Authors: Mya Robarts
The v Girl (15 page)
Rey and I lag a little
; our families are walking way ahead of us toward the clinic while the Diaz cousins are carrying Olmo, Dad, and Duque. He puts his arms around my shoulder, and this little gesture makes my fears subside.
It’s over for now. My family is safe.
Rey stops and pulls me into a tight embrace. I lean my head on his chest and sigh, closing my eyes. This gesture of support and kindness must be the human touch and is exactly what I need.
Let’s stay like this for a while
. Thankfully Rey complies.
Even though I couldn’t have slept better during my first night in Aleksey’s colossal bed, my eyes close in exhaustion. Sara’s execution is the reminder of why love isn’t a smart idea during the war. And yet I can’t help thinking that what I feel for Rey is a form of love. I put my hands on his chest and little by little my anxiety goes away.
We finally break our embrace and hurry to catch up with our families. They’re already on the clinic’s staircase talking to Tristan. The cop’s warm eyes become cold when he sees Rey’s hand on mine, but he recovers soon and waves at me.
I feel like I have to console Tristan, who keeps recriminating himself for not stopping the execution as Aleksey would have. “It was only you against several soldiers! We’ve never seen a cop come between Rocco and his victims before … right, Rey?”
Rey doesn’t answer. Throwing a dark look at Tristan, he enters the clinic, leaving me alone with the cop in the courtyard.
Tristan opens the door of the hospital to let me go in first. “You Starvillers don’t like foreigners, do you?”
“Foreigners, yes. Cops, not so much. What you did is unusual for a cop. You risked your life.”
He seems less gloomy, determined. “You’ll see, Miss Velez. By the time the recruitment ceremony comes I’ll be stronger and make the troops toe the line.”
I look for my family in different rooms, and he follows me around. “I hope so. I just fear recruitment above everything else,” I murmur almost to myself.
“Really?” He seems pleasantly surprised. “Me, too.”
My head snaps up and I observe him intently. I hope he’s not joking. But the hint of discomfort in his face, as though he is ashamed to have admitted an embarrassing truth, tells me he's being honest.
A lanky man like Tristan, who at times shows certain vulnerability in his manly attitude; Tristan, who is surrounded by older, more trained and more dangerous soldiers; he, who has military training, is also in danger of rape. I never thought about it before. If even the Accord cops are in danger of an attack, I can’t be optimistic. Without a doubt, the troops will recruit me.
He winks at me. “We have more in common than you think, Miss Velez.”
We enter a room where numerous Diaz relatives and the Velezes are about to share a meal. Due to the events this morning, the atmosphere is somber; but even so, they invite Tristan to take part of it. My eyes immediately search for Rey. Duque tells me that Rey went home to get some sleep.
The Diazes are amazing,
but I’m not a social person. I have so much to think about. I need to be alone.
This morning’s scene has put me on edge, and Tristan’s confession has hit me hard. No wonder the cops rarely face the troops. I wanted to take things slowly after that first rejection to give Rey time to ask me for sex. Or to see where things would go with Aleksey. But if even Accord cops can’t escape rape, I have to hurry.
I run toward the staircase and climb down in seconds with Poncho running behind me. I’ve had an epiphany. Even now that I have another option—a man who awoke in me a desire I’ve never felt before—Rey’s still the one that I want to become my first lover. How will I ever feel the affection that connects me to Rey for another man?
I can’t wait until Rey makes a decision anymore, although I know that’d be the moral thing to do. I have to ask him once and for all if he’s ever going to have sex with me. Perhaps is a strange trick of destiny that Baron and Reyna will be at the clinic all afternoon with all the Diaz relatives to attend to Duque. Rey and I will be completely alone. To talk. To make love.
This time I can’t prepare beforehand, but I run at full speed toward the multifamily complexes, ready for a second attempt to have sex with my best friend.
The key Rey gave me disappeared
during the air raid, but Buck Weaver taught me how to open locks without keys.
A table, a stove, and two bunk beds are the only furniture. Religious images and Bible quotes cover the cracks in the wall. I tentatively pull the curtain that divides the room in two.
