Page 94 of Anarchy Missing

“Lulu.”

“I know. It’s not a good secret to keep. But I didn’t want them to know what a failure I was. And I did get better that second year. The theory behind the law started making sense to me again. And I enjoyed the ethics classes. My therapist told me to join a public speaking club. So I got over that too. And by third year, I felt back to normal. But I remember sitting in bed on graduation night. My parents had gone home that evening, so I was alone. Again. As usual. And I thought back to the beginning and how sad I was and how much I had cried and that awful breaking moment when I tried to kill myself. And I wondered… if I would’ve chosen this path if I had known what was coming.”

“And what did you decide?”

“I decided yes, I would’ve. But… I never believed it. Not for a second.”

“Well, I believe it,” he whispers softly in my ear. “If there’s good inside me, Lulu, it comes from you. Even though we’ve been apart for so long, you’re the angel on my shoulder who drowns out that bastard of a devil. The one who stops me from doing stupid things. The one who knows the difference between good and evil, and makes it her duty to stand up for people who don’t have a voice of their own. I believe in you.”

“And I believe in you too, Case.” I lift my head up off his shoulder and look him in the eyes. Hold his scratchy face in my hands. “I believe in you. And we will find the other side to this problem and be better than ever.”

We stand up after that and wash each other. I choose some pajamas from the pile of clothes Molly brought me yesterday and dress, while Case wraps a towel around his waist and goes wandering around the house for some more of Lincoln’s clothes. He comes back shirtless wearing only some cut-off sweats, and sets a plate of sandwiches down on the coffee table in front of the couch.

We eat and talk some more. And a little later I fall asleep on top of his chest, feeling more secure than I have ever felt in my life when he wraps his arms around me and hugs me tight.

And even though I have always put that time he took me to the ball up there as the most perfect night of my life because it was a dream come true… I think I love this night a million times more.

Because it’s not a dream.

It’s real.

And it’s not perfect. We’ve got real problems to deal with in the coming days and weeks. Problems that we can’t possibly predict the answer to.

But I know—I feel it in my whole body—that we’ll come out the other side and be stronger because of it.

We’ll find better than ever… together.