Page 71 of Insurgent

Without overthinking, I reach my hand out and grip the back of his neck. His eyes bounce to mine. He freezes, making sure this is okay, but I started it. I want it. I don’t want to think about who I’ll hurt, who I love, and what this means. I want to kiss Danny and so I do. My lips touch his.

There are many types of kisses. Kisses in hello, kisses in goodbye, kisses that are sweet and slow, and some that are quick and over. This one is different from any of those. It’s like tectonic plates colliding, forming something bigger than all of us. Mountains, earthquakes.

It’s painful, yet there’s so much pleasure, I could die. Danny’s hand circles my neck. I feel his thick fingers wrap around me, gently, carefully. His tongue slides past my lips, and I feel like I’ve been away from home for decades, and now, finally, I’m back. I feel the tears fall down my cheeks. I squeeze my eyes shut, holding on to his arms.

Danny wraps one behind my back, pulling me nearer to him. Like he can’t have me close enough. Like he wants my body to melt into his. And it does. It caves, it gives, it remembers, wondering how it ever forgot what this feels like with him.

How right we are for one another. His breath tastes stale, and I’m sure mine is awful, but passion overrides things like that. It forgives the unpleasantness in the moment and focuses on the beautiful.

Oh, how beautiful.

Danny pulls away, placing his forehead on mine. His eyes look through me.

And that’s when I feel it. He’s shaking.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. His voice is hoarse. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You didn’t. I did.”

That’s when he smirks. It’s faint, but I see it. I reach up and run my finger along the scar on his eyebrow after he breaks away from my forehead. He licks his lips. He swallows. The tattoos on his neck move.

“Promise me,” he says.

And I know what he’s referring to. “I’ll run.”

But I know I won’t. I’m lying. I will fight beside him. I will make sure he is safe, just like I know he will make sure I am.

ChapterForty

Bexley

2019

I sit by the window with the curtain pulled back so I can see out into the street. I rest my jaw on my bent knees as I run my finger over Samuel’s wedding band. Dusk flirts with night while I look out at the jagged skyline in the distance. My stomach growls, reminding me that I haven’t eaten, and then my gut twists at the thought of trying.

I don’t pretend to sit here and act like Samuel and I had the perfect marriage.

What is that, anyway?

There were moments of doubt and times we didn’t see eye to eye. I exhale, dropping the ring around my neck. I’ve always loved two men, but regardless of the love I’ve felt for Danny, I wouldn’t have hurt Samuel. I wouldn’t have acted on my feelings for Danny. I know Samuel had his suspicions of us, and that part eats me up inside. Samuel never knew that I knew Danny first. Samuel never knew that I’ve kept a secret this long.

There’s a small voice in my mind. It’s way back in a special place we all keep our darkest secrets. The ones we don’t share with anyone else.

Maybe we’re too afraid of the judgment we might receive, or we just don’t want to admit it to ourselves. But that voice tells me that part of the reason I chose Samuel was because I knew Danny would never be available the way I needed him to be. I knew Danny could never lead a normal life.

Birds soar over the businesses across the street and I see the man who owns the Laundromat come out with a bag of trash.

Next door is a small bakery. It’s been there since I was a girl, and beside that is a store where you can buy lottery tickets and whatever little thing you may have forgotten at the big chain store a few miles from here.

This neighborhood will always hold the sense of home for me. I ran these streets with the boys, but it’s not a safe place. At night, the monsters come out. They vandalize buildings and break windows. They rob people and steal, but I think I know why none of these locally owned places are touched. And I’m pretty sure it’s because of Danny. One of his Irish sayings passes through my mind.

Even black hens lay white eggs.

Maybe the big bad wolf isn’t so bad, or maybe he is. The door behind me opens and I twist in my chair, holding on to my knees still.Speaking of the wolf.

“Hey,” Danny says.

“Where have you been all day?”

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