“Rey? May I enter?”
Deep breathing is the only answer.
Rey’s asleep on the lower bunk. His long hair covers half his face, and he looks so peaceful that I have to force myself to stop staring. I’m wasting precious time here. I start to undress. I couldn’t press my breasts with bands this morning, so I’m topless. My nudity makes me feel like a little girl about to do mischief, and the feeling is both nerve-racking and deliciously arousing.
I’m about to get under his bedspread when her name stops me dead in my tracks.
“Angie.”
Why do I suddenly feel dirty and cheap? Why do I care? I shouldn’t stop, but a bitter, envious feeling has killed the resolution that brought me here. When the war ends, will I find someone who loves me this way?
Awareness of my nakedness hits me. Prodded by sudden shame, I put my clothes on. I’m about to exit the bedroom, hoping he never knows I was here, when I trip on my cloak and fall on my butt with a loud thud.
Rey springs up in a defensive stance. “Who’s there?” His eyes find me still sprawled awkwardly on the floor.
Dammit!
Looking up at his gorgeous face from this position I feel small and forced to make up excuses. “I—I came to talk to you, but you were sleeping.”
He takes a moment to look at me and I couldn’t feel more awkward.
“I need to talk to you, too.” He lifts me from my tangled cloak and lays me on the lower bunk. For a long moment he says nothing. “Lily, what will you do after recruitment?”
“If they don’t recruit me, I might try to leave Starville.”
Rey’s amber eyes turn anguished. He doesn’t like the idea. “You can’t go far without an all-terrain. Even if you could, they wouldn’t admit you in another city without a j-device. And you can’t skip recruitments. ”
“I prefer death to recruitment anyway.” He’s so horrified by my admission that I quickly add, “Shiloh is close. I can come here every year for recruitment until they—”
“Life is not much better in Shiloh and your family needs you. I need you.”
I can’t share Aleksey’s plan with him yet. It sounds too good to be true. If my family leaves Starville, why shouldn’t I try to leave, too? What if something ruins it? “It’d be difficult but that’s what I want. What do you want to do?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” For a few moments, there’s only silence. Then he abruptly swallows hard. “Did you know that Angie’s dead?”
Her name again.
I nod. “Your dad told us, but we weren’t supposed to tell you.”
“Everybody thought they were keeping the news from me. But as absurd as this sounds, a month after they took her, I felt like a part of me was missing. When I asked Mrs. Busko, she said she’d received the letter and money for the daughter she lost.”
The letter includes compensation that the Patriots send to the families of the people who die after recruitment. As recruits, they’re part of the Patriot army, and their families receive some coupons and a letter of condolence signed by Maximillian Kei. I received the letter a week after they took my mom. Her fingerprints were attached to it.
Rey puts his arm around my shoulder. “After I realized she wouldn’t come back I thought I’d return to the seminary.” He looks at me in a way that makes me blush. “But you changed that.”
“Me? Why?”
He looks nervous. “I thought I loved you like a sister but that night when you told me you wanted me ... I realized I wanted you, too. I’ve never thought I could want somebody who wasn’t her. And I know I'm proud, greedy, vain but … now that there’s competition, I feel a greater pull to be with you.”
“Competition?”
Rey frowns. “That cop, the slender one. He kept putting himself between us today. I guess he was jealous, too. And the big one … he seems to like you. I want both to stay away from you. I have no right to feel jealous, but I can’t help it. I want you to be my wife.”
I startle. Marriage tattoos are banned until after recruitment. “Wife?”
“I don’t understand the way I love you, but I can’t pretend I don’t have strong feelings for you. And you can’t either. You love me beyond our friendship.”
Is it possible to love someone as a friend and still want him like I want Rey? It’s confusing. I care for him, but this is not even a shadow of the kind of love that my parents felt. If what I feel were
real
love, I wouldn’t want anyone else. The only kisses that my mouth would crave would be Rey’s. That’s not the case. And if he
really, truly
loved me, his ex would be history now.
