Page 94 of Ordinary Girl

“Okay. But I don’t want to get you into trouble…”

“This isn’t high school, Ana.” I toss her a helmet. “We’re not going far, and it won’t take long.”

She climbs onto the bike and we head out of the compound, riding down to the river. To that secluded spot: a small haven of peace in this fucked-up world.

“Look, Ana, you’re right, I don’t have a lot of time, but I need to tell you something.” Before I chicken out: tell myself I’m not really feeling this shit when I do.

She crosses her arms, an almost defensive stance that throws me slightly. But I hold out my hand, willing her to take it, and she does, and the relief I feel in that moment is all-consuming. I pull her toward me, slide an arm around her waist, and she looks up into my eyes and I forget, sometimes, how young she is.

“I love you, Ana. I fucking love you, and you need to know that.”

Her expression doesn’t waver. Her eyes remain locked on mine, and when she kisses me it’s confusing, because I don’t know how she’s feeling. Did she hear me? Does she realize how fucking hard it was for me to say those words? She’s the first woman I have ever said this to, because nobody else has ever made me feel the way she does. And then she pulls back a little and smiles at me, a full-on, genuine smile that reaches her eyes and makes my stomach flip over in the best way.

“I love you too,” she says, and I feel my world suddenly start to have meaning.

“You sure?” I ask, raising an eyebrow, because I feel like, for some reason, I should offer her some kind of out, if she needs it.

She nods. “I’m sure. Are you?”

“I’m positive, kiddo.”

She rests her hand against my cheek, her thumb stroking my skin, and I never want this moment to end. It’s surreal and so alien to me, but this woman changed my world. I changed hers. We have so much shit to navigate, together, and once tomorrow is out of the way… yeah. Tomorrow…

“Joel? Is something wrong?”

I need to keep it together. This isn’t me, I don’t do this. I don’t lose focus, or I didn’t, until this woman came into my world. “No. I’m just tired.”

She tilts her head and frowns. I’m not sure she believes me, but her smile tells me she either does, or she’s learning not to question.

“Let’s sit down.” I take her hand and we sit down under the same tree we’d sat under a few days ago. And for a minute or two there’s a silence between us that’s necessary. We both need to get our heads around what’s happening here. How we’re feeling. Because this hadn’t been on my radar, and I’m almost certain it wasn’t on hers.

“Were you born into this life?” she asks, breaking that silence. And that question, it makes me realize how little we’ve actually talked. How little we actually know about one another.

“No.” I lean back and draw my knees up, resting my arms on them as I stare out across the river. “You could say I had a normal upbringing, whatever that means.” I look at her and smile, just to lighten the mood, really. She smiles back, but it’s an uneasy one. “I had a great childhood. My parents were good people, they gave me the best life they could, considering we didn’t have a lot of money.” I bow my head and take a breath as a rush of memories I’ve spent decades trying to hold back surge forward. “My house, the one I live in now, that’s my childhood home.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I lift my head and throw her another smile, but she still looks like she feels as though she’s crossed a line. She hasn’t. I’m glad she’s asking these questions. I am. Really. Even though, for a long time, talking about this has been the last thing I’ve wanted to do. But I need to do it, now.

“My parents, they were killed there.”

I didn’t mean to blurt that out like that, and her expression turns to one of genuine shock, she doesn’t know what to do. What to say. And now I’m kind of wishing I’d took a little more time to get around to telling her that, but at the same time getting straight to the point is all I know how to do. Skip is the only other person I’ve told; the only other person who knows what happened, and that was the way I’d wanted it to stay. Until now.

“Jesus, Joel, I… I’m sorry.”

I shake my head and focus on the river again as the realization that both Ana and I… very similar tragedies are what threw us together. It’s been that underlying bond that’s pushed us closer since the day her mama died. It just took me a little time to recognize that.

“What – what happened…? Sorry, again. You probably don’t want to talk about it…”

“I just – I haven’t spoken about it for years. Decades.” I turn my head to face her, reaching for her hand, because I need that comfort. That closeness. Me. A cold-hearted man with an inability to let his guard down, because I’d always seen that as a weakness. I was wrong. “My dad, he’d had some stupid row in the parking lot of a grocery store. I still remember that day so clearly, and I wish I couldn’t, I wish those memories were clouded and dim but they’re not. It was a beautiful June day, a Saturday, and I’d been out with my friends for most of it, but I’d gone home for dinner. Everything was normal, you know? Mama was cooking Stegt Flæsk… the smell of the pork frying was so good… It was one of my favorite meals…” She squeezes my hand, and I drop my gaze, close my eyes for a second. I hadn’t wanted to relive this day again, once had been enough, but I need to tell her this. She needs to know who I am. How I became this man she knows, and loves…? “Everything was just – it was normal.” I breathe in deeply. Exhale slowly. “Until itwasn’t.” I close my eyes again, my fingers tightening around hers. “It all happened so quickly, and yet, at the same time, it felt as though everything was moving in slow motion. Does that make sense?” I open my eyes, look at her, and she nods, and I know she understands. She gets it. “There was… there was a knock at the door. Nothing to make us think anything unusual was going on, just an ordinary knock. And my mama, she got up to answer it. And I remember sitting there, talking to my dad about this movie I wanted to see while Mama went to answer the door. And then we heard a scream, a sound so brutal, almost animalistic… it was Mama, and she was screaming at me, to run, to get out of the house, and my dad, he pulled me up out of my chair and he opened the back door, and he pushed me out. But I didn’t run, not straight away, I just stood there, watching through the kitchen window as these strangers…” I turn my head away for a second, because I need a moment. And she senses that, her hand squeezing mine again. “My dad, he tried to protect my mama, he really tried.” I shake my head, my eyes locking on hers, and there’s a shared sadness between us now, she’s feeling every inch of my pain. Because she’s felt it too. “These people, the men who slaughtered my parents in their own home… It turned out my dad had picked an argument with the wrong people that afternoon. People who didn’t take kindly to being challenged, on anything, let alone something as stupid and ordinary as a parking space.”

“Jesus, Joel…”

She kneels up and pulls me toward her, enveloping me in a hug, and I’ve never wanted to be as close to somebody as I do to her. Never. Being close to her, it calms me. I don’t feel so alone. I don’t want her to feel alone either, we have each other now.

“It was such a fucking waste.” There’s an anger I haven’t allowed myself to feel for a long time suddenly bubbling up inside of me. “Such a fucking waste.” I wipe my eyes with theback of my hand, I don’t give a shit that I’m crying. “But they got them. The people who slaughtered my family, they got them. My parents, they got justice. The bastards who killed them, they’re still behind bars, to my knowledge. And from that day on I vowed to end anyone who hurt me or the people I loved. No one gets to walk away. I was fifteen years old when my parents were killed, I was just a kid, but I had to grow up fast, after that.”

“What happened? I mean, where did you go?”

---