An Unfortunate Journey

by Sara Daniell

  “What’d you expect her to do? She couldn’t just blurt out that she had accounts set up all over the world. She had to be believable, Orion.”

  I take my feet out of the cool water and pull my knees to my chest.

  “Her betrayal hurts the worst.”

  “I’m sure it does.”

  I watch Plath’s expression go from worried, to sort of content, to worried again. I furrow my eyebrows.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing major. Just thinking.”

  “Tell me.”

  He looks at me intently. “Are you okay?”

  I laugh coldly. “That’s a dumb question.”

  “When you’re with me, does the pain and fear go away for even a second?”

  I blink a few times as I stare at him.

  “No,” I answer honestly.

  “Do you love me, Orion? Truth or not?”

  I look away from him. I do love him, but admitting I love him out loud scares me. Being an open book with Plath Emerson is dangerous. I trust him, but then again I don’t. My heart speaks before my common sense can stop me.

  “Yes,” I admit. My hands begin to shake so I clench them into tight fists so he won’t notice.

  His eyes begin to water, and I don’t know if it’s tears or the cool wind irritating them. “Is that not enough for you?”

  I close my eyes and sigh heavily. “What do you mean?”

  “Enough to numb the fear and pain you feel. Not even for a second?”

  I open my eyes and look at him. “No. Hollywood paints a bullshit picture when it comes to love. Love doesn’t fix everything, and you out of all people should know that. How can love fix anything when everything is bigger than us? Our love isn’t some supernatural power that can end this strange war.”

  I used to get so pissed watching movies. Hollywood portrays this image that when you love someone, nothing else matters, and it fixes it all. A bold-faced lie.

  “I guess I just hoped I would be the one to make you free.” He looks disappointed although he understands.

  “You can make me free.” I wipe tears as they begin to fall.

  He wipes them away with his thumb and kisses me softly. “I’m too selfish. I won’t lose you.”

  “What if I told you that you already have?”

  “I would call you a liar.”

  And he’s right. As long as I’m breathing, what’s left of me is his. He concentrates on my eyes, and I need to look away, but I don’t. Loving him as much as I do intimidates me. The chance of him hurting me again, the chance of this all being a huge game, is very likely. But if a game is what this is, I will willingly be played, and for admitting that, I know without a doubt, I have truly lost my mind and have become the girl I swore I wouldn’t.

  We are going away for the weekend? Just the two of us?”

  He loads our bags he took upon himself to pack without my knowledge this morning and grins. “Yes. Since we’re together, we need to start acting like a couple.”

  “Isn’t that what we were doing the other night when you took me to dinner?”

  He closes the trunk and walks over to me. He pushes me back against the car and kisses me.

  “Yes, but couples are allowed more than one date.” I smile as I get into the car.

  When we pull up to the airport, I look at him confused. He laughs. “Relax and just let me surprise you. all right?” I nod and get out of the car. I go to reach for my bag in the trunk, but he grabs all of the bags before I can help.

  “I can help,” I say and walk beside him into the airport.

  “You have major issues with letting me be nice to you. You do realize that, right?”

  We get in line to have our bags checked.

  “It does make me kind of uncomfortable.”

  He laughs as we move up in line.

  “Yeah, but you like it.”

  “Not really.” I smirk.

  He laughs again; then when it’s our turn, he hands the lady our bags who then puts them on the conveyer belt after labeling them to match our flight. I heard her say something about Ireland. After we walk through the metal detectors, Plath intertwines his fingers with mine.

  “Ireland?” I ask with a raised brow.

  “Bundoran Beach.” He smiles.

  AFTER WE GET settled into the beach house, I follow Plath out onto the deck that gives a perfect view.

  “Is this what running would be like?”

  “Not forever.” He sits down in a chair and pulls me into his lap. “I would run out of money, and we’d eventually have to rough it.”

  I lean into him as I watch the waves. The gnawing pain I feel can’t even be calmed by a serene place like this. As long as things in the Sphere are wrong, I will never be at peace. Everything inside of me will always be at war. The way I’ve always been so angry and unsettled makes so much sense now. I bet my therapist in Dandux would shit his pants finding out what truly troubles me.

