Page 33 of Ambition

I stand so quickly my head spins, heart leaping into my throat. There are no lights on inside our condo and I know I should say something, move from my spot in front of the couch in the living room, maybe simply whisper his name as he walks inside to alert him to the fact I’m here, but I can’t force the word out.

Von,I think, but don’t say.My Von.

And that’s what I want to know.

Are you still? After tonight?

Or will you change, like I wasn’t allowed to, after last Halloween?

Regardless, it doesn’t matter. He is home, and as his shadow steps inside the condo, I know he is at the very least in one piece.

That is what matters.

That is what’s important.

I hear him drop his keys on the black table under the oval mirror, inside the foyer. I can barely discern the door closing, blotting out the dim lights of the hallway. The lock flips a second later.

Then he takes a step forward and he…stumbles.He shoots his hands out to the table, the keys scratching over the surface as the entire thing teeters for a moment on two legs, knocking into the wall which causes the mirror to sway precariously back and forth with a sound like nails against sheetrock.

I move then.

I walk on bare feet, in my pajama shorts and oversized shirt, closing the space between us. When I get close, his palms are pressed to the surface of the rectangular table. His head is bowed, his shoulders curved in.

He does not appear to have heard me.

I wish I could see more. Even the short curls of his red hair are drenched in darkness. I cannot catch sight of his face, his expression,his eyes.

I take another step, reaching out, wanting to touch him, but scared he will be different.

There is a pit in my stomach, an emptiness.

“Von?” I ask at last, unable to stay silent. To wait.

Slowly, he lifts his head, but he doesn’t move his hands. In the dark, I see the sclera of his eyes, but nothing else.

For a tense moment, we only stare at each other.

Then he straightens, turning fully to face me. For the first time I can remember in all the years I have known him—my entire life; he is in every single memory; he went with me to buy pads for the first time, wrapped his hoodie around my waist when I started my period unexpectedly at school and we both just…walked out—I am apprehensive of who he is.

I wasn’t allowed to be different, after Halloween. Or maybe I was only supposed to beless.But I have a feeling Von’s assignments will curve his career upward where mine has been driven down.

“Von.” I don’t ask it as a question this time.

He stumbles toward me, and I… I catch him.

He bows his head, curving his body over mine even as he clings to me. I wrap my arms around his back and I can smell iron over his usual cedar and smoke scent. Something else, like gasoline. I think of the warehouse. How parts of it exploded behind us last October.

He seems to tremble in my arms. “It was…” He falters.

“Von?” I ask, afraid but hopeful. Thinking now, maybe, he will understand what it meant for me to do what I did for him.

“There were…more people than I thought, and I…”

A lump forms in my throat as I bow my head to his chest. I force myself to speak through it as my fingers dig into the muscles of his back. “Tell me,” I say softly.

“The family wasn’t supposed to be there, but they were and…”

Horror clangs through me, then it freezes like ice. “Kids?” I can barely get the question out.

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