Page 68 of The Gods Will Sing Our Song

“It’s true,” I assert. “I would win, no problem.”

“All the smart money would be on you, slugger.” I’m still holding Ren’s other hand. Abruptly, he draws it in, pulling me into him, the action almost clumsy with desperation. His arm goes around my shoulders, and my cheek is pressed against his chest again. His heart pounds. I feel the thunderous pulse of dying rage and rising desire inside him, the one emotion eclipsing the bright flare of the other. I want to kiss him.

I lift my head and whisper, “Take me somewhere.”

Everything in him tightens. His eyes turn hungry and dark, and I think he might simply pin me against the warehouse and kiss me out in the open. His hands grip my hips and suddenly my world tilts. He’s lifted me up and easily holds me above the ground with one arm notched beneath my knees. It puts me at level with his face. His jaw clenches and from my vantage point, I can see the muscle that runs all the way to his collarbone. I want to trace it, as though it’s a topographical map of him and I might find new ways to navigate to his soul.

Then he’s walking, his strides long and decisive, toward the warehouse. With his free arm, he shoves the door open. It’s expectant in its emptiness and silence, waiting for us.

Several trucks are parked inside. Some are delivery trucks with the names of grocers and dairies on the sides. Others are green military trucks canopied in canvas, which are used to pick up shipments. He carries me to the closest vehicle. With the same hand that he used to open the door, he reaches around the tailgate and unlatches it. It drops open like a mouth. He lowers me so I’m sitting on it, and I inch backward into the truck’s bed. Furniture lines the sides—chairs, tables, a rolltop desk, and a brass bed frame glisten in shades of mahogany, cherry, oak, and shiny metallic gold. A lamp blossoms next to them, its base reminding me of a stem and the colorful stained-glass shade reminding me of petals. Oil paintings in intricate frames are partially obscured by thick blankets and secured to the sides of the truck, but the blankets droop, revealing moody landscapes.

The drawings fall from my hand. When Ren dropped them outside, they drifted like leaves to the dirt, but this time they catch against the air and rise before they fall, as though they have wings. Ren follows me into the truck. I lie back. The khaki canvas canopy droops overhead. He drops to his knees and then crawls forward, coming to hover above me, our limbs interlacing. I wrap my hands around his neck and pull his face down to mine.

Our lips meet. I think I’ve discovered a new emotion, one I’ve never felt in my seventeen years of life. It’s something like ecstasy, but it’s tempered by knowledge—knowledge of what our kiss means—and somehow that makes it even more powerful, a bizarre mathematics in which smaller exponentials are more powerful than greater ones. I say the three words that have been trapped in my head and my heart, the ones that have needed expression ever since I first thought them.

“I love you.”

Ren jerks back as though I’ve stabbed him. He’s just above me, arms anchored on either side of my shoulders, staring down at me. He’s silent, wary…and underneath all that, I glimpse it, hidden away. Want, so deep and so intense it steals my breath.

“What?”

“I love you,” I say again. I think I could say it ad infinitum and never tire of it. A sudden, primal relief crosses his face, as though he’s been walking past exhaustion and has finally glimpsed his destination. But then his eyes flicker, doubt setting in.

“What do you…” He trails off, sounding disoriented. He licks his lips and tries again. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I’m saying.”

“You love me…” He stops, jaw clenching so hard I fear it might break. I stare at him. I think vaguely that countries are at war, but so is Ren.

“I love you and I always will.” I want him to hear it and know it.

“You—you don’t know that,” he says thickly.

“I do,” I whisper. I am young, but in this moment I feel like a holy mystic or a wisewoman and I think that, very rarely, you can transcend time and age and simply know something in the part of you that never changes, no matter how old you get. And I know this. I love Ren. I will love him forever. “I do, Ren.”

He goes stock-still, barely seeming to breathe. Only his eyes are alive, and they flicker with every emotion he always hides.

“I love you, Violet.” There’s not even the tiniest inkling of hesitation in his voice. I don’t think he was ever afraid to tell me he loves me—I think he was afraid to hear me say it to him. To open himself up to that hurt.

We remain as we are for a few more moments. I think I’m a wave, skimming up onto shore, nothing more than solvent and salt summoned by gravity. He bridges over me, arm muscles engaged so that if I’m a wave, he’s a rock. Then, in a single instant, I arch up to him and he comes down to me, and our lips meet again in furious abandon. One kiss builds into another and another and my heart breaks, not with grief, but with beauty. It’s split open and I know it’ll never be mine again.

The chime of a bell, positioned close to the warehouse, crashes through the truck. It’s as definitive as Cinderella’s clock striking midnight. The mess hall bells. They peal through the warehouse, unrelenting and clamorous. I recoil, yanked viciously back to reality.

I haven’t met Mama for dinner.

“What—” Ren’s chest heaves and his hair is slick with sweat. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

There’s no point in rushing to meet her now. I’ll have to face her later.

“Everything is all right.” I smile at him, taking in his face, trying to imprint his image in my mind so I’ll always remember him just like this: eyes bright, hair tousled, face open for once. My fingers itch to make it permanent. To capture him in pencil and leave no part of this memory to the toll of time’s forgetfulness.

My attention is too much. He lowers his head and rolls over to lie on his back next to me. Our fingers interlace and we lie side by side, staring up at the khaki tenting.

“It’s a house,” I murmur, and it’s true, a house with a canopy roof, fine furniture, and oil paintings swaddled in blankets, their textured surfaces gleaming where we can glimpse them.

“Belongs to some WRA official’s wife,” Ren says, voice still husky as though he hasn’t caught his breath. “She comes from wealth, so her parents sent this stuff out here for her. I should move it into your barrack.” I laugh at the thought, and a wistful expression enters his eyes. “I would if I could,” he whispers, and it sends shivers through me. “I would give you everything if I could.”

“Would you give me what I want most of all?” I ask.