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In the ensuing silence I stood up and held my hand out for her. Quinn took it as I crossed the bedroom, leading us out onto the balcony. The sky was soft, dark velvet, clustered with stars. It stretched in all directions above us, making me feel tiny and insignificant beneath it.
For a long time we just stood there, doing nothing, saying nothing. Just enjoying the presence of each other in the morning silence.
“Tell me about your dream,” she said.
The salt air felt good in my lungs, and already the memory had faded. I hadn’t told anyone I washavingnightmares, much less what they were about.
And yet…
“In my dream I still see him,” I spoke softly. “The green-eyed kid. Bouncing the soccer ball from knee to knee, staring back at me with that crooked smile.”
Down below us the ocean surged and churned. The noise was soothing, rather than intrusive.
“Sometimes that’s the whole thing,” I told her. “But other times…”
Quinn squeezed my hand. Her body felt impossibly warm as it spooned against me from behind.
“Other times he talks. He… Hesaysthings.”
“What does he say?”
Slowly I turned to face her, well aware I was looking back at her with haunted eyes.
“He asks why I didn’t stop him,” I whispered. “He asks why I let him do what he did.”
Quinn hugged me even tighter. “You didn’t stop him because you didn’t know,” she murmured. “He could’vetoldyou. He could’ve given you any indication if he wanted to be stopped, but he didn’t.”
“He was just a kid!” I pleaded. “How could he know enough to—”
“He was a kid, yes,” she jumped in. “But he was brainwashed by some very evil people. Probably since birth.”
Quinn reached up and began slowly stroking my hair. When I said nothing, she slid under my arm and came face to face with me.
“You can always remember what happened,” she said softly, “but you have to forgive yourself. You have to let go.”
I stood transfixed as she reached up with one hand. Moving delicately, she took the piece of soccer ball in her palm.
“This isn’t a symbol of what happened, it’s an albatross you put around your own neck,” Quinn explained. “A totem of your guilt.”
My chin dropped, but she tilted it upward again. Those ocean-like eyes found mine.
“Yourunfoundedguilt,” she said pointedly.
Slowly, reverently, she lifted the leather necklace from around my neck. I was still numb as she walked over to my desk, placed it in a drawer, and then returned to the balcony.
“Remember that child,” she said, “as well as the men that you lost. Honor them. Keep those memories close.” Gently she shook her head. “But don’t let them haunt you, Joshua. Don’t let them rule your life.”
I reached for my neck, which was now strikingly bare. Already I felt a hole in my heart. But I also felt… lighter.
“This is one of the biggest reasons we took on Ferrera,” I explained. “Like most warlords, he conscripts innocent children. He twists them into instruments of death and destruction, while he sits back on his cowardly ass and reaps the benefits.”
Just thinking about the warlord put a hard lump in my throat. I could feel a rising anger; filling the place in my heart that had just been vacated.
“The others didn’t want to take the job. It was far too dangerous. In the end, I had to convince them. I had to sell the idea of what we were doing.”
“What you were doing was noble,” Quinn told me. “Yes, you lost men. But you also dethroned the man who was committing these atrocities. You saved the lives of countless children; diverted them from paths that would inevitably lead to their corruption and death.”
She took both my hands in hers, now. Her expression was full of peace.
