has found a clean shirt and has washed up some so that he’s not smeared with his own blood anymore, even though his knuckles are still oozing.
“Jackson,” I begin, stopping abruptly and turning to face him with my gaze locked on his, “it’s alright.” I can almost feel my mouth twist in protest as I utter those words, since it’s not right, it’s not ok, and I know that. I’d rather lie to Jackson and have him be happy than tell him the truth and break his heart even more though, so I force myself to keep a straight face and stare Jackson straight in the eye. Almost instantaneously, the iron tang of his blood fills my nose and blurs my thoughts, but I force it away, knowing that right now, it’s as poisonous to me as a noxious gas.
“No, it’s not, Lizzie,” he shoots back, his brow furrowing as he frowns down at me. “That… that was inexcusable. I don’t care how angry I am, I don’t care what has just happened, I don’t care about any of that. In any situation, that would be inexcusable. I’ve broken the gentleman’s honor code by touching you without your consent, and that, along with the act itself, is unacceptable.” He look down at me with pain and anger in his eyes as his hands ball into fists, and, yet again, I wish the men in my life weren’t so damn honorable.
“Jackson, what the government did to you is inexcusable, far more than what you did to me.” I grit my teeth at adding the last part, as I was hoping to not have to say that. However, my argument wouldn’t be complete without it, and I am determined to convince Jackson that it wasn’t all his fault, that there are other people to blame besides him. I guess it’s almost funny how I’m willing to feed people lies just to keep them happy. “They hurt you far more than you could ever hurt me, ever, and all of the things they did to you, all of the drugs they pumped into you and all of the scars they gave you are inhumane, sadistic even, and what you did was not sadistic by any means. What you did was full of passion and feeling, and I respect you for that, but I think you need to find a different way to express it.” I give him a smile and it relieves me greatly to see him grin weakly back at me, even though his eyes are still twisted with a kaleidoscope of constantly changing and shifting emotions.
“Oh, besides destroying a whole floor of a building and kissing and touching you against your will?” His joke is feeble, more of an angry question directed at himself than a jest to be laughed at, and instantly I become on-guard again. I don’t want another fit of rage to clean up, especially an outburst that ends with nearly revealing our secret like the last one did.
“Yeah,” I am forced to agree, gritting my teeth as I know that I’m only feeding Jackson’s hate of himself and the world around him. I then add, attempting to do some situational damage control, “I mean, I’m sure there’s something else that’s a little less destructive that you can do to express yourself.”
“You mean like this?” He takes a swift step forward and wraps me in his arms, one hand brushing over the exposed skin on my back and giving me goosebumps again, then kisses my neck slowly and deliberately, with extreme care and remarkable gentleness I didn’t know Jackson possessed. He pulls back for a moment, gives me a small yet incredibly sad smile and kisses me again, this time his lips closer to my mouth. And, instead of pulling away or fighting back, like I really should considering I’m dating Luke, I just stand there and marvel at the loneliness welling up inside of me even when I’m surrounded by people. It’s amazing, isn’t it, that death and love can make me feel coldly distant, not really there, even when Jackson’s kissing me and holding me and letting his warmth spread from his body to mine. I love Jackson, I do, even if it’s not the real, unconditional love Luke has for me. I’m so lonely though, because I know that soon I’m going to be leaving Jackson, that I’m going to have to first act in love with another guy and then eventually die for the sake of entertainment, and that knowledge separates me from Jackson, even when he’s standing right next to me. I’m a corpse, waiting to be buried, and that keeps me emotionally away from Jackson. Somewhere deep down inside of me, the unfeelingly rational part of me is distancing myself from him so it will be easier to die when all I want to do is just get closer, even though it will make everything that much harder. So I guess this loneliness isn’t because of anything else besides my internal conflict. It’s a result of the battle of me versus me, and currently both sides are losing. However, I can’t focus on my misery, I just can’t, because I can’t lose any more of my short life to my sadness. I need to be there and get the most out of the rest of my few days, I need to enjoy and actually live the rest of my life, so I can’t lose any more precious time to desolation. So, when Jackson’s lips meet my own, I kiss him back, with a determination to use the rest of my time wisely and a desperation spurred by the knowledge of my isolation and the want to make myself be there and feel and not be distant. I then wrap my arms around his neck and give myself to him, thinking that maybe he can take better care of me than I can. And, when Luke walks in on us, probably on his way to make me feel even worse about myself by unconsciously showing how much better of a creature he is than I am, I just ignore him and kiss Jackson with renewed resolve. I'm almost relieved when that hunger begins to creep its way through my body again, considering that this is by far the most passionate kiss that I’ve had with Jackson yet, and continue to kiss him. And I think that this is my personal rebellion against my rational self and my want to make things as easy as possible, against Luke and his perfection, against Max and his goal to keep me alive, against Abby and her fairy-tale endings, against Rush and his incredibly twisted sense of amusement, against El Nieve and its want to make me its puppet, and maybe even against Jackson and his damn sense of honor.
When I finally pull back to find Jackson gazing down at me with joy and unbearable sadness in his eyes and Luke standing in a corner with ‘betrayed’ stamped across his forehead in huge red letters, I sigh a huge, audible sigh and murmur, “I’m sorry.” I then look back up at Jackson and tell him, “I’m sorry, Jackson, for doing this to you when I’m just going to have to go off and parade around in front of you with another guy and then eventually die.” I stand on tiptoe and give him a kiss on the cheek, then turn around and walk over to where Luke is standing and gaze into his eyes, filled to the brim with pain.
