Page 51 of Tower
I smile when he shakes himself off like a dog before stepping back out onto the bank.
“You laughin’ at me?” he asks with narrowed eyes.
“Definitely not. I just like to look at you. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothin’ in the world wrong with that.” He’s grinning too as he dries off and pulls on his underwear.
Since he’s putting his clothes on, I decide I should too. I brought with me a soft tunic sweater, stretchy jeans, and cozy boots. I braid my hair to get it out of the way.
By the time I’m dressed, Levi is already sitting on the rock, his shotgun at the ready.
I go to sit beside him, and he puts an arm around me.
I lean against him, waiting. When he doesn’t do anything, I reach into one of the pockets of his cargo pants and pull out an apple.
We’ve been visiting the orchard fairly often for the past few months, doing some work on the trees that have potential. Most of them didn’t bear any fruit worth eating this season, but yesterday we found a couple of good apples on one of the trees.
We ate one yesterday, and he’s been saving the other for this morning.
I rub the apple with my sweater and then present it to Levi.
“You can take the first bite,” he tells me.
“No. They’re your family’s trees.”
He presses a soft kiss against the side of my head. “You’re my family now, sweetheart.”
“I know that. But this is your apple. I’m happy you’re sharing it with me, but I want you to take the first bite.”
His dark eyes are soft and fond as they hold mine. “Feelin’ kinda sentimental, are you?”
“Yes, I am. I know this world is a shitty place, and it doesn’t seem to be getting better anytime soon. But we haven’t lost everything. And we have so much more than we had six months ago. I really think we’re going to have even more next year and then the year after and then the year after that. One day those trees are all going to be blooming again. The whole world will be blooming. So this apple is hope.”
His mouth twists. He swallows hard.
Then he lifts the apple to his mouth and takes a bite.
EPILOGUE
Six months later
“Wait! We forgot my necklace!”
My outburst is louder and more panicked than it should have been, but my anxiety has been rising since first thing this morning.
I honestly don’t know why.
There’s no emergency here. It’s silly to be stressed. Everything has been quiet in the region for the past four months, ever since the frequent skirmishes with that gang to the north finally settled. The survivors have retreated far from our territory, and I don’t expect to see even a glimpse of them again.
We didn’t get out of the conflict unscathed. We lost two guys, and Carlotta is still recovering from a gunshot to her thigh. But we fared a lot better than the other gang did.
Since then, it’s been relatively quiet in town and in the area. I still never leave base on my own, but Levi hasn’t put up any resistance to our weekly outings.
So these nerves today are silly.
And they’re getting in the way of what should be a good day.
“Here it is,” Becca says, stepping toward me with the tree necklace Levi gave me on my birthday. I place the pendant on the base of my neck and move my hair out of the way so Becca can clasp it. “You look so beautiful. Levi is going to faint dead away.”