“What if you never get over her? I wouldn’t marry you even if you loved me exclusively.” He looks so hurt that I hastily add. “If the war doesn’t stop, I won’t ever marry anyone.”
The back of his hand brushes my cheek. “I have reasons to talk about marriage now.”
“Reasons?
He stands up abruptly and walks out the room. The bed feels painfully empty. So cold. Is he mad?
It’s pouring outside. For a while, all I can hear is the rain slamming the window. Then I hear a succession of musical tones. He’s playing the guitar. The music is a soft mix of notes that convey innocence, sweetness, and longing. Like a children’s song but with a hint of sadness.
Rey doesn’t stop the music when he pushes the curtain aside and reenters the room. As his angelic voice sings a Spanish melody, my heart melts. I’ve always yearned to have a boy sing to me. Now he’s serenading
me,
but unlike Angie’s serenades, this song is obviously written for me. Each verse starts with my name and talks about me. About us.
My Spanish is rusty, but I catch the gist of the song.
Lila, you’re so innocent and I want you,
But now that I have you in my arms, I’m thinking about her.
Lila, before I get inside you,
I'm not thinking about you and
I won’t steal your first time, your innocence
while I’m thinking about another girl
Lila, I beg you, embrace me tightly and make me forget her
I do not want to see her shadow when I’m with you
Because I don’t know who I am
Am I dreamer? Am I a fool?
Am I just someone who wants to love you?
I’m so moved
that I’m unable to find my voice. How can I not love him after he wrote a song like that for me? How many men wouldn’t jump on the first opportunity, disregarding the girl’s feelings? Love’s a bad bet during war, but Rey’s honesty is disarming. I want him to get over her, with me. If he thinks about Angie when he’s inside me, who cares? I was ready for that the very first night I made a move on him.
I won’t ever be the woman he’ll marry, but we can enjoy ourselves for a while. We’re wasting precious time. We should be making love now. No more marriage talk. “I won’t marry ever, Rey.”
“Then, what do you want, Lily?”
I take a deep breath. “I just want you … to … make love to me.”
His eyes light up with desire. In a swift he takes off his shirt, and somehow I end up pressed to the bunk. Under him.
Rey tries to kiss my
mouth, but I turn my head, so he ends up kissing my jaw.
His hands unbutton the top buttons of my dress while his lips are deliciously sliding from my jaw to my neck.
He takes my wrists and presses them firmly above my head while looking straight into my eyes.
“Oh, Lily! I want to, but we’ll get married first.”
I finally allow his mouth to find mine, but I’m
struggling to feel the burning desire of that first night when the slightest touch ignited a fire. The storm that naturally, effortlessly, delectably overtook me when Aleksey kissed me is missing.
I put my feet under his stomach and push. He falls to the floor and looks up at me in confusion. My voice tone is accusative. “If you won’t do it, why did you kiss me like that? I thought we’d make love, but you’re just teasing me.”
“I wanted to show you how good it’ll be when we finally get married.”
I cross the room, desperate to put distance between us. “I won’t marry you and I won’t wait ‘til after the recruitment.” I can’t live following Starville’s customs, and sadly that’s what Rey wants.
He’s on his feet in a second, and there’s a definite
no
in his voice. “And I’ll make love to you only after we marry. Not before.”
My dreams break in thousands of shattering pieces. It feels as though we’re breaking up. He’s killed any possibility of having sex with him. Both of us want sex, but we’re not compatible.
I turn my back to him and find myself looking at his wall mirror. “Then don’t touch me like that again.” Rey’s reflection turns his back on me and stays silent. After a while, I break the silence. “Why do you keep teasing me?
He scowls and paces the room. “Because you’re trying too hard to give away something you might value later.”
Argh! That’s why the Comanches call him
Priest.
I run my hands through my hair in exasperation. “No, Rey. I’ll never value my V.” If he thinks my V is valuable, then he is as medieval as the soldiers. I don’t want him to be like them.
“If you married me, you’d see how worthy waiting for the right person is and …”
I raise my voice. “Stop. No preaching. I don’t value your religion’s rules.” Or Starville’s rules.