“Luke, oh Luke,” I begin, smiling up at him sadly and touching his cheek gently, “I’ve done so many things to you that are inexcusable, and I’m sorry, Luke, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that I’ve led you on and broken your heart time and time again; I’m sorry that I don’t really know what I feel for you right now; I’m sorry that I cause you pain just by being around you; I’m sorry that we’re in this mess together; I’m sorry that one of us might have to kill the other in the end; I’m just so sorry Luke. I’m so sorry.” My voice trails off into nothing and I force myself to stand on tiptoe and give him a kiss on the cheek too before marching off down the hallway, leaving behind two broken boys with two broken hearts and a million other apologies I owe them just clamoring to be made.

[Sonmi-451]

More added, and please vote in the poll; I'd like to see your opinions.

“You know, Luke, I never really liked you,” I hear Jackson say, and instantly I sit straight up and press my ear to the door. After departing abruptly from Jackson’s and Luke’s presences, I found the closest storage closet and locked myself in it, as seems to be the solution to all my problems of late.
“Why not?” Luke asks in reply, and I listen intently, wondering where this conversation is going and hoping that it’s not going to result in Jackson kicking Luke’s ass, as I know he most certainly can and probably would do.
“Because you were competition.” I press my eye to the hole in the door next to the doorknob to see Jackson giving Luke an intense but not quite hostile look as they sit side-by-side on a small couch in front of a neatly polished wood coffee table. “From the moment I saw you, I knew that you were competition, not even because you loved her, but because of what you were: popular, handsome, Lizzie’s age and decent, so, even if you weren’t going to make your intentions known and actually ask her out, you would always be on her radar as a possible boyfriend, and even that was too much for me to stand. Of course, I have no choice but to stand you and her now, but just know that I’m doing it for her, not for you.” Jackson continues to stare down Luke, but his expression becomes the slightest bit satisfied when he sees Luke nod in understanding.
“Well, thanks for standing it, no matter what your reasons or motives are, because I know how painful it must be.” I see Jackson open his mouth to retort and tell Luke that he doesn’t know what it’s like, that he has no idea how painful it is, then close it abruptly when he realizes that Luke knows exactly what it’s like and that he has a perfect idea of how painful of it, because Luke’s been seeing me parading around with other guys, almost all of them his friends, for nearly four years now. After a long silence in which both Jackson and Luke have staring contests with the tile beneath their feet, Luke pipes up and questions, looking Jackson straight in the eye, “Jackson, do you know anything about Lizzie’s past boyfriends?”
I see the want to ask why flash through Jackson’s eyes but see it go away as quickly as it comes because he knows why, because he knows that it’s because Luke cares about me and just wants to know where I’ve been. “Well,” he begins, dropping his gaze to the white floor again, “I don’t think any of her boyfriends really mattered until she dated Troy. I mean, they dated for a year and three months, so there must have been something there besides the fact that he was tall and handsome and popular and decent, but, you know, I don’t think she really loved him. I think she was in love with the idea of being in love, rather than in love with him.”
“What do you mean?” Luke’s brow furrows into a question mark of its own as he looks at Jackson with a quizzical expression, and I pull my eye away and press my ear even closer to the door. I want to hear Jackson’s answer too.
“I think she was more attracted to the idea of loving him than she actually was to him.” Jackson looks up at Luke, sees his still-confused appearance, and elaborates, “Like I said, they had a long relationship and he was tall and popular and handsome and decent, but I don’t think Lizzie really ever meant it, you know?”
“Yeah, I know exactly,” Luke replies shortly, and their conversation lapses into silence again. So that’s what Jackson thinks about Troy and I, hmm? Well, unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge of myself, he’s right. I really should have truly loved Troy; I mean, he was handsome, intelligent, popular, decent, funny and even a shapeshifting immortal, so I wouldn’t have to worry about him dying and leaving me all by myself, like I would with Luke. But I didn’t love him, I didn’t even feel anything when I kissed him, and finally, last November, after one year and three months of faking it, I decided to call it quits and stop fabricating myself just for the sake of a boy that didn’t really need me anyways.
“Luke,” Jackson begins, breaking the empty silence with his even emptier voice, “do you think she means it now, with either one of us?” Looking through the hole in the door again, I see Jackson stare Luke straight in the eye with both apprehension and hope in his gaze.
“I don’t know Jackson,” Luke responds quietly as he searches the tile beneath his feet for answers. Looking back up again, he shrugs with an apologetic smile across his face. “She told me that she meant it, once, but I think she was just desperate and confused and didn’t really know what she was saying.” That once was earlier today, and is that really what Luke thinks? Does he really think that I’m so desperate that I’m convincing myself that I love him? I mean, maybe I am, but I’m the only one allowed to think that! “But…” Luke starts, raising his gaze to look Jackson straight in the eye, “I know she means it with you. She may not love you like I love her, but she loves you Jackson, she really does, so I know she means it with you.”
“That’s the thing though, Luke, I don’t love her nearly as much as you do, or nearly as much as I ought to, because I’m kind of in love with another girl.” Jackson sighs and drops his eyes to white floor, and, yet again, I feel my heart clench as I see his sadness and depression. He doesn’t deserve this, not after all he’s done for Alexa; he deserves her love, not her rejection. Gritting my teeth, I ball my hands into fists and know that getting angry at my best friend will get me nowhere, even if she did make a horrible and stupid choice. “I’ve been desperately in love with Alexa Nikohl Sweet from the moment I laid eyes on her, but she rejected me for, ironically, Lizzie’s older brother Gwillan in February and I just can’t get over her. I mean, I do love Lizzie – I’ve seen her as more than a friend since about two weeks after I met her – but I don’t love her like I love Alexa, and I definitely don’t love her like you do. Luke, for all that I don’t like you because you’re competition and because you’re so much better for Lizzie than I am, I have to hand it to you. You’ve shown Lizzie so much devotion and caring when she’s given you almost nothing, and I greatly respect that, I really do, since I know exactly where you’re coming from.” Both of them smile weakly now, and I sigh inwardly. Yet again, I’m the source of everyone’s problems, from Luke’s to Jackson’s to mine.
