


Max (f), Jake (m) and Camille (f)
"French model, French model, French model," Max chanted at me teasingly, her red eyes sparkling deviously as she smirked at me. However, like there had been ever since I started dating Camille, a haunting sadness also hung right behind her pupils that Max was never rid of when she was around me. There had been a few rare moments when I had caught her talking to someone else and had seen that she looked normal again, but always her gaze was morose whenever she looked at me now, and that made my heart want to leap out of my chest in agony.
"Stop it, Max," I half-told, half-begged her, a smile coming across my face despite myself as I mentally set aside the more unpleasant parts of our relationship at present. For God's sake, I should just be happy that I got to spend time with Max at all, and that she hadn't tired of me yet!
Max flopped onto the couch next to me, resting her feet on the coffee table like her parents always hated, before responding, "I'm just trying to remind you that Camille is one of those girls that eats boys for breakfast, lunch and dinner and that eventually she's going to spit you out when she realizes you're not to her tastes."
"Max, I know," I sighed as a beginning, and I really did know and completely agree with her, "but I would rather have a relationship with Camille that won't last than just be lonely."
"Why would you have to be lonely?" Max asked me, surprising me as she frowned at me in thought. "I mean, there are plenty of other girls at school that would love to date a Division-I football recruit with his own band." A slight grin quirked her lips - her perfect lips - at that, but her eyes were lost deep in sadness and hope, a very strange combination that made for tumultuous seas of conversation and emotion I didn't know how to navigate.
I was sure was going to try though, so I responded, with a resigned sorrow of my own as I lied through my teeth, "Not any others I actually want though." As I watched Max, looking for a reaction, I couldn't help but think how bitterly ironic it was that I was telling the girl I wanted above all else that I didn't want anyone but the girlfriend I was dating for show.
"Oh," Max said quietly, and the hint of disappointment on her voice made me wonder even more. Max had never liked me, not like I liked her - I had never asked her, of course, but she made it so obvious that we were just friends that I didn't need to - so why on earth was she acting like this? Did she not approve of Camille so much that she wanted to see me with any other girl?
Suddenly my phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my shorts pocket to look at the alarm going off and realize that I should have left for football practice ten minutes ago.
Leaping to my feet and putting aside all thoughts of Max and Camille and how I would never get the girl I actually wanted, I told Max, as I slipped my phone back into my pocket, "Hey, I gotta go to football practice. I'll see you for dinner though; grilled cheese, like I promised." I gave Max - who had risen to her own feet - a smile as I grabbed my hoody off the sofa arm and my keys off the coffee table, and then, as had been my way of saying goodbye for the whole ten years I had known Max, I stepped forward, embraced her gently but tightly, and instead of murmuring in her ear in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger impression, "I'll be back," like I usually did, I instead found myself saying, "I love you, Max. You know that, right?"
She pulled back to look up at me in surprise and respond, with an incredibly sad and incredibly vexing smile on her face, "Of course I do, Jake. It's not like you don't tell me that every day." After a moment of regarding me calculatingly, her red eyes swirling so that I couldn't read her emotions at all, she added, a playful smirk that looked partially forced coming to her expression, "Jake, you better go. Coach Cline's gonna chew your ass for being as late as you already are, and you're not helping your cause by delaying even more."
"Right, yeah," I agreed, as I forcefully pulled my mind away from all incredibly-distracting thoughts of how beautiful Max was to give myself the mental capacity to tell her, "I'll see you later, Max." Then, with one more smile, I opened the front door and left, turning around and waving when Max, leaning against the doorframe, called out to me herself, "See ya Jake."
I gave her one last grin before turning around for good and climbing into my car, as I thought about how Max had no idea how much I really loved her and how I hoped that Max didn't see my sad face.
