34. Stars
Stars
Isaak
Greying clouds. Black tarmac glistening with wet. Rain poured down on London, battering the studio’s windows.
“I love it here. You’ve got a nice place. So cosy with the rain outside.” Her voice was a melody he was grateful to hear.
“Cosy. That’s code for tiny, right?”
She smirked. “The price you pay to live in London properly. I’m too far in the outskirts, but you’re near the nerve centre here.”
Recovered enough to sit up on the couch, he looked out the window at the neon-lit streets. The rain caressed the streets and his soul alike. “I love it too.”
Dylan sat next to him. The warmth of her leg against his sent shockwaves through his body. He asserted control over himself, keeping composed, but open.
“I was worried all this time, you know. The fight we had… It shouldn’t have happened. Why did you stop talking to me, boy?”
That word again. It was turning into a nickname. It was nice.
He took a deep breath. “This is hard to say…”
She placed her hand on his leg. “Try.”
The hand wasn’t making it any easier. But he forged on. “I felt, still feel, guilty. I’m sorry for spying on you. I wanted to protect you. I went about it the wrong way.”
“You did.”
It hurt to hear, but she was right.
“That day…” Her voice wavered. “Fuck. It really didn’t go like I thought it would.”
He nodded. “I fucked up.”
“I put you on the spot. Asking about your mother, saying you can’t help yourself taping in.” Regret in her voice.
He closed his eyes, hanging his head in shame. “But you’re right. I am fucking addicted to it.”
“Please, don’t torture yourself. I love taping in too. I love the way it makes me feel… Would you call me a fucking addict?”
He lifted his head, rubbing his eyes. “No.”
“Of course not. Then why would you treat yourself that harshly?” She squeezed his leg. “You deserve grace.”
Unable to contain his emotions, he leaned over and hugged her, face digging into her shoulder. She held him, caressing the back of his head.
He let go of the barrier inside him, and wept.
“It’s okay… It’s okay, boy.”
He sniffed. “I like you calling me that…” He hesitated before finishing the sentence. “…girl.”
Her muscles tensed and relaxed. “I like hearing you say that too. I’m your girl. You’re my boy.”
He was thirty, and she was twenty-nine, and their nicknames for each other were boy and girl. Cute.
He hadn’t been in a real relationship in so long. He shuffled along the couch, stretching his legs out to the side, and moved to rest his head on her lap, with her accommodating it all, helping him get comfy.
Looking up at her from this vantage point, privilege swelled his chest. “You’re beautiful.”
She looked down at him, hand playing with his hair. “You are,” she said, her cheeks slightly red. “I’ve been holding something back as well, to be honest.”
“Oh.” He turned his head away, worry filling his gut. “What? I suppose you have a right to.”
She kept playing with the locks of his hair. “Actually, I’ve had a crush on you for years. Since your ReSports days.”
Now that shocked him. “You… Wow. I don’t know what to say!” He grinned and turned back towards her.
“When you said hi to me, in the club, I couldn’t believe it.
” She let out a nervous giggle. “I recognised you immediately. ‘What the hell is Isaak Powers doing here, chatting me up?’ Like something out of a dream.” She traded a glance with him.
“What came next was pretty wild too. Handing out the tape like that?”
“I wasn’t thinking. I wanted so much to impress you… But the Tapeworld’s so dangerous. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay. I’m so happy you’re here with me right now.” Her smile struck his heart aflame. She looked out the window, finger still wrapped around one of his locks. “And to think I had to break in here earlier.”
“Excuse me?”
She relayed how the three of them had broken into his flat, how she’d had to shimmy along the ledge outside, risking her life in the real world. Then she talked about what happened after, in the Tapeworld, and how the black dots from before had evolved into humanoid shapes and attacked her.
His chest tightened. “You’ve put yourself in so much danger for me. We don’t know what being hurt in the Tapeworld means. You had to fight those grey… what, bots? Goddess… You really are a badass, huh? All that kickboxing training.”
Dylan casually flexed her arms, letting him admire her taut muscles. The sight stirred something in him. “It wasn’t easy,” she said. “But the way the Tapeworld makes me even stronger, that’s amazing.”
Guilt twisted his stomach. “What if the people you took out were like the man I shot? What if…?”
She stroked his hair. “We don’t know, that’s the truth of it. There’s no point torturing ourselves over it just yet.”
“But how can you be so calm about it?”
Changing her posture, the smile dropped off her face.
“We come from different worlds. Mine comes with an intrinsic understanding of all the sacrifices it took to ensure humanity’s survival.
The climate revolution wasn’t clean. Sometimes the path that’s morally pure won’t take you where you need to go. ”
He pressed his lips together. All of that was true.
“We don’t even know what the Tapeworld is or where it comes from.
We don’t know what those things that attacked us were.
But I know it’s a wonderful place, where we can be creative, and have fun, and feel free, truly free, away from the surveillance of the Kingdoms and their Kings and Queens.
I know I needed to save you. And I know I don’t care what or who I had to destroy to do it! ”
The rage built up in her reminded him of himself, of when he broke his hand, when he snapped at her before, out of his senses, punching the couch in the Tapeworld and then stopped texting her. He blinked. Calm and passion and fury mingled in his chest.
“No one ever wanted to save me before,” he said finally.
“Well, I do.” She wrapped her arm around him, and leaned down to kiss him.
He welcomed her embrace, her lips, her tongue. He wanted everything. A weight lifted from his chest.
She bit her lip. “Are you feeling better now?”
“Fuck, yes. Thank you. For saving me.” He sat upright and hugged her, hand on the small of her back.
Their lips touched again.
Her hands explored his chest, every movement setting off a rippling shockwave of sensation, her fingers like electricity. She started to pull his shirt off.
“Wait…” He leant his forehead to hers, arms wrapped around her waist. The scent of her was intoxicating. A knot lodged in his throat. His face flushed with heat. “Are you sure?”
Heads touching, her words the world’s most exclusive message, aimed at him: “I want you.”
She kept at her task. Her smile was the most beautiful sight of his life.
His heart rate jumped. His breath caught.
“I’m a little rusty,” he admitted.
She grinned. “We’ll soon take care of that.” She finished taking his shirt off. “You know, you’re not in half-bad shape, for someone out of the game.”
He laughed. “I’ll show you who’s out of shape,” he said, and busied his hands lifting off her dress.
She dug her nails into his chest, pushing him away.
He leaned back on the couch and saw stars in the night sky.
Lying in bed, their legs entwined, his mind raced. Going through a whole lifetime of shit – his mother who’d abandoned him, his deadbeat father he hadn’t heard from in years, Astrid. The crap he put Sacha through. Dylan.
She was sleeping, her head nestled on his chest. He caressed her shoulders with his fingertips, skin cool to the touch.
He was slowly realising how much she meant to him, this girl born of Apocalypse Revolutionaries. Dylan had guts. He hoped he had guts to match.
He kissed her head and turned to sleep neon-lit dreams.