“So what are we going to do, if Lizzie and I both make it home alive?” Luke asks aloud, and I know he’s not directing his question at Jackson, but merely at the world to see if anyone has an answer.
“I don’t know,” Jackson replies quietly, his golden-yellow eyes clouding over with thought. “I don’t know will happen between you and me and her, after all that you and Lizzie have been through together and after all of the times I’ve hurt her.” I nearly groan aloud at the last part. Jackson Lucas Carter, don’t even say that you’ve hurt when you haven’t done anything to me, as compared to all the other things that have happened as of late.
“You think you’ve hurt her?” Luke shoots back incredulously, his expression skeptical. “I’m the one who hurts her every moment I spend around her!” Oh great. Now they’re going to get into a debate over who’s hurt me the most. That’s not exactly what I expected their conversation to be about.
“Well, I’m the one who kissed her and felt her up against her will,” Jackson murmurs, and I can see the anger smoldering in his eyes as he looks down at the mahogany coffee table before him. He glances up to find Luke staring at him in disbelief, then adds, as his mouth twists into a grimace that makes him look like he’s going to spit in disgust, “I violated the gentleman’s code of honor, and that can’t be forgiven.”
“You follow an honor code?” Luke regards Jackson quizzically, and I realize, for the first time, exactly how different these two are. Luke is a quiet, gentle, secretly passionate boy who’s always had enough to eat and a place to live and clothes to wear and a school to go to, while Jackson is quiet, distrustful, secretly (and sometimes not-so-secretly) raging gray wolf shapeshifter with an acute hatred of scientists, doctors, and occasionally all humans who’s a natural killer maybe even bordering on a psychopath and has barely ever had enough to eat or a place to live or clothes to wear or a school to go to. They’re quite different, that’s for sure. In fact, quiet is about the only personality trait they share.
“Always have, always will,” Jackson answers shortly, nodding his head. “That’s why I call women ma’am and try to act as honorably as possible. After all, everything’s bigger in Texas, and that includes honor.” A small, grim smile twists Jackson’s lips at the mention of his homeland, and I think that, for Jackson, remembering where he came from means remembering what happened to him there.
Luke grins falsely too, and I get to thinking that it’d be better if both of them just didn’t smile at all. “Jackson, what part of Texas did you come from?” Luke questions, and I see Jackson’s eyes flash dangerously. I guess I was right about him and his home.
“Forth Worth,” he finally responds quietly, his gaze glued on the coffee table in front of him as though it is the most captivating thing he has ever seen. “I didn’t really like it there,” Jackson adds, and now it’s my turn to give a fake smile, as that’s the biggest understatement I’ve ever heard.
“What didn’t you like about it?” Luke really is pushing it here, and it would really be in his best interests to shut up right now. But, of course, he has no idea about Jackson’s past, so I guess I can’t blame him for asking and trying to make conversation between two people where there would be awkward silence otherwise.
“The mentality and the ideas,” Jackson replies, and I can tell that there is some truth to his answer, even though that isn’t the main reason. “The mentality that certain kinds of people, whether it’s because of their ethnicity or their skin color or what they’ve done, are worth less than you. I also didn’t like the undercurrents of neo-Fascist and almost neo-Nazi bullcrap that everyone seemed to believe in down there.” Jackson shakes his head and, yet again, I wonder how much interaction he had with people before he was experimented on. Well, I guess he had enough to pick out the defects in their – and basically every Southern – society, although it wouldn’t take much time to do that.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I think it was sixth grade that I spent a whole summer with my grandparents who live in Georgia, and it was horrible down there. It seemed like the whole state was a time capsule of the nineteen-fifties ideologically. I hated it when I was down there, and I was so happy to come back here, where most of the state isn’t racist or obese and most of the residents have actually graduated from high school.” Luke and Jackson both snicker at that, and I’m struck, for the first time, by how well they’re getting along, considering that they have completely different personalities and Jackson opened up the conversation with, “You know, Luke, I never really liked you.” “Besides,” Luke adds, shuddering at the memory, “it was too humid. You went into the shower as wet as you came out, and there were way too many bugs down there too.” Jackson nods his agreement and smirks slightly, though his golden-yellow gaze is still as cold and calculating as ever.
“Well, Texas doesn’t have quite the bugs and humidity Georgia and the rest of the Deep South states do, but it sure as hell has the heat.” Jackson shakes his head in distaste, appearing to shudder himself. “It got up to a hundred and fifteen degrees once, straight temperature, not adding in the relatively high humidity. You know, I literally don’t think I could live in that anymore, since I don’t do real well with heat.”
“Yeah, I didn’t like the heat or the fact that they had basically two seasons – spring and summer. I mean, there’s no such thing as winter in the South, since the coldest it gets is about fifty, maybe forty if it’s unusually cold that day.” Luke shakes his head too, a grimace crossing his face at the mention of two seasons. Well, I guess Luke shares my opinion on that matter, as I, for one, love Colorado because of the fact that it is one of the few places in the country with four distinct seasons.
“Speaking of weather and climate, Luke, what do you think the arena for One-Person Survival is going to be?” Jackson affixes Luke with an intense golden-yellow gaze, and I sigh internally. I don’t want to speculate about the Triple Crown, much less hear Luke take guesses, but I find that I can’t pull my ear away from the door and sigh again when I realize I’m going to have to listen to Luke make guesses.
