Two Punks In Love

Ground Zero

Kat

In the most bizarre turn of events ever, Trace and I are in the back of a squad car, instead of our usual limo, and we are surrounded by paparazzi at the back entrance to the hospital. They caught wind of Violet's birth; we got captured in the Soundcrush exit.

"I will tazer these assholes," Officer Malone grits through his teeth, as two pound on the windows and a group block his exit.

"Naw, man. They are litigious motherfuckers. You don't want any static for your department," Trace cautions.

The cop gets on the external PA and barks intimidating warnings as he eases away.

Trace is rigid with rage, but he's intentionally keeping his voice calm as he says to me,  "They got the money shot. You know that, right?"

"I know." Somewhere in the midst of the shouts about our canceled wedding, Trashlynn, and KatCol, I heard someone yell, "Oh shit, is that a bump?"

"I need to call Riley, Marcy. I need to know how you want to play this." His voice is low, probably too low for the officer to hear.

I am finding it hard to look Trace in the face, but I make myself meet his eyes. "I don't want to play it any way. It's a game that can't ever be won, and I don't want our personal life to be public anymore. I'm done, Trace. I don't want to be famous for being famous, anymore."

He is impassive. Finally he gives me a terse nod and pulls his phone, shooting off a series of texts.

I stare out the window. I have no idea where we are going. I have no idea where "home" is for the night, or for the next five months.

I don't care. Home is where my family is, even if my family is broken right now.

Something happened to me today. Some kind of flashforward into adulthood. It actually didn't have a whole lot to do with Violet's entrance into the world, although that was amazing. It wasn't Marley's labor, but the labor of love I saw between her and Bodie that grabbed onto something inside me.

They are a miracle. Eighteen years ago, they were just kids themselves when they made a baby. And they've suffered through poverty, violence, jail, villains and loved ones alike plotting to keep them apart. They've been shot at and shot up, beaten and burned, brutalized by terror and drugs and hatred. They've battled drug addiction, secrets, ganglords, Arabella Burns, the fucking IRA, and downright cruel twists of fate.

And they somehow, through all the hell they suffered alone, they found one another again. And through all the hell they've suffered together, they remain in love. 

They love with humor and passion and courage. They love so strong and so hard. Nothing shakes them. They've come through the fire and they are tempered, like shining steel.

I must have been insane to think a love like that was too scary. A love like that is the safest shelter there is.

And I look at the man sitting beside me, and I know we don't have that. I love the person he is, but I have no idea how to love him like that. I've spent eight years trying to prove I didn't need him, because deep down I didn't think I deserved him. I spent all this time hiding the way I really felt—that I'm just the Little Sister. That I'm nothing without the fame he lent me. His fame deserved, because of his special talent and his hard work. My fame a false front,nothing except borrowed from his I've spent years being jealous of my sister not because I really think she is better than me but because I think I am not as worthy of her. Ashlynn is worthy; she fought for her own life and she earned it. Everything in mine was derived from a boy who loves me.