26th August 2018
Wyatt, Rufus and I watched 146 people die today 123 women and three men, some as young as fourteen, deaths that would modernise New York labour laws. Rittenhouse wanted to prevent the fire that led to their deaths so those responsible were never taken to trial. We were sent back to make sure Rittenhouse failed. We were sent back to make sure 146 people were murdered. It wasn't right, it wasn't fair, but they were orders. Protect history, that is our job, right? We managed to save ten more people. I know the three of us wanted to save them all but we couldn't.
I found Wyatt at his favourite bar which he had taken Rufus and I to a few times before. Rufus wasn't with us tonight. Wyatt sat in his usual spot, drinking his usual whiskey, a creature of habit, finding comfort in the familiar. He must have known I would find him, maybe he wanted me to find him? This was, after all, the dance we danced. I sat down across from him, said nothing. He responded in kind. We drank in silence. Although we didn't speak, I could see how broken he was. We were both too damaged for this place. I got us a taxi and had it drop us of it has apartment. Any other night, I would have made the driver wait while I made sure Wyatt made it inside OK and then would have went home, but tonight I got out with him. I knew I was being forward but I didn't want to be alone, I needed something, someone, I needed him. And I was sure he felt the same towards me. He let me inside, poured us more drinks. Slowly we gravitated towards each other, until there was no more space left to move in. We collided like magnets.
Lucy stopped reading. She felt like she was interrupting a private moment. She felt uncomfortable reading something so personal, so intimate. It felt like it wasn't hers to read. But it was; that woman in those pages seeking comfort, desperate to feel alive, trying to convince herself she was something other than a body meant to follow orders and carry out functions, that she was real, had emotions, that she was worthy of being wanted, other than for being Rittenhouse Royalty, was her. She was that Lucy who would watch over hundred people die, she would be that Lucy who witnessed everything else the journal described, some good some bad. And it terrified her; it was she had put off reading the journal for so long.
For three weeks, it had sat in her locker at Mason, or on her nightstand, whispering to her like Tom Riddle's diary promising her so many answers. But she hadn't trusted it – and still didn't- but curiosity got the better of her and she wanted to know, to lift the lid off Pandora's box and peek inside. Now that she had she wasn't sure she like what she saw. Rittenhouse intent on remaking the world in its image, her team mates and her slowly getting eroded day after day, a love life that was existent and not at the same time. A love life that would remain in limbo until August 2018 when the need for human contact would explode like a powder keg.
Putting aside her feelings of unease, Lucy flipped the page and continued reading.
His mouth was hot on mine, I was straddling his lap, his hands were under my jumper, teasing the hem higher and higher until it was discarded. I could taste guilt on his tongue, I felt sorrow etched into his skin. He was seeking absolution, clemency for his wife's death, and for all the things we had done. And maybe I was searching for some of that from him too. Was I wishing him to expunge me of the heaviness I felt over Amy. Were we both seeking forgiveness from and giving it to the other person? Or were we just trying to forget, hoping the touch of the other person would erase everything and rearrange our minds? Or was it all a delusion and would we wake up just as sad as we had been the night before?
We did wake up sad but his fingertips dripping down my spine felt like a promise so I rolled over and tried to make my touch of his cheek convey the same reassurance.
At the last line, Lucy recalled the way Wyatt's stubble had felt underneath her fingers when they had kissed in Arkansas and she wondered it if would feel any different for future Lucy. Would her breath catch in her throat, would her heart be beating too fast for comfort as hers had been that night in Bonnie and Clyde's cabin. It would be different too, of course. They wouldn't be putting on a show in 2018, they wouldn't be convincing two gangsters, they would be trying to convince the other person that they were loved and they were safe and they were wanted and they were needed.
Overwhelmed, she closed the journal and placed it on the nightstand. She had read enough for tonight, or maybe she had just read enough. Was it fair on the people around her that she had all this information. She knew it wasn't fair on Wyatt for him to be so in the dark when she knew so much. Others had the right to see what was in the journal too, it was their lives she had written about too.
Lucy had never liked the phrase 'ignorance is bliss', her curious mind had always demanded she know everything. Now, she thought there might be a grain of truth in it.
A/N: I don't know if I like the ending but I wanted to get this up this weekend because I wanted have time to do it after today. Also, while this is the week two prompt I added the week 1 prompt into here too because I didn't get time to write a story for week one. Thanks for reading!