“Well, I watched all the old tapes, and, based off those, I don’t think I can really guess.” Luke shrugs his shoulders, not seeming very perturbed by the fact that he’s talking about the place that he might be dying in later. “I mean, there was every type of arena imaginable in the past: deserts, forests, jungles, oceans with small beaches even. All I know is that, whatever the arena ends up being, it’s not one of those trick arenas.” Upon seeing Jackson’s puzzled expression, Luke elaborates, “An arena that looks beautiful or easy to survive in but turns out to be incredibly dangerous, like that one year where the arena was beautiful rainforest in which everything, including the water and almost all of the plants, were poisonous. I know that I definitely would rather have a basic forest or plain with scarce food and water than an arena where everything’s poisonous.”
“I know I would too, and I do,” Jackson murmurs, and now it’s Luke’s turn to be confused. “I want the arena to be easy – or at least survivable – so that way I don’t have to watch Lizzie die on national television next week.” Jackson sighs, dropping his gaze to the floor, and I can practically see the million worst-case scenarios of deadly arenas and my mangled body being carried away in a helicopter flashing through his eyes. “Don’t worry; it’s not like I care about you,” Jackson adds, and both of them smile weakly. Well, I guess they have to keep up the rivalry thing because they’re technically both rivals in fighting for me.
“So do you know what happened in the hallway earlier?” Luke asks Jackson, gaze locked on Jackson’s face, and I shake my head. Boy, if Luke knew what he was getting himself into, he would shut up right now.
“Nope,” Jackson responds evenly, returning Luke’s gaze steadily. Jackson’s getting better at lying all the time, but that might not be a good thing. “I mean, it looked like a tornado swept through there, but I don’t know what actually happened.” Jackson shrugs, seeming completely nonchalant, but I see his expression change to look the slightest bit relieved when Luke looks away for a moment.
“Yeah, I don’t know either.” Luke shakes his head in puzzlement, tapping one finger to an even beat on the coffee table in front of him. “Maybe someone just got really angry,” Luke jokes, glancing up at Jackson, and Jackson’s smile is so fake that I’m surprised Luke doesn’t see right through it.
“It looks like something the big man with the fire tattoos on his cheeks – what’s his name? Max? – could and maybe even would do,” Jackson offers, obviously trying to change the subject, and Luke nods his head in agreement.
“Yeah, but, you know, Max actually isn’t nearly as scary or angry as he looks,” Luke replies, smiling slightly. “I mean, he’s still scary and can be angry sometimes, but he’s not perpetually mad like he looks.”
Jackson smiles again and nods mechanically as I see the gears whirring in his head, and I know that he’s probably thinking of all the worst-case scenarios that could come out of this. After all, if Luke finds out about Jackson, then he finds out about me, then our relationship is ruined for good… Oh crap, I’m the one who really gets hurt if Jackson outs himself.
After a long silence which involves a lot of glancing around on Luke’s end and a lot of thinking on Jackson’s, Luke finally pipes up and says, “So, congratulations on being the number-one high school recruit this year.” Jackson is, in fact, the number-one high school football recruit, since he put up incredible rushing yards as a halfback and led Elizabeth to another state title. In fact, he signed to a full-ride four-year scholarship with Arizona State right after the football season ended, which will make it quite awkward when – well, if – my brothers, Jackson and I are all going to school there.
“Well thank you,” Jackson replies nicely, dipping his head in recognition. “I don’t think I deserve that title, considering there are a lot of other very talented players who are bound to be better than I am.” Of course Jackson’s being modest and not taking any credit for being able to run a four-one forty or bench nearly four hundred pounds, like he always is. Jackson adds, which surprises me since he’s completely unprompted by Luke, “You know, the thing that I found the most interesting about that was that they were calling me the number-one recruit even before the season started, and they hadn’t even seen me play yet.”
“Well, I guess they just saw how good of an athlete you were and said that you had to be good at football if you’re that good of an athlete.” Luke shrugs and gives Jackson a smile, no jealousy in his gaze at all, but I wouldn’t expect there to be, since Luke’s a pretty good – well, very good – football player himself.
“Maybe,” Jackson murmurs skeptically, and I wonder why he’s making such a big deal out of being called the best before actually proving it. I guess it’s because Jackson just has a marked dislike for hypocrites.
“And I saw you signed with ASU. Well, you’ll be going to school with Lizzie’s brothers and then eventually Lizzie, which could be both good and bad.” I know Luke’s just trying to be friendly and make conversation, but he’s really not helping anyone here.
However, instead of getting angry – like I thought he would – Jackson merely smiles another fake smile and replies, “You’re telling me. I won’t really even get a chance to talk to her as long as her brothers are around!”
“Well, they’re sophomores right now, right?” Luke looks at Jackson for confirmation, then continues when he sees Jackson nod his head. “So they’ll be gone in two years, and then you’ll have Lizzie all to yourself for two years.” Now there’s a definite jealous and longing tone tingeing Luke’s voice, and I idly wonder why, considering that the odds are most definitely against me even being alive in two weeks.
“Luke,” Jackson begins almost gently, capturing and holding Luke’s ice-blue gaze with his own golden-yellow one, “I don’t think anyone could ever comprehend how much you love Lizzie, but I know it’s a lot more than I love her. You deserve her so much more than I do, since you’re so much more devoted to her than I am, and, even though she doesn’t love you, don’t forget the fact that she desperately wants to love you, she really does. I mean, she feels guilty and bad every minute she’s around you because she’s reminded of how great you are every minute and thinks that she really should love you because you’re so perfect and great and what she needs. I know it’s not the same thing as her actually loving you, I know that, but at least it’s better than her not caring about you at all, Luke.” Jackson rises to his feet and stretches luxuriously, at one point banging his knuckles on the ceiling and swearing under his breath. “Luke, to be honest, I don’t know why she loves me when she has you,” he tells Luke, claps Luke on the shoulder, and walks out with his hands in his pockets.
