Lacuna (my missing part) in Latin
Esme Davis's fast life has become stagnant, or so she thinks. Until one fateful night she bumps into him. During the day she is a science major at UCLA, but at night, she is an underground street racer with an unbe...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Esme
We've been in the air for five going on six hours, and everyone- besides Aubrie and I- has settled into their own thing.
Aubrie- Brie, she insists I call her- is so easy to talk with, it feels as though we've known one another forever.
"Wait, what do you do?" I ask her genuinely curious, and sadness passes through her eyes.
She takes in a huge breath, and blows it out a few seconds later. "I was an assassin. Since I was fifteen, I was trained to be the best of the best, and I was. It's how I met Stefano." I lean my forearms on the table between us, listening intently.
"I was to be his wife, to get close, and take down his mafia. Crazy right?" I nod in agreement, and she chickles. "But overtime, a lot of things happened. Too many to tell you on this flight, but it was worth it in the end." She finishes looking over at a sleeping Alessia, rubbing small circles on her bump with a look I've never seen before.
I take a sip of my cranberry juice, then set it down as a question comes to mind. "How did you get him to color this jet pink?" The mood is instantly lightened, and she looks up as if she's remembering a memory.
Aubrie once again turns her attention to Alessia. "Her gender reveal. If it was a girl, I was to name her, and the plane had to be striped pink. If it was a boy, he was to name him, and stripe it blue."
She reads the look on my face, and after a beat, we burst out into a fit of laughter. "We wanted to do something unique but not too crazy."
Maria, the flight attendant, comes over with my dinner, and Brie's strawberries and cheese. We eat in silence, gazing in awe at the clouds as we fly through them.
My consciousness is no longer light, and my body grows tense as I ponder my thoughts. What am I doing? On this plane, en route to this foreign place?
What am I doing?
"Esme," Brie calls out quietly, but I jump as if she shouted. "take a deep breath, you're making me nervous." I look back down to my pasta sheepishly.
Once I've calmed down, I lift my gaze over at her once again, and find her already waiting to hear my question.
"Was it hard? Being with Stefano, despite what he does? Coming into this life?" It may be silly to ask, but I don't know how to do this. I'm out of my league here, and I could wait for Gen to wake up, but I need answers now.
"I'm not gonna sugar coat anything, there will be time you want to throw in the towel, but you have to remember you love one another. And your love has to be strong enough to weather those storms."
For some reason, I didn't stop her when she mentioned love, because it's true, but I just need more time to come to terms with it.
"I wasn't born into this life. I didn't want to be in this life. Stefano and I found it hard to trust one another, and find common ground, but that was only because it was an arranged marriage. We didn't have the time before to get to know one another like Silas and yourself. And our push back from one another only made it that much harder. We didn't have many storms, but the few we did have, we're bigger than the ones in Florida during Hurricane season."
