𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐦

Part VII: Snatched Away

"Do you love me?"

I am taken aback. Of course I love him! What kind of a question is that? Leo is the only person I've ever loved and I've told him that. He knows that. This boy, I swear. Why is he even asking that? Does he not trust me? He looks up at me, waiting for an answer.

We are sitting underneath the shade of a large tree, my back resting comfortably against the trunk and Leo's head lying on my lap, his face scrunched in concentration as he twists a blade of grass around another, trying his very hardest to knot them together.

"Well, yeah," I reply, still confused. I play with the silky strands of hair on his head, twisting the short hairs around my fingers. "But what do you mean?" I ask once again, looking down at him and just admiring his enchanting brown eyes and cinnamon-freckled cheeks tinted with pink, either from the rather cool breeze fanning over us or just... you know, me. If that's possible. 

"Love is complicated. You don't know if you love someone because it doesn't have a definition. I guess you just feel a weird feeling, an addictive feeling that just makes you feel alive. Yet it just wakes you up to kill you when your heart breaks." Leo says simply, like it's the most casual thing he's ever said.

"What?" I let go of his hair to caress his face. He just smiles mysteriously, looks down at his grass blades. That's what I love about him. He's so simple, taking the littlest things in life and turning them into whatever makes him happy. And he might not have much, and neither do I, but he makes me feel like a king when he takes me in his arms and hugs me, plants little kisses at the corner of my lip like he's almost too lazy and carefree to do it properly. But, damn, he does know how to do it properly and oh he does it well. 

Never mind. 

I lean back giddily, drinking in the peaceful atmosphere and fresh grassy smell around me. "So how do I even know if you love me then, Leo?" 

"You don't. That's why lies exist. Nobody ever knows for sure." He pulls my hand from his cheekbones down to his lips, and he brushes his lips against my fingers making me feel all tingly inside. This incredible, delirious feeling just from one little Argentine boy kissing my hand. This absolutely gorgeous beautiful thing I met on a dark and moonlit night. And then I realise what he just said — he just possibly suggested he could be lying to me about loving me. 

"Well, that's helpful," I remark, crossing my arms. Now I'm mad. What if Leo doesn't love me? He just says nobody ever knows. And excuse me if I'm being overly jealous or seeking too much attention and affection but I WANT LEO TO LOVE ME. I feel him chuckle and he gives a little sigh of pleasure before sitting up and facing me; his little index finger sets under my chin and his midnight-dark eyes soften in front of my own.

"Ney, stop overthinking this. Just because I said that doesn't mean I don't love you. I love you more than anybody, anyone I've ever met." He smiles, pulling our lips together for a long kiss. My hand fits just perfectly around his cheek as we sit in this euphoria of a romance, intertwined in a magical embrace under the shade of a pine tree.

Trying not to get caught.

I feel Leo's head sink back into my lap, his shoulders relaxing and his eyes closing. He's tired, I think to myself. He looks so fucking adorable when he's sleepy. 

I remember the first time I saw him, green pyjamas and a bleary-eyed, drowsy look on his face while his breath was cold and minty like toothpaste, as he had brushed his teeth just before going to bed. When he sat beside me and told me about himself. 

And oh, I knew. I knew back then that he was the boy I had fallen for.

But little did I know we could possibly be in love... both of us.

It's only been a couple of minutes since we fell asleep — actually, Leo fell asleep — on the grass, and the sun is slowly starting to set. Pale blue shades dissolve into crimson and gold clouds streaking the horizon as the blazing orange light casts shadows of the leaves across Leo's cheek and neck and arms, glowing with a dusky twilight sheen that could only be seen upon the love of my life at this particular moment in which we were both sunk in, only half conscious.

Little by little as the warm shades drift away and leave a delicate dark blue, I feel my eyes start to close and I start to relax. It's just so perfect, all of it, the comfort of the soft grass and the ever-so-slight breeze pulling at my clothes and hair and the warm wet air rippling across my cheeks... it's all so perfect. And the most perfect thing is in my arms, asleep, precious and fragile like a rare jewel.

Leo. 

"Get him, Sergio. The small one." I hear a hushed rustle in the grass beside me, and the air around me reeks of expensive cologne. A familiar cologne I remember smelling before. On a certain schoolboy — Leo's classmate Cristiano.

"What are you doing?" My voice raises, and my eyes snap open wide as I take in the horrible sight in front of me. Cristiano and three other boys — one pale, one tan and one with a man bun (sorry, I had to do Sergio in his man-bun phase) — carrying what looked like a drugged Leo in their arms and hurriedly trying to rush away. "What the fuck?" I scream in fury, trying to stand up but I realise I'm bound to the fucking tree trunk I was leaning against with rope.

These dreaded, damned tears well easily in my eyes as I watch their receding figures pulling into a long expensive car with Leo and I pull my knees up to my chest, burying my face in my legs as the twine from the rope cuts and marks my wrists.

Why?

Why was Leo always the victim?