Well, Jackson Lucas Carter, I think that makes two of us.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

Luke and I spend the next week relaxing, actually eating for once, talking to each other, and – somehow – laughing together. Luke says he really likes it when I laugh, because he knows I’m happy. I like it when he laughs too, not just because he’s happy, but because he has a great smile. I don’t know why it took me so long to figure this out, but Luke actually is really handsome. Of course, he’s tall and muscular, at six-three, two hundred, and he’s got a nice face and a decent hair cut that doesn’t make him look like a dork, but I think the two most striking features about him are his eyes and his smile. His eyes are a mosaic of millions of shades of blue, ranging from nearly black to nearly white, every part of them having different arrangements and shades. They’re captivating really; in fact, I occasionally find myself staring into so intently when we’re talking that I forget the subject and hand and just lose myself in his eyes. I also find myself doing the same thing with his smile sometimes. It’s not so much that his teeth are straight and white – which they are – but that his smile just exudes kindness and genuineness. He’s so good and true that not even his smile can lie – unless, of course, he’s grinning at something Jackson says, because then Luke’s invariably smiling falsely.
Oh, Jackson. I guess from a physical standpoint he’s as attractive, if not more, than Luke. At six-six, two-twenty, Jackson’s definitely got a nice body, and, like Luke, he’s got a decent hair cut and handsome face, but Jackson is ruggedly, darkly and almost cruelly handsome, while there is no darkness or cruelness to Luke’s face. But, if Luke had gone through the things Jackson has, he might be darkly and cruelly handsome too. However, Jackson can have incredibly kind eyes and an incredibly genuine smile too. Jackson has eyes a few shades lighter than mine, wolf’s eyes, a piercing golden-yellow that makes you feel like you’re been x-rayed whenever he looks at you. Jackson’s far more intense and dark than I am; it seems like the norm for him is to look intimidating and mysterious, as his eyes are almost always golden-yellow, very intense chips of ice, and, even when he smiles, his eyes often stay that way. It’s only when he really smiles that you get to see truly how handsome he is, because then his eyes melt. Jackson’s eyes, when he’s happy, are welcoming, intelligent and sparkling, and sometimes I find myself gazing into them just to see the variations in the gold and dark and light flecks in his irises. And, when his eyes melt, he’s invariably truly smiling, and then his whole face changes. His expression loses its hardness and gains a light, almost carefree air, and his nearly perfect white smile just completes the picture. Unfortunately, Jackson isn’t truly happy very much anymore; in fact, I don’t think I remember seeing him really content since Alexa rejected him. He used to be happy a lot when he was around her.
Jackson and Luke… they’re quite a contrast in every aspect of their beings, that’s for sure. I wonder what Luke were to do if he were to find out about Jackson, and what he’s been through and done and how hard it’s been for him to survive. Jackson’s whole life has been like a Triple Crown, as he’s been constantly having to kill others to stay alive, but the Triple Crown’s almost easier, because at least you aren’t getting a million different drugs pumped into your body or a thousand different tests getting run on you every day. I’ve heard Jackson talk about his time at the Fort Worth Experimental Weapon Facility occasionally, and, the way he describes it, it was hell on earth, so much worse than dying. Jackson was Project Number Thirteen, born the one-in-a-trillion chance that a canine had a language receptor, and had been captured by the facility and experimented on in order to make him speak as well as understand. He wasn’t originally intended to be a weapon, but soon evolved into that when the scientists understood the full extent of his side effects. Jackson said that, every waking moment, he was constantly in pain, whether from the needles sticking out of his arm or from the broken bones given to him by the guards or from the details of his experiment carved into his back by a laser.
I’ve seen the scars on his back three times before, and that’s three times too many. In about half-a-foot-high letters, starting in between his shoulder blades and stretching to his back, is “Project Number 13.” Jackson has said before that, no matter where he goes or what he chooses to call himself, the only name or symbol that will ever stick with him is thirteen. I guess he meant that literally and metaphorically.
Below his ‘name’, in a smaller font, are the technical and exact details of his experiment: “Canine with language receptor. Subjected to radiation, electroshock and hormone therapy. Side effects: tripled height, tenfold increased weight, shapeshifting and element-controlling abilities. Status: an unstable and extremely dangerous living super weapon.”
Jackson used to laugh bitterly about the government scientists labeling him unstable and extremely dangerous when they were the sadists who were torturing him just to see how his body would react. “Hypocrites, the lot of them,” he would say with a shake of his head, his eyes flashing dangerously and his expression becoming even harder and crueler.
And I used to say, “I know, Jackson,” since I knew there was nothing I could do besides agree with him and hope that he wasn’t angry enough to have an outburst. Besides, it’s not like I wasn’t going to agree with him; if Jackson were put in the scientists’ position, I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t have tortured them just out of curiosity.
Jackson never wanted my pity – he never wanted anyone’s pity – but he had it from the moment I helped break him out of the facility last August. I had stumbled across his file when I was on a different mission (I used to work for the government as a spy and assassin, but went rogue and destroyed the whole immortal tracking-and-killing department when I found out that was what they intended me to do) and felt so bad for him that I knew I had to get him out of there, so I rounded up my brothers and set him free. You know, to this day, I think that’s the best – in terms of decency – thing that I’ve ever done. Jackson was a mess – both physically and mentally – when we found him. He was dripping blood from numerous cuts, bruises covered nearly every square inch of his body, and many bones were obviously broken or in the process of healing. However, his mental state was much worse.
