He grabbed my hand and pressed it against the side of his neck, covering the bright red figure still sticky from dried blood and ointment. “You’re probably right, but I don’t care. Because it’s me. It’s mine. And like the messed up dude in that novel, I just want to live forever as long as it’s with you.” When he leaned down and kissed my raw, cracked lips I forgot everything. “I don’t need a great life. I only want a happy one,” he went on. Truth. Plain and simple spilled at my feet.
Wild green eyes. He pulled me under and he held me there. He kissed me harder, branding me his. “You’re my happy life, Imi.”
“I love you, Yoss Frazier.” He smiled.
Yossarian. My Yoss.
My happy life.
“I think…” I began hesitantly, not sure how my words would be received. “I think we should leave here. Go somewhere together and start a real life. A good life. One that doesn’t involve sleeping under moldy blankets on a concrete floor.”
Yoss’s fingers dug into my back and I winced. It hurt. I knew he didn’t mean to be so rough so I didn’t pull away. I would never pull away from him.
“You want to leave,” he said, his voice strangely dull.
I looked up at him, my throat feeling uncomfortably tight. “You’ve had to have thought about it, Yoss. You’re eighteen. You can’t live in this warehouse forever. We could get jobs. Get an apartment.” My voice grew louder. More insistent.
Yoss looked down at me, his eyes troubled. “Imogen, I’d give you the world if I could.” He brushed the hair back from my face. “But I don’t have the world to give you.”
“Fucking hell, Yoss, I’ve got shit to do! I thought you just came over here to get the stereo. Not to grope your girlfriend,” Bruno shouted.
Yoss took a step away from me and I felt the distance instantly. I shivered. All the way to my bones. His kisses were always too brief. His touches never quite enough. He loved me. I knew that. So why was he hesitant to do what I suggested?
How could he not want to leave this world behind? This dangerous, horrible world where he was expected to give away parts of himself for dollars in his pocket.
How could he not to put distance between himself and the man who had become scared to be intimate with the girl he loved because of the awful things he had been forced to do?
Yoss lifted the stereo and handed it to Bruno, who took it with a grunt, ambling off with his score.
“Let’s leave, Yoss. Tonight,” I whispered, staring out into the thick darkness inside the warehouse.
Too many people milled about. Not enough space. Too little room to accommodate so many.
“I love you, Imogen.” He meant it too. But love was different to him.
It didn’t necessarily mean having a future.
I’d soon learn the hard way what defined his love.
And it would hurt.
Yoss softly sang me to sleep, his arms wrapped around me.
He had never responded to my suggestion about leaving. We had gone to bed, the urge to flee still tight and coiled in my gut.
But it had slipped away. Lost in things not spoken.
We were roused from sleep by the sound of screams.
Terrified screams. The kind that came with life and death.
Yoss sat up and I wiped grit from my eyes.
It was then that I smelled it.
Smoke.
It was everywhere. Thick and heavy. Not the smoke from the fires people started in trashcans to keep warm.