30 Years Later
"Max!" I exclaimed, leaping to my feet as a huge smile came across my face at the sight of the woman before me. Her face had gained a few lines and a smattering of gray streaked the hair at her temples, but her aging appearance fit her well; her ancient red eyes, still as sharp and beautiful as always but made incredibly wise by her travels and experiences, finally looked as if they belonged in her face. If anything, I thought she looked even better than she did when we were both seventeen. "It's so nice to see you," I breathed, as sincere as I had ever been, into her ear as I held her against me, trying to commit the feel of her body against mine, the scent of her in my nose, the sound of her steady breathing in my ears, to memory.
"It's nice to see you too," she responded, her tone more than a bit surprised and amused, although, when she pulled back, her sad and sympathetic expression held no hint of either. As she took a seat on the couch, prompting me to sit down next to her, she immediately asked, as she laid a hand on my thigh, "How are you doing?"
As I tried to ignore how close she was and how easy it would be to just lean over and kiss her, I replied, "Fine, I guess. It's just kind of hard getting used to having no one there at night, no one there to talk to or be with." After a tiny pause, I shrugged my shoulders and added, "Oh well. At least Camille didn't clean me out during the divorce, so I still get to keep the house and some of my money." I had earned quite a good deal of money while playing my way into NFL record books - I had just been inducted into the Hall of Fame, in fact - and the BCS National Championship rings, Heisman Trophies, MVP Trophies, and Super Bowl rings scattered around the house paid testament to that. "Your prediction finally came true, Max: Camille finally spit me out, even if much later after you and I both expected." Even though I hadn't really loved Camille, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to do better than her - excluding Max, of course - and, if I couldn't have Max, I would rather be with Camille than no one, so, after five years of dating, Camille and I married, had two children - Marshall, 22, and Abby, 20 - and then, after 25 years of marriage, officially got divorced last week when Camille finally tired of me and decided to go find someone better.
Max had never married or even had a serious relationship with a man, as far as I knew - when I asked her about it, she waved her hand and said that a man would just get in the way of her traveling the world, although her eyes were sad, like they were when we were seventeen - preferring instead to write and wander, looking for a place in this world. Those facts just made my heart beat even faster now with hope, because I knew that finally, now that she had settled down in the very town we were both born and I was done with Camille, she and I actually had a chance of being together. Well, if she wanted me, of course, and so far she hadn't made any indication that things had changed between us since we were seventeen.
However, that had never stopped me from trying, so, spurred on by a sudden jolt of emotion, I reached over, took Max's hand, and looked her in the eye as I asked her, "Max, do you know why I spent thirty years with Camille that I never planned on spending with her?"
"No," Max responded slowly, her expression surprised but otherwise unreadable.
"It was because I couldn't have you, and I was looking for some way to console myself. I guess that way ended up being spending thirty years of my life with a woman I didn't really want to be with, until I finally got the courage to tell you the truth," I ended, and I began to desperately try to decipher her eyes. Unfortunately, they remained as mysterious as always, and it wasn't until Max opened her mouth to tell me herself that I was able to figure out what she was thinking.
"Jake, I spent the last thirty years, ever since we graduated high school, wandering the world and staying as far away from here as possible, because I couldn't bear to see you with her," Max began, and I found myself staring at her in incomprehension. Was she really saying what I thought she was saying? "Jake, I have loved you since we were both seventeen, and you were just too idiotic to see it," she told me, a teasing smirk coming across her face as she stared up at me. After a pause, she asked me, an inviting smile playing on her lips, "So, will you finally take me?"
"Of course," I breathed, my eyes locked on hers, and I saw the sadness that had draped them for thirty years finally lift as I leaned in and kissed her.


Becca (f) and Ghost (m)
"Why do we do this?" I ask Becca as I stare up at the night sky, my eyes tracing the patterns of stars and constellations and galaxies, all with stories and myths behind them. And all billions and billions of miles away, just like Becca basically is, even when she's laying right next to me.