He didn’t know who he was – or even what he was – as he kept on asking us, “Do you know my name? Do you know my name?” and, when he told him no, he would say, “Well, I guess my name’s Project Number Thirteen then,” and, even though we desperately wanted to tell that that wasn’t his name, that he had a real name, we couldn’t, because we didn’t know what his real name was. However, after a few careful questions, we found out that the scientist in charge of his project, Lexi, had been calling him ‘Stonewall,’ for his temperament and coloring, and that’s when it struck me.
“Have you ever heard of Stonewall Jackson?” I asked him on the car ride back to Colorado after breaking him out and burning the facility to ashes, and I was surprised and happy to see a light of recognition flicker on in his eyes.
“That famous Southern general, right?” he replied in a heavy drawl, much heavier than his drawl today, his eyes locked on mine. He kept on shifting back and forth between a human and a wolf, I remember, as he could talk in both forms and was just learning how to shapeshift and stay in one form. “People say great things about him, they say he was very brave. Some people down in Texas view him as a hero, a god almost,” he added quietly, his hands balling into fists as he though of his home.
Not wanting him to have another outburst, as I saw the destruction he could cause as we were destroying the facility, I quickly asked him, “Well, since Lexi called you Stonewall, and that’s not really a proper name, would you like to be called Jackson?”
He regarded me with that intense, hard golden-yellow gaze for a few moments, clearly trying to decide what my motive was, and, in turn, if I was a friend or a foe. After I was convinced that he would think me a foe and I had found my knife in my pocket and was holding it tightly, ready to strike, he did the exact opposite: his currently-human face broke out into a smile, a real smile, and that was the first time I saw him truly happy. He then answered, his warm gaze fixed on mine, “I’d like that.”
After a few moments of silence, during which time I shot sidelong looks at Jackson – who had finally stopped changing forms and was now a human – he piped up and asked, “Don’t a lot of humans have last and middle names?” then looked at me curiously, not incredibly happy anymore but not distrustful and cold either.
“Yeah, they do,” I replied, smiling slightly as I realized that Jackson wanted to have a middle and last name. “Do you want to pick some out?”
“If that’s alright, Ma’am.” He nodded his head respectfully at me, clearly trying not to seem too excited but most definitely very happy again.
“Of course it’s alright.” I gave him a smile and hoped that I looked comforting and friendly, then questioned, “Well, do you have any idea what you want your last name to be? I think we should get that one out of the way first so that way we can pick out a middle name that fits with your other two names last.”
Jackson nodded in understanding, then told me, “I want it to be Carter. I… I think I had a friend named Carter once, or at least that’s what us wolves called him, so I think I want to honor him, and I think I want to remember the good part of my past too.” I smiled at him, completely overwhelmed with emotion and empathy for him, but refused to let myself cry in front of him, much less over him.
“Well, Carter it is then,” I responded, trying to keep my voice as steady and even as possible but still hearing myself waver some. “So, Jackson Carter. What would go well with Jackson Carter?” I thought aloud, and then glanced over to see Jackson thinking deeply beside me.
“Jackson John, Jackson James, Jackson…” I murmured, frowning slightly as I realized that I had almost no good ideas.
“I think I like the name Lucas,” Jackson said abruptly, interrupting my musings and looking over at me for confirmation, even though it was his name that we were discussing, not mine.
“Lucas, huh? I think that’d go well.” I gave him another smile, then, seized by a spur-of-the-moment emotion, held my hand out for him to shake and told him, “It’s nice to meet you, Jackson Lucas Carter.”
His face then erupted into another huge, real grin as he took my hand, shook it, and replied, his smile stretching from ear to ear and his eyes dancing as he meets my gaze, “It’s nice to be met.”
After a few more rounds of questioning him, I discovered that he was seventeen in human years, and that his birthday – if he remembered right – was June thirteenth, 1994, making him exactly eight months older than me. I then realized that Jackson was old enough to be a senior in high school, and that, no matter what anyone else said, I was set on having him go to EHS with me because I knew that going to high would be very beneficial for him.
So I had my brothers hack the government records – because they’re excellent with computers and technology – and make it seem like Jackson Lucas Carter lived in Fort Worth and went to Fort Worth schools for thirteen years then moved to Elizabeth, and they did it in such a way that no one would be able to prove differently. Jackson was also made a legal US citizen, because my brothers forged his birth certificate, along with all of the other documentation and numbers he needed. I guess you could say that my brothers and I literally gave him a normal human life. My mom and dad, after finding out about Jackson and his situation, also let him live in our guest house for a little bit before he met and moved in with another immortal, Kodiak Johnson. Kodiak is a freshman at the Air Force Academy – and is Air Force’s starting quarterback – and, since he doesn’t need the apartment he used to rent with his sister Nymeria full-time (Nymeria, twenty-four and a criminal profiler, moved out and got her own apartment), he lets Jackson stay there, as long as Jackson contributes half the rent each month. It works out pretty well for all of them I think: Jackson has people who understand him, as Kodiak and Nymeria used to be in the government’s captivity too, and a place to live; Kodiak doesn’t have to pay the full rent each month and Nymeria doesn’t have to live with her younger brother anymore. As the beginning of school was approaching last year, I thought that Jackson might want to play football with me (I’m the first girl in Elizabeth High School history to play on the football team and I’ve played varsity since freshman year), considering he was definitely fit enough to, so I took him to one of the football summer camps, and Jackson loved it. He then signed up to play football, attracted a lot of media attention with his athleticism and talent, and was soon christened the best high school football player in country. Halfway through the season, he already had one thousand rushing yards, and then the scholarship offers started pouring in. He destroyed all of the ones from Southern schools, and immediately burned those from Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M and TCU, as he said that playing in that Southern environment – as well as playing close to where he was tortured – would take all of the fun out playing for him.
