She won’t cry right now, not in the middle of the day. Amira tries her hardest to stay positive, choosing to shed her tears at night when she thinks I’m sleeping.
I want to tell her it's okay.
It’s okay to cry.
It’s okay to let her weakness out around me.
But I don’t. Instead, I let her cry when she thinks I’m not looking. I give her that privacy and hope that eventually, her walls come down enough to trust me with her vulnerability.
I back out of the room and come in again, this time my feet stomping harder, and my question asked louder. “You ready to go, angel?”
I listen to her feet backing away from the fireplace mantle. Her little sniffles hitting my ear before she answers me.
“Yeah!”
Ignoring the break in her voice, I reach her by the door and hook my arm around her shoulders, walking us out of the house.
“I turned Ash on his side, but I don’t know if he’ll stay that way. We should have propped him up against the couch or something,” Amira says as I hold the passenger door open for her.
“He’ll be fine,” I reassure her. I doubt he has much left inside after witnessing all the shit that spilled out of him.
Once we’re both secure inside the car, I take off down the road, wind flying through our hair as I roll the windows down.
The drive won’t be long, fifteen minutes tops, but with Amira and I in the car, fresh air in our faces, the road rolling underneath us, it’s my favorite place to be. Chalk it up to being in jail and the fucking prison my own home was, but nothing feels more like freedom than driving with my girl.
“Wanna know what we should do?” I ask Amira, turning in my seat to get a good look at her beautiful face.
“What should we do, Roman?”
“We should sell the house.” Her head whips to the side like fucking lightning, eyes widening in disbelief at my audacious suggestion. “When you’re ready! Okay!? When you’re ready, and we should buy an RV and live on the open road. Just me, you, and Shadow.”
Before she can respond, another idea comes to my mind, a fucking better one too.
“Wait! No! Fuck, this is better! We should buy a small yacht and live on the sea. Then, I can find us an island and make you my little island queen.”
I think she thinks I’m joking, her laughter echoing in the car until she catches my stare through watery eyes. “Oh my God, Roman. Are you serious? We are not living on the ocean.”
“Why the fuck not? It sounds perfect. No fucking past. No worries for the future. Just me and you, bobbing on the fucking water, surviving off of fish and crab with our dog until the day we die.”
It sounds like a damn dream to my ears, but the way her mouth drops open in shock shows me she feels otherwise.
“Roman. I can’t swim.”
Shit.
I forgot about that.
Amira was never allowed to join Liam, Tommy, and me when we went cliff diving in the local quarry.
I doubt she’s been in any body of water that hasn’t been her damn bath.
“I can teach you,” I tell her as we pull into a parking spot at the Grocery Hut.
She declines my offer and steps out of the car, her head shaking in disbelief as she closes the door in my face.
I vow to myself at that moment that Amira and I will die on the open sea. That’s where we’ll spend our final days. No one around to stare or question where we came from or why we were here.
Just her and I.
