If this was a game of Divinity Cards, this is the moment I realize that I have lost. When I understand that I have placed my bet on the wrong spread and the game is over.
Finn, who has been hugging me while all these thoughts were running through my head, takes a step back, his hands on my shoulders.
It’s a confusing gesture in this moment because I can’t tell if he wants to get a better look at me—perhaps burn this image of me in his mind as a memory he cherishes, or possibly drives him mad sometime in the future—or if he’s actually pushing me away.
His eyes are soft and his mouth sad. So I know it’s the first and not the second.
He takes my hand. “Come on. Let’s go back to bed. We have time. Let’s spend it together, wrapped up in each other’s arms.”
I allow him to pull me back across the room. I climb into my bed and scoot over to make room for him. Then he’s next to me, his arms tightly around me once more, and we both let out a breath.
“Shouldn’t we…” I look over my shoulder, trying to see his face. “I dunno, do something more than sleep our last hours together?”
I can’t really see him, but I feel the chuckle inside him because he’s got his bare chest pressed up against my back. “Should we make love again?”
I sigh. That was not what I was thinking.
“Kidding,” he says. But he wasn’t. “Should we… remind each other of the good times?”
I don’t answer him, but I do start searching my memory for such a thing.
“I’ll go first.”
I turn all the way around now. I want to look at that handsome face of his while he talks. I want to memorize his lips, and those eyes, and the curve of his jaw. “OK. Tell me then. Remind me of a good time.”
“We were… I dunno. Eight, I think.”
I smile because eight was a good year. My mother was not only still alive, but not even sick.
“And we went down-city, remember?”
I smile bigger. Because while I haven’t thought about that day in almost twenty years and we used to sneak down-city a couple times a week on a regular basis, I know exactly which one he is referring to. “I remember. We were looking for kittens.”
His smile grows wide, lighting up his whole face. “Because you wanted a kitten for your birthday and that was not a present you got.”
“So you were going to get it for me.”
“Lord Relic.”
I almost snort when I picture the grizzled, old, mangy cat we took back up-city that evening. There were no kittens anywhere, which was probably the whole reason I didn’t get one in the first place. But there was Lord Relic, the mouser from the Shipping District who had been around for two decades, if the rumors were true.
“It took us all day to convince his mangy ass we were friendly.”
“And then we stuffed him into that flimsy cage and tried to take him home.”
Finn is laughing now. “But he was so pissed off, he clawed his way through the canes and escaped.”
I’m laughing too. “We were so sure that he would rather stay with us on the boat, we didn’t even mind.”
“Until he jumped into the canal, threw us a big ‘ol ‘fuck you’ look over his shoulder, and then never looked back.”
Finn and I both chuckle. It’s a good memory. I was so shocked. It never even crossed my mind that the mangy mouser from Shipping liked his life and would not prefer to come live up-city with me where he would be dressed up for tea parties and pampered like a prince.
“It just goes to show you,” I say, “that happiness is relative.”
He sighs, but stays silent. Maybe thinking about tomorrow and how I won’t be here.
I’m still angry—mostly at myself and not him—but I don’t want him to remember me angry. I want him to think about our adventures as children, and our first kiss, and this day too—because I do have to admit, the sex was good.
