Peanut Butter Fingerprints

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"Hope, Pray, and Wait"

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"Love has its place, as does hate. Peace has its place, as does war. Mercy has its place, as do cruelty and revenge."

-Meir Kahane

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America

I giggled as something tickled my palm and jerked my hand away in protest. Even after I drew my hand back, someone relentlessly yanked my hand back into theirs and continued tickling me.

Oh, Maxon, I thought. Why do you have to be such a flirt? And why does most of your flirting involving torturing me with tickles?

In my head, I was laying in bed on Sunday morning (which was our day off from most of our duties) with Maxon as he tickled me awake. He tugged the blanket up to my chin and continued to massage my hand. I was rather ticklish, which he unfortunately knew very well, so he kept brushing his fingertips along my palm to pull giggles out of me.

A soft laugh left my mouth as tickles ran up my wrist. "Maxon, stop," I begged lightly.

My eyelashes fluttered open, and I found myself in a scene far different from the one I had in mind. Maxon's blurry face was a foot or so away from mine, but his eyes were focused on my hand in his lap. I realized that he wasn't flirting with me, but wiping blood off of my hand with a damp cloth. The events of the last few hours flooded my mind. I cringed remembering Fredrick's warm blood pouring over my trembling fingers.

"Is this hurting you?" Maxon asked softly, pulling the cloth away.

I shook my head silently, and he continued. Though, now, I didn't feel the urge to giggle. The flashbacks of what had happened extinguished any desire I had in me to laugh.

After everything that had happened, I wanted nothing more than to sleep all of this away. Perhaps if I just closed my eyes, all of this would be a dream. I'd simply close my eyes, and all of this would disappear...

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried in vain to fall back asleep or pass out or do something to get me out of this nightmare. To be honest, I wasn't ready to face a world where I was a murderer just yet. I preferred living in a world where my hands weren't coated in the blood of a man whom I had killed without missing a beat.

"Come on, Mer. Wake up," someone else urged.

The voice struck me as familiar, but I couldn't pinpoint a name. Whoever the voice belonged to was obviously a man. A hand gently shook my shoulder to wake me, and I swatted them away. I felt a cold metal band on their finger as our hands brushed, so I knew it was someone who was married.

Okay, so it's married man. How many married men do you know, America? Who would be with you in this place-wherever it was? Come on. Think.

"Mer, wake up," the man repeated more urgently.

"If I open my eyes, then everything will become real. I'd much rather pretend that everything is a dream. A terrible, horrible dream," I muttered.

The man whom I'd yet to discover the identity of replied, "You can't dream forever. You have to wake up and face reality sometime."

"Yes, sometime. But not now. For now, I'd like to pretend like all of this is just a dream, if that's alright with you."

I shifted to a more comfortable position and let my head roll to the side. I tried to take deep breaths to lull myself back to sleep, but a ripping pain suddenly tore through my abdomen.

"Ah-! Oh my-!" I cried, my eyes flying open.

I clutched to Maxon's hand and nearly screamed as I sat up abruptly. A hand rested on my back to help me sit up, and another held tight to mine. I let various obscenities fly out of my mouth as I clung to Maxon's hand. He tried helping me through the pain by encouraging me that it was almost over and that I was doing great, but to be truthful, I didn't feel like I was doing too hot at this whole labor thing.