"Do what?" she questions curiously in response, looking over at me in puzzlement. At our meetings, I always want to watch the stars, because I know that I can't say half the things I want to if I get distracted by Becca's presence, but she never has any desire to watch them with me, probably because she doesn't have any problem speaking when she's looking at me. She could be looking at a rock, for all my presence affects her speech. It just isn't fair.
"Fight each other," I say, daring to glance over at her and finding her image imprinted on my eyelids and branded right in the middle of my thoughts when I look back up at the sky. However, I still manage to persevere and keep talking, "If we didn't attack each other, if we didn't waste all of those lives and resources fighting over a conflict that has been going on since long before you and I were born and will probably go on long after we die, just imagine how much farther along we would be. Just imagine: we could have flying cars and the cure for cancer and the ability to send manned ships outside our solar system, if it weren't for the oppression and wasted time and life force and materials of war."
"That's blasphemy, Ghost," Becca tells me quietly, her voice for once losing all of its spunk in favor of fear and worry. "You know that as well as I." Her tone draws my gaze back onto her, and I force myself to stare into her eyes and avoid looking at the rest of her, because, even though her eyes make it very hard for me to think, taking her all in at once would leave me fully and completely lobotomized, as far as having an intelligent conversation goes.
"So get a crucifix and hang me up on it," I find myself saying angrily, startling both of us. However, I find that I can't stop talking, so I continue, "I'm tired of being afraid of ancient laws that don't really even apply anymore. I'm tired of fighting a battle that isn't mine and that I don't agree with, and I'm certainly tired of not being able to speak my mind. And, you know, if it takes a martyr to finally wake everybody up, then I would happily get crucified."
"Ghost, you can't mean that," Becca whispers, her light brown eyes expanding far beyond their normal size with shock and fear and perhaps worry for my sanity. "You can't mean that."
"But I do, Becca," I say, and, as I search my heart, I realize that I really do. I'm tired of this oppression and hatred and ignorance that I've lived in my whole life, and, you know, it's time someone actually did something about it. If that person is me, and I get injured or killed for my efforts, well, so be it. "Will you..." I begin to ask Becca, and suddenly my tongue becomes unable to function properly. However, I'm determined to speak, so I force my mouth into cooperation and say, looking at her hopefully, "Will you stand by me, if I somehow manage to call the clans together and speak out against it?"
"Ghost, I agree with you completely and utterly, with all of my heart, but I don't want to see you die," Becca breathes, and I realize with a start that her eyes are shimmering with tears. "I don't want to stand by and see you get yourself killed over something that you're not able to change. I don't want to see you die on that crucifix and then have everyone forget you, like I know they will. I don't want to have my heart broken like that, Ghost. In fact, it would be far easier if you were to just go into your own clan in the morning, declare how wrong everyone is, and then get killed by your own people on the spot, because at least that would be a clean break, and I wouldn't have anymore time to come to love you more than I already do."
"You... you love me?" I ask her incredulously, all of my breath having been stolen away by shock, and I can't help but notice that she looks just about as surprised at her words as I do.
"Yeah, I... I guess I do," she confirms, biting her bottom lip as she looks over at me, and it's then that it hits me how blind I've been, these last few months that we've been meeting in secret along the border of our clans' lands, to think that I loved her and she didn't feel anything for me. After all, why would she have continually risked her neck just to spend a few hours talking with me each week if she didn't feel something for me?
"Well, that's settled then," I tell her after a few moments of silence. "I can't go off and die, now that I know you love me."
"Oh Ghost," Becca cries, as she snuggles up against me to rest her head right next to mine. "I knew you'd see reason eventually."
"So what do we do now, now that I've - we've - decided I'm not going to be a martyr but also that we can't stay here?" I question Becca after a few moments, and she pulls back slightly so she can look me in the eye.
"We leave," she answers simply, the calmness of her voice and matter-of-factness of her tone surprising. "There's nothing to keep us here, with your father leading your clan and my father leading mine and both of them hating each other with all of their hearts, and the world away from here has to be better than it is here. In fact, if we escape, we might actually live to see a form of government besides an absolute and dictator-like monarchy."