After lots of consideration and many nights spent talking to him on the phone about his options, Jackson decided to accept a four-year, full-ride scholarship from ASU. “It’s the south, sure, but in the Southwest, and it’s a lot different – a different mentality, a different climate – than Texas or the rest of the Deep South. Besides,” he added with a playful grin, an extreme rarity considering that Jackson was generally incredibly far from playful, “between your brothers and you going and playing there-" - ASU had told me that I could play whatever sport I wanted on a full-ride, four-year scholarship as long as I played for them - "-we could win a national championship.”
Looking back, I wonder now why I didn’t realize Jackson thought of me as more than a friend before he came out and told me. He always smiled at me a lot, a great deal more than he smiled at any other girl, even Alexa, and he seemed to be truly happy around me more than he was around any other person. He laughed at all the stupid things I said and did, said things to me that were most definitely flirtatious, looked me up and down a lot, always was more polite to me than he was to other girls and always called me, “ma’am.” He held my hand and comforted me after I dumped Troy (just because I didn’t actually love him didn’t mean I wasn’t attracted to him and liked him as a person), he attended every one of my basketball games – he even drove all the way up to the Pepsi Center to see us win the state 4A title – as long as he didn’t have one of his own, he waited for me outside the door and walked me to my first class every morning, he always backed me up in an argument or debate even if I was wrong, he always was there for me when I needed him, and I’d like to think that I was there for him when he needed me. I guess the whole time I just brushed his behavior off as friendly – even though it was definitely more than friendly – because I couldn’t see around the fact that he loved Alexa deeply, and that he belonged with her and she belonged with him.
Of course, when that didn’t happen and Alexa rejected him in February, I started to take note of odd actions, and then he came out and told me that he had felt more than friendship for me for a long time, and I didn’t know what to do. Jackson was my friend, and I always thought that, even though he was tall and handsome and incredibly nice and would make an excellent boyfriend, we never would be more than friends, because I would always be in meaningless relationships and he would always be chasing Alexa. But then I started to think about all the things Jackson’s done for me that I’ve taken for granted, and about all of the things that have happened to him, and I decided that I owed it to him and that he needed me to love him, so I told him I’d like to go on a date with him – as he’d asked me out to dinner – gave him a huge hug and left to go to soccer practice.
Ever since then, Jackson and I have had a very interesting relationship. We’re not really dating – in fact, I think we’re still friends – but we spend a lot of time with each other, between running track together and living near one another and doing football camps together and occasionally just going on a casual date, like to the movies or something. In this time, I’ve had other guys ask me out – it seems like I can barely go a week without a marriage proposal – but of course I’ve rejected them all, because the only boy that I would date is Jackson. Or was until Luke and I got whisked into an alternate dimension and had to kill other children and act in love to stay alive.
I don’t know how I feel about Luke, or what our real relationship status is, or what we’d do if we both made it home alive. But one thing I do know is this: there are three possibilities regarding me wanting to commit a double-suicide with Luke in the third round. Number one: that I don’t want to have to go home without him – since I know I have the best chance of surviving the third round – because I wouldn’t be able to face Luke’s family and friends and live with the fact that I came home and he didn’t when he deserved life so much more than I did. If this is the case, I’m a horrible person, the basest form of life, because this is pure selfishness and cowardice with no honor behind it. Number two: that I’m love with him, and I can’t bear the thought of living without him, which is not honorable, which is still cowardly to an extent, but is forgivable. Number three: that I want to defy El Nieve and show them that they do not own me, that I will not do their bidding and be their pawn and win the Triple Crown like they want me to, that I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees. This is the only scenario in which I still have my honor, because I am dying in rebellion, for a cause, not out of fear of what life would be like after the Triple Crown’s over.
I desperately want to believe and know that my reason is rebellion, not cowardice, but I don’t know that, because I don’t know how I feel about Luke. The only way I can find out what my motive is is if I find out what I feel about Luke, for in that twisted, broken, tangled mess of the relationship I have with him lays the solutions to all of my problems. In that is the answer to whether I’m acting or not anymore; in that is the answer to what we’d do if we both made it home alive; in that is the answer to why I’m doing all of this, why I’m being suicidal when I don’t have to die, when I could just do what El Nieve wanted me to – win the Triple Crown – and come out unscathed. Part of who I am and who I could be sits hidden in how I feel about Luke, so I have to find out the truth, I have to figure out how I feel about Luke, otherwise I might lose part of myself to that eternal question, “I love him, I love him not.”
Of course, Luke’s already lost so much to me, and he’s willing to lose everything for me if he thinks he needs to and sets his mind on it. He’s lost these last four years of his life thinking about me, he’s probably passed up plenty of opportunities to do new and good things or date really nice girls that I’m sure he could learn to love because he’s been too focused on me. I, single-handedly, have stripped so much away from him: I took his heart the first time he set eyes on me, I took his mind through all of my debates and talks with him, I took his soul by taking everything else from him, and now I’m thinking about taking his life, even if to spare him pain and agony.
My God, it’s never enough for me, is it? I just have to keep on taking and taking and taking without any giving in return and no chance of returning any of the things I steal. You’d think that, in the end, I’d learn not to take things that aren’t mine, I’d learn not to keep on hurting people, but it seems like I haven’t learned those lessons yet, since my kill list keeps on getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I think that the only time I can stop taking and hurting is when I’m dead, is when I’m at the top of my own kill list. Maybe then the people around me and I can finally know peace.
