Page 99 of Forged By Sacrifice

“Like we're buckled and preparing before the crash

Like we're walking down a road of broken glass.”

“You can count on me

You know I'd have your back.”

Performed by P!nk & Khalid

Written by Moore / Izquierdo / Hartley / Khalid / Harris / Geiger

Mac and I spent Sunday in his room. He hadn’t returned my clothes. I didn’t complain. I knew that if I had, he would have given them back. There was not a threatening bone in Mac’s body. Not when it was directed at me. If I’d wanted to leave the room, I could have wrapped a towel around my body and gone down the hall to the loft. If Dani was in the apartment, she would have given me hell, but I still could have done it.

Truth was, I didn’t want to.

I liked that Mac ordered food on his phone and only left the room to answer the door when the delivery boy showed up. I liked that, as soon as he came back, he lost his sweats and joined me in my nakedness, wrapped in his sheets.

I’d never spent a day like that with a man. Lazily lounging in each other’s arms until one or both of us found the need curling through our bellies again and then reaching out to languidly enjoy each other once more. The TV was on in the background, movies that Mac or I chose when the name hit our fancy on the guide.

Our scents and bodies tangled together into something new. Something that belonged to both of us instead of just one of us. That thread that joined us pulling tauter. Harder to escape. Harder to cut without pain.

Mac never said the word politician again, and I pushed all the thoughts of his future aside, knowing the guilt would hit me eventually but being too selfish at the moment to care. Not when his thoughts and his words filled me up like a sponge that had sat too long, dry and hard. Now I was soft, bending to his curves, fitting us together.

He tugged gently at my hair, winding the white streak on his finger as The Sting played.

“Tell me about it.”

“About what?”

His eyes drifted to my white streak. I looked away to the screen where a youngish Paul Newman was pulling a con—blue eyes, not unlike the blue eyes that were looking at me right then. I could still feel Mac’s stare even though I’d looked away. I could tell he was trying to figure out all my puzzle pieces. He was worming his way into my heart, because he wanted to unwrap every layer of my skin and see what was left.

He’d acted like I’d had a choice the night before when he’d talked Descartes, reality, and dreams. But the truth was, there hadn’t been a choice for me to make. I would be his if he’d have me, and when he couldn’t or wouldn’t, I’d try to live with what remained. I’d pick up the pieces and sew them together as best as I could, but it would be like the white streak in my hair—a mark that wouldn’t go away.

“You said it happened the night your dad was arrested,” he prodded, bringing me back to his current question, his current attack on the things I’d always kept inside me.

“I was only six. Dad wasn’t there. They’d obviously waited until he left to raid the house. I was dead asleep, but the noise and the raised voices woke me. They weren’t the normal lull of Mom and Dad’s arguments. I’d already started to get up when my bedroom door burst open and men in SWAT gear burst in. They had face guards on—I don’t know why. Like they expected smoke bombs to go off or something. But everyone was yelling, and there were scary men in my room, and my heart was about ready to explode from my chest.”

“I can’t imagine waking up like that as a child.” Mac’s voice was laced with concern and tenderness, as if he could protect that small child I’d been. My heart flipped.

“Anyway, they took Mom, and some social services lady stayed with me until Grandma could come get me.”

“And the streak just appeared?”

I laughed. “This isn’t cartoon land. No, we didn’t realize anything about it until it started to grow out. But it’s never gone back to being black.”

“Your hair isn’t really black. It’s like a thousand different colors. Purples and blues and even reds.”

“And white.” I smiled up at him.

“And white.” He kissed the strands and then kissed me. Tenderly. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For telling me.”

I shrugged and turned back to the TV. “This movie isn’t really that great.”

Mac laughed. “But he had so much class. It’s hard not to admire what he stood for.”

---