“But you value your own rules. Otherwise, you’d have been with someone already. If it weren't for recruitment, you’d wait.” He turns to me, and our eyes meet in the mirror. “Your values don’t stem from religion. You’re a hopeless romantic, and you want to belong to a man and only one man. I want to be that man for you.”
Rey knows me so well. At this moment, I hate that he’s so right about my feelings and so wrong about our reality. “Didn’t you see what almost happened this morning? What does it matter what I want if they recruit me?”
“They won’t. We were about to hack the regiment itinerary last time before they attacked Duque. We can stop the recruitment ceremony.”
His words make me pace the room in furious strides. “We’ve been trying that for years. We haven’t ever stopped a recruitment ceremony. Not even once.”
“Why can’t you have a little bit of faith? Please wait for me. Let me be your first.”
My exasperation makes me yell. “Can’t you see I want you to be my first? But you won’t do it, and my V status will earn me a spot among recruits. If they didn’t punish the families of people who commit suicide, I’d kill myself before recruitment!”
Rey’s face is anguished now. I remember at this moment that suicide is a touchy subject with him because Duque’s threatened to kill himself. I reach out trying to console him but in a flashing movement he grabs my hand and kisses it. “I’ll ask you again, Lily. So far, you’ve said no, but one day we’ll marry.”
I storm out of the apartment, frustrated at his insistence. I’m almost at the building’s entrance when Rey’s desperate voice reaches me from a story above.
“Wait. I’ll walk you home, Lily.”
“
Don’t you ‘Lily’ me
! My name is Lila!” I yell without stopping my escape. Some apartment doors open to see who’s making such a ruckus.
“Please! Stay away from those guys. They’re playing games.”
I turn to look at him with a furiously defiant expression, annoyed by the desperation of his voice. He would say that. He won’t have sex with me until after recruitment—and only if we get married at that—but he doesn’t want me to sleep with anyone else. That’s so selfish and I’ve always thought of him as a selfless person. Almost like a saint. It’s incredible how little you know about a friend until you try to sleep with them. But who am I to feel disappointment? To judge? I’m even more selfish. I tried to use him for my deflowering, and now the plan has backfired on me.
Repressing tears of fury, I open the building entrance and dart through the rainy streets. I make myself the promise that I’ll get over my obsession with Rey.
I’m still far from the clinic when Poncho barks loudly and prevents me from turning onto Numbers Avenue.
Danger. Poncho’s warning me
. I hide in an alley and get my knives ready.
Long moments pass. Other than the rain drifting into a drizzle, nothing happens. I’m wondering if stepping on Poncho’s paw hurt his survival instincts when I see them. About thirty soldiers pass the dark alley. They’re utterly focused in a drill, so they don’t notice me. Unlike Rocco, they don’t look close to retirement but invincible.
The Recruitment ceremony. They’ve come to prepare for the arrival of the troops.
Cold panic rises from my now knotted stomach when I realize there are more soldiers on the streets than usual.
Taking soldier-free routes toward the clinic, I end up near the southwestern border where the cinema ruin is the only building among a sea of trees.
The place is potentially dangerous although less so than the streets full of soldiers. It reeks of the poverty of the people who live under the ruins. People who were never assigned housing by the Patriot authorities. The plumbing in Starville is inadequate. Here it’s non-existent. However, there are usually more people around in spite of the stench.
Poncho growls and urges me to move. Fear races up my spine, and I’m about to run away when I hear someone whispering. Not my name. Not even “Layla.” Someone whispers my Comanche nickname. “V-girl. Come over here, V-girl.”
The voice comes from behind a thick tree next where the grass grows tall and some flowers are showing. I hesitate. It could be someone from the Comanche group. They could be in trouble.
The hesitation costs me a precious second and someone takes me by my arms and brings me to the ground, crushing the orange flowers. I lie flat on my stomach with a gigantic body pinning me down to the jagged area. I can’t see my attacker, but I know the likelihood of beating him is zero. Because my attacker isn’t normal. His strength is not human.
I’m under the weight of a soldier.