thanks once again to everyone that's been reading this story and an extra special thanks to everyone who typically don't read holocaust stories. I'm glad mine is good enough to be an exception, I'll try not to let you guys down! enjoy another update