Becca might find her plan very reasonable, but I am far too worried about the 'might live' part of it, as I don't want to knowingly lead Becca into a situation that she isn't guaranteed to survive. However, I also know that chances are that both of us would die fighting on different sides of the same battle if we were to stay here, and I'd - and I know Becca would too - much rather die with Becca, not in opposition of her.
"All right," I find myself agreeing, and a huge smile breaks out across Becca's face. Despite all the danger that I know could be waiting for us once we leave, I can't help but grin too and ask, "Is tomorrow morning too soon?"
The sounds of war fill my ears, screams and pleas and snarls and groans creating such a cacophony of violence that I can't help but wonder how I ever thought this was a good idea. Then I see that Becca and I and the army we've recruited in the last year after running away have almost pushed the clans up against the canyon wall, with my father, the leader of the unified clans - they've only unified because we, in an attempt to bring peace and stop their war, prove a bigger threat to them than they do to each other - standing up on a high rock, shouting down commands.
Becca's father is dead - we found his body last week, his death because he decided to attack one of the peace parties we had sent and turn the negotiations between us and the clans into a full-out war - and, surprisingly, she didn't even cry over his death. She just requested I help her bury his body, and, after he was safely in the ground, she turned away and hasn't spoken about him since. That might just be because she doesn't really have time to mourn him, with all of the strategizing and negotiating and leading and fighting we've been doing.
She and I are officially married now - we married the night her father was killed, actually, because we knew that things were getting heated and we both wanted to die actually bonded to the other - but, of course, that won't really matter if neither one of us lives to see tomorrow. However, I'd say our chances of surviving are better than our chances of dying now, seeing as our army greatly outnumbers the clans' fighters and she and I are probably better fighters than most we've faced from the clans so far.
None of that stops Becca from getting dragged down by a clan fighter and nearly having her throat ripped out before the fighter is pulled off of her though, and it certainly doesn't stop the liquid icy numbness from running through my veins as I look at the puddle of blood growing around her head and know that she's going to die.
"Becca," I breathe, as I stare down at her and try my hardest not to cry as the numbness is replaced by sheer agony so powerful it feels like my heart is getting ripped out.
"Finish it, Ghost," she commands me softly, her eyes locked on mine. "Finish it, for me." She takes one more breath before closing her eyes and leaving me all alone in a battle that I thought I wanted but now hate with all of my heart.
However, Becca asked me to finish this, this revolution she and I started together, and so I will. I run through the animals fighting around me, completely oblivious of everything except for my goal: my father standing on top of the rock and giving orders, for his resistance after Becca's father was killed is the only reason why we're fighting today and why Becca is dead.
A clan fighter leaps in my way, and I rip out its throat in one quick motion, bounding over the body and continuing towards my father. After a moment, I realize that the face was familiar, and it dimly occurs to me that I just killed my old best friend, Tom. However, nothing else matters now except for following Becca's orders, so I don't give that fact any more thought. I don't have time to think right now.
After a minute of picking my way through the crowd, killing whoever tried to stop me, I find myself standing at the base of the rock my father's on, with my father himself only a leap away. Taking a deep breath as the realization that I'm about to kill my own father, along with all of the other old friends I've already killed, washes over me, I steel myself against the notion of turning back by fixing an image of Becca dead in my mind, with her throat savaged and blood around her head like some evil halo, and telling myself that that is all his fault, that she commanded me to do this and so I owe it to her to follow her orders.
With that, I leap up onto the rock, and, as I lunge for my father's throat, I murmur under my breath, "
Sic semper tyrannis," thinking that it would make Becca proud.
Just as a side note,
sic semper tyrannis is Latin for "thus always to tyrants," essentially meaning "death to tyrants," and it originated from Marcus Brutus, Caesar's assassin. It was also said by John Wilkes Booth when he assassinated Abraham Lincoln.