  I feel Plath’s lips trace the nape of my neck. His hand slips under my shirt, and the warmth of his fingertips on my bare skin intoxicates me. Pure ecstasy. I turn so I’m straddling his lap and kiss him deeply without holding back. He deepens the kiss, if that’s even possible, and picks me up. I keep my legs wrapped around his waist as he carries me inside.

  He lays me back onto the soft sheets, and I tug at his shirt. He pulls it off and lets it fall to the floor. I run my hands up his bare chest until they are wrapped around his neck. I pull him down until our lips touch.

  “I love you,” I whisper against his lips.

  He slips off my shirt, and the rest of our clothes disappear so quickly I barely feel my jeans leave my legs. Maybe I should stop him. Maybe we shouldn’t do this, but truth is, I already had my mind made up that if it were to happen, I’d let it.

  AFTER A SHOWER, I walk outside where Plath is sitting in the sand. I sit down beside him and rest my head on his shoulder. He wraps his arm around my waist and kisses the top of my head. He notices the letter I wrote to Felix folded in my hand.

  He touches it. “What’s that?”

  “A letter.”

  “To?”

  “My brother. I have no way of getting it to him, but it felt good to write it. I never told him bye or said I loved him back. I did what you said I should do when severing relationships. The quicker the less painful. But that was a load of shit. It hurts worse I think.”

  “I’ll make sure he gets it.” He takes it from my hand and slips it into his pants pocket.

  I tilt my head to look at him. I can tell by the staleness of his voice and the crease in his forehead he’s upset about something. “You’re mad about something, aren’t you?”

  “Pissed actually.”

  “Why?”

  He laughs coldly. “As if you don’t already know.”

  He looks like he’s on the verge of crying, and I don’t understand.

  “We are both pissed about a lot of things. Which is it that’s bothering you so bad?”

  “We just made love, Orion. I don’t know why I let that happen.” Whatever is bothering him right now is huge. He looks scared.

  “Was it bad or something? I don’t understand.” To me, it was perfect.

  He laughs, but his laughter fades and so does his smile. “It wasn’t bad.”

  I watch his hand that’s not around my waist move slightly beside him.

  “I don’t understand. Then what’s bothering you?” I practically beg.

  Tears that I didn’t know he was capable of producing start to fall down his face. Before I can say anything, I feel a stabbing pain then warmth expand in my chest. My breath catches in my throat, and tears pool in my eyes. I look down and see a knife held by Plath’s hand and blood spilling from around it. My eyes lock on his, and I wish I could speak.

  My body falls against his. I wish I had the strength to reach up and wipe his tears away. I want to tell him it will all be okay now, but most of all I want to thank him. My eyes
begin to close, and the last thing I hear as I slip away is the sound of Plath’s voice in a faint whisper telling me I’m free.

  I drop the knife that set her free. The knife that destroyed the walls of the Sphere and defeated the Constable once and for all. Somewhere, on the other side of the world, there’s chaos. Dwellers seeing things as they truly are for the first time—the truth. They’re running, fighting, but most importantly being set free.

  My body shakes as I stand to my feet. I came here with every intention of convincing Orion to run and to stop longing for death. To long for me instead. I had hoped that I would be enough, something for her to cling to when there was nothing else to grasp—what she was for me. But she carried far too large of a burden that nothing but death could lift from her shoulders.

  I had made love to her, and if I could love her any more than I already do, in that moment where our bodies, our souls, became one I fell in love with her all over again and in a way that I could never describe. Something that miraculous can’t be put into words. But in that moment, I knew that I had to set her free. I love Orion Draper more than I love myself and being selfish and refusing her what she wanted most was no longer an option.

  As I watch her body be carried off by the waves and consumed by the sea, I fall to my knees.

  “You’re free now. No more hurt. No more pain. No one can betray you where you will go.”

  Orion Draper was the most unselfish person I have ever met. She could have fought so she could live, but she wanted everyone else to be free. She wanted to fix it so badly that she was willing to lay down her own life.

  “Orion, you were wrong after all,” I whisper into the breeze. “Our love was enough. It fixed everything.”

  Dear Felix,

  I love you, too.

  Sincerely,

  Oreo

  Sara Daniell is a wife and mother who spends her days teaching children and her nights loving her family, and finding time to immerse herself into her two creative passions. In her free time she not only writes unique and amazing stories, she also takes breathtaking pictures that captures her creative nature in color just like her writings capture her creative nature in print. She is an amazing woman who loves life and people.