SEVENTEEN years to Live

21 ●○► HOME

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

●○► HOME

After a few moments, Janine and Beth arrive at the lobby with guards escorting them. When I see Beth crying while staggering toward me, I manage to keep my tears in my eyes.

“Mary,” she whispers as she approaches me. She flings her arms around my neck and squeezes me tightly. I hug her back, suddenly rubbing his back with my hand as if to calm her down. For a second, I feel her lips get close to my ears and she whispers the words, “Thank you.”

I take a deep breath and stop rubbing her back now. “You’re welcome, Beth,” I whisper back in her ear. “But it’s not me you should thank.” I pull back a few seconds later and hold her shoulder. I smile. “You should thank Bryan. He’s the reason why you and Sephred are free.”

She expels a heavy sigh through his nose and swallows hard. “Okay,” she says, and a grin spreads across her cheeks, making her face glow. Then she lets go of me and goes over to Bryan slowly.

“Hey,” Bryan tells Beth. “How are you?”

Beth doesn’t answer him. Instead she throws her arms around him and sob on his shoulder. “Thank you, Bryan,” I hear Beth say even though it’s so low for me to hear.

“You’re welcome, Beth,” Bryan tells her, her voice soft and sweet—so gentle.

Then Beth momentarily removes her face from Bryan’s shoulder. She slowly takes her arms away from him. Bryan stares down at her with a melancholy expression. And though his smile seems to encourage Beth it’s all right now, there is still a hint of sadness on his face. Beth wipes her tears from her eyes and looks up into Bryan’s eyes.

She sighs first, then says, “I don’t know how I’m going to repay you. Thank you for the wonderful things that you’ve done for us, Bryan.”

For a second his smile stretches wider. This time the saddened expression on his face disappears. Then he raises an arm and pats Beth lightly on the shoulder, nodding to her in reply.

A moment of silence falls between us all. After a minute Bryan glances at me and smiles.

Instinctively, I make my way toward him, crossing an arm at the back of his waist like his crossing mine. He kisses the top of my head for a few seconds, making a soft kissing sound when he removes his lips.

“We need to go home,” I tell Bryan. Then I look around the room to find Sephred because what I’m going to say next is all about him. And he’s right there. Standing a few feet from a guard behind us with his arms folded against his chest. I sigh through my mouth as I gather my words. “Sephred is going with us,” I say, catching his attention. He glances at me and smiles a quick smile. “I bet he has a story to tell us when we get home.”

***

It’s time to go home. We’re now leaving the Depton City Execution Building. Once we take the road, I tell myself to try to forget everything that happened here. It was so . . . dreadful. I want to leave all the memories behind. I just hope nobody reminds me of them in the future.

In less than an hour, we are already leaving the high walls of the city. We are checked first to be sure that we did not steal anything. Why do they still need to do that? It’s not entirely needed. The guards will still confirm our leaving.

When we’re on the road, all that is in my mind is those that are in Town Redlight. How are they doing? Are they all right? Has anything happened to them? What did they do while we’re in the city? I hope I can tell them right now that we succeeded in our mission. I wish I had a telephone to tell them that we finally got Beth and we’re now heading home. I wonder what their reaction will be when they find that out. I’m pretty sure Heather and Kate will have tears of joy when we get home.

In a few hours, we arrive in Town Crest—the town which has a lot of malls and stores. Beth and Sephred are in the windows looking outside as we pass. Their eyes are opened wide in wonder and amazement. They even request for Bryan to drop them by so they can go inside of one of those malls.

But unfortunately, we have to go home.

After a few hours, my eyes feel heavy and I fall asleep. I have no dream. And I thank God for it. When I wake up, it’s already past midnight. Bryan is still driving. I know he’s sleepy and he wants to stop on the side of the road for a couple of hours to sleep. I tell him to do so. But he just says to me that we’re near and he’ll just sleep in our house when we arrive. I’m sure there will be no sleeping when we get home. Heather and Kate will bombard us with a lot of questions.

And then I fall asleep again. This time, I have a dream.

I stand in front of the lake, staring at the forest that rises at the end of it.

I am alone. No one else is there except me. I can hear the wind whistling in my ears. I can feel the ray of sunlight hitting my skin. When I close my eyes I can see red penetrating the back of my lids. I suck in a deep breath, smelling the air as they pass through my nose. It smells like wet grass.

After a few moments, I hear a male voice call my name: “Mary!” I open my eyes suddenly and look over my shoulder at the guy.

It’s Kevin.

He is wearing a white shirt and a pair of dark blue pants. His hair is slightly wet, falling over his forehead in waves as if he just took a bath.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

I only answer him when he gets beside me. “Nothing,” I say. “I was just watching the sunset.”

“I love sunsets,” he says. “My father and I watch them all the time when I was kid.”

And that reminds me something. It’s something he has told me before. I try to remember. Then it finally pops in my head, as if the memory drops on me like rain. He said it to me the afternoon I ask him to have sex. What an embarrassing moment that was.

Silence falls between us. And it is more than three minutes later before it’s broken. Something surfaces in my head. Something really similar to the one that happened in that afternoon.

“Can I ask you something?” I tell Kevin.

“What is it?” he says.

That afternoon, it took me more than a moment or two before I verbalized it. But now I have more courage to say it. I am not shy anymore. It just takes me seconds before I tell it.

“Can I have a baby with you?”

His flat expression is the last thing I see before my dream ends.

***

“Mary,” someone calls my name quietly. Then I feel a hand touch me and shake me out of my dream. I open my eyes slowly, a yawn escaping my lips. “We’re here,” the voice says. “We’re home.”

When my eyes are opened completely, I stare at Bryan whose hand is still touching me. He has stopped shaking me because he knows I’m already awake. I look at his face that is lit by the moonlight. His eyes are narrowed, and a smile is carefully sketched across his face.

Then he repeats the last thing he said to me. “We’re home.” His voice is quieter this time.

I look outside the window and see houses in the dark. But it’s too dark outside for me to recognize which house is ours. I glance back at Bryan and give him a confused and delighted look. But it’s also too dark for him to read my expression so I make my face flat.

“Should I wake them up?” he asks quietly.

It takes me a couple of seconds to reply. And I’m still half asleep when I nod at him. “Yeah, sure,” I say.

And then Bryan shakes them gently to wake them up. In a few minutes they finally gain their consciousness.

When everyone is up, we get out of the car excitedly. I search our house in the dark, and find it just a few meters away from the car.

Finally, I think. Home sweet home.