Page 115 of Everything Under the Sun

“If something happens to me,” he began, “promise me you’ll do whatever it takes to get somewhere safe—promise me that you’ll fight to live. Promise me that you’ll go on to live your life to the absolute fullest, that you’ll be strong. Say it again.”

Tears tumbled from my eyes, tears of pain and of anger. How could he force me to go on in this godforsaken world without him? For a moment, I despised him for it.

“Say it,” he repeated, his features hard, his gaze penetrating.

“I promise. I promise that I’ll find someplace safe. I promise that I’ll fight to live. I promise that I’ll go on to live my life to the absolute fullest, that I’ll be strong—I promise.”

Atticus kissed my mouth.

Why do I feel like one day I will break that promise?

ATTICUS

By the end of July, there still had been no sign of human life in the Shawnee National Forest other than the two of us. And the solitude, the cover of the dense trees, the beauty of the cabin and the flora around it and the shimmering pond beyond it, it made us more comfortable.

We began to feel safe.

We began to get lost in one another as if we were the only people left in the world and there would be no one to tear us apart.

I even felt it was okay to let Thais stay alone in the cabin when I went out to hunt. But I never went far, and Thais kept a gun with her always when I was away. And I couldn’t get back to her fast enough. I couldn’t wait to see her. To kiss her. To touch her.

I was giving in to her more the past couple weeks. She had this way about her, how she’d look at me with sad eyes, and how sweet her voice was when she’d ask me to touch her. And I couldn’t refuse her. But I still didn’t trust myself with her, either.

“Why won’t you ever let me pleasure you?” she asked as she lay tangled with me on the sofa.

Because I don’t deserve you.

I stroked her hair, kissed her hair.

“Is it because you don’t think I can?”

I laughed out loud—that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard in my life.

She wasn’t laughing.

Oh, was she being serious?

“Oh, love, you have no idea,” I said, and squeezed her.

THAIS

I sat upright.

“Well, I don’t think it’s fair,” I said, refusing to find the same humor he’d found in it. “You do just about everything around here—hunting and fishing and planting and skinning and…well, everything. And you pleasure me anytime I ask for it—”

He laughed again, and then smirked, narrowing his eyes at me. “So you admit it then?” he said playfully. “You know I’ll do just about anything you want me to do.” He held up his pinky finger and swished it around as if to say “wrapped around your little finger”.

I did not laugh, nor did I smile.

“And,” he continued, “you do all of those other things too, so don’t try to make it seem like some unfair situation.”

I sneered and crossed my arms.

“That doesn’t count,” I argued.

Atticus’ smile broadened. He shook his feet crossed at the ankles on the end of the sofa. Then he crossed his arms, too, and just looked at me.

“Okay,” he finally said, “what would you want to do for me then? Go on, tell me what you had in mind.”

---