Revive Me

Chapter Eighteen

"Oh come on, love. You can wake up earlier just this once!" I whine as I shake Juliette.
She grunts and throws a pillow at me.
"Let me sleep!" she says in a half giggle.
"Well, you've left me no choice," I say.
I tickle her stomach and she falls off of the bed.
I laugh out loud.
She's sitting on the ground with her hair covering half of her face.
"It's 8 AM Warner! I went to sleep at 3 AM. What could possibly be more important than sleep!" she blurts at me.
I smile and cross my arms. I lean one shoulder against the wall.
"Get dressed! You'll see soon enough," I reply with a large grin on my face.
She smiles, gets up and walks towards the bathroom.

I leave our room and run downstairs. The house is so clean that it's easy to find everything I need. The two rooms upstairs are always clean. Our room is always in perfect shape, and nobody usually touches the guest room, so that's fine as well.
The kitchen is so clean that it takes me almost no time to find everything.
I pull out a basket and put in some breakfast food. Apples, a small knife, some cheese sandwiches and a few water bottles.
I hear someone on the stairs, and I pick up the basket.
I offer Juliette my other hand just as she steps downstairs.
"Ready, love?" I ask.
"A picnic?" she asks. "That's a little old-school, but I like it."

We walk hand in hand until we find a nice place to sit. Not too dark and not too sunny.
The sun was out today. There was a slight warm breeze that made the leaves on the trees dance.
I open up the basket and we both bite into a sandwich. The warm cheese feels so good in the morning.
"So this is what you woke me up for?" asks Juliette.
I nod.
"It's lovely," she replied as she looks into my eyes.
I smile.
She leans back and rests her head on my chest.
She can probably hear my heart pounding out my chest.
"You know Aaron," she whispers. "The day I married you, I knew that what I was getting myself into."
I shift in my position.
"I knew I was getting myself into early mornings for one," she says with a smile. "And I knew that not all the early mornings would be for work."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"When I was in that cell for almost all my life, I never thought anyone would ever wake me up in the morning to give me something special. I never thought I would marry someone. I never thought I would ever find love," she says.
"And it's my job to change that," I reply.
She laughs and reaches for an apple and the knife. She slices the apple in half and hands me a half. I bite into it.
Suddenly, Juliette shifts her position and sits facing me. She puts her apple back in the basket, but she keeps the knife in her hand.
"Aaron," she whispers. "I hope you know that you're dreaming."
I nod.
"It's the best thing to happen to me in the past weeks."
She nods in understanding.
"Maybe we can be like this someday? Like in real life," I add.
She closes her eyes and swallows.
She shakes her head.
"We can't. Not in the world we live in anyways. There's always going to be someone who wants to kill us. There's always going to be some sort of danger out there. We just have to accept it. We'll never be the lovers we dream of becoming."
I stare at my apple.
There's loud beeps ringing in my ears.
"I have to wake you up now," says Juliette. "Your alarms ringing."
"No. I don't want to leave you. Please," I beg.
"Warner," she whispers. "Sometimes the things we love most are the things that are keeping us from living a real life."
She leans over and kisses my cheek.
"Go save the world, Warner," she says.
"But you are my world," I answer.
"Exactly," she says with a smirk on her face.
I stare into her eyes and smile.

"I have to wake you up," she says for the third time.
"Yes, okay," I reply. "How are you going to do that?"
"Please don't be mad at me," she says.
Before I get a chance to say anything else, she takes the small knife that's in her hand and stabs it into my gut.

I wake up with a jolt and realize that I'm sweating.