But, I guess I didn’t completely take Luke’s heart and mind and soul. I guess he gave them to me, more than I took them, because it’s not like I wanted to have his heart or mind or soul; hell, I didn’t even know who he was when he fell in love with me – and gave me his heart and everything else in the process. I flirted with him some, sure, because I always thought that we would have a meaningless relationship, maybe even two if he made the grade, like I did with many guys, like I did with all of his friends. But then Luke never asked me out, and I was puzzled by that. I was also puzzled by the fact that he looked at me differently than the other guys did, that he treated me differently – almost reverently – than the other guys did, that he wasn’t always talking or flirting or being annoying like all of the others guy were.
I found Luke refreshingly different, and I was a little attracted to him because of that, because of his different, nice behavior and because of the way he looked at me with so much care and emotion in his eyes and because of the way that he seemed to not want to date me – even though everyone wanted to date me – and because of his smile and his eyes. I fell in love with Luke’s smile the first time I saw it, because I saw how genuine and kind and warm it was, and I wanted that, I wanted that sincerity whether I admitted it to myself or not. His eyes soon followed, as I noticed and became entranced with their beauty one day in eighth grade Honors LA, and then I noticed how genuine and sincere his friendly gaze was too, and I decided then that Luke Gates’ eyes were the most gorgeous eyes I’d ever seen.
I guess you could have called Luke and I friends, albeit very distant friends. Even though I always considered Luke a potential boyfriend, just another guy to date, I did truly like him as a person. We didn’t interact very much, as we didn’t have very many classes together and, in the ones we did share, we seemed to sit all the way across the room from each other, but, when I did talk to him, I found out that he really was a good guy. He was nice, genuine, laid back, occasionally funny, always had good ideas and always wanted the best for everyone. On the rare occasions that we worked in groups together, Luke would always manage to make me laugh with quiet but very funny jokes, and he would always get this strange look in his eye when I laughed, the same one that he got up on the rooftop the night before Hand-to-Hand combat; I just hadn’t recognized it up until now. But I didn’t really know or care about that look in his eye and he never told me about it and we went our separate ways, meeting back up once or twice every year to do projects or accidentally running into each other in the hallway. When that happened – and our stuff went everywhere – Luke would always bend down and retrieve my fallen books or scattered papers before he would get his own.
I never really thought much of it, just told him, “Thank you,” gave him a small smile and left for my class, but, now that I look back on it, it’s a metaphor for what’s happening now: Luke’s too busy and worried about cleaning up my mess to deal with the one he’s in.
It’s amazing, you know, that I didn’t pick up on all of these little things Luke would do and say that suggested far much more than his outward indifference until now, knowing he loves me and looking back on it. But maybe it’s good that I didn’t know he loved me until now, because if I had known only six months ago, I might have gotten into a meaningless relationship with him, dumped him, broken his heart even more than I already have and permanently ruined our friendship, if I haven’t already. And then things now would be even worse than they already are, because Luke and I would have to pretend to be star-crossed lovers when not-so-secretly he’d hate me for hurting him and using him. I think that would be almost unbearable, to have Luke hate me but have to pretend I love him. Or maybe it’d be easier than having Luke love me, because then I’d know that I wasn’t breaking his heart every moment I was around him and I’d know that all of it was acting on both of our parts and I wouldn’t hurt him nearly as much as I do now. But we might not even be star-crossed lovers at all, if he hated me, because that was Luke’s idea, undoubtedly fueled by his feelings for me, and if he didn’t have those feelings, then that idea most likely would never exist or be put in action. So maybe it’d be better if Luke hated me, since I think – no, I know – it’d be easier on both of us. All we’d have to do was stay alive and if one of us killed the other, it wouldn’t hurt nearly as much as it would now, because we wouldn’t really care about each other, we’d just care about our own lives. The lives of our friends and family wouldn’t be at stake, because there would have been no double-suicide attempt, because I would have undoubtedly killed him in the last round of Hand-to-Hand Combat.
Maybe if Luke hated me, for One-Person Survival, I would just kill him off, team up with Abby, take out the career champion pack and then kill any other remaining champions, and then, when it got down to me and Abby, I’d kill myself and make her victor. For Team Survival, Abby would undoubtedly choose me as her partner, and then it’d be like One-Person all over again, except, after everyone else was dead, I wouldn’t have to kill myself again.
And then, once Abby and I won, Abby could go back to Section Five and live the rest of her life in wealth and comfort, and I could go home, and just try to forget that the Triple Crown ever happened, and just try to forget that I killed Luke three times, and just try to forget the looks on his parents’ faces when I have to tell them, “Sorry, your son is not coming back. He’s dead, and I killed him.”
But, even if I didn’t care about Luke really at all, I don’t know if I could forget him completely, because every person you kill stays with you and never leaves you. They take a little chunk of your mind, heart and soul and brand it with their name and face, and then you can never forget them, no matter how hard you try to. Besides, I don’t know if it’d be possible to forget the looks on his parents’ faces when I have to tell them he’s dead, since he means so much to them as their only child.
So maybe it’s a good thing Luke doesn’t hate me, because then I’d have to deal with killing him and having his death on my conscience for the rest of my life. I mean, even if I didn’t feel the same way about him I do now, I’d still have to remember for the rest of my life that I killed three times a boy I knew and even dated. I don’t know how I feel about Luke right now though; that fact still remains a definite uncertainty. I don’t know if I’ll ever really find out exactly how I feel about Luke, but I know that I sure as hell have to try.

[Spartan-117~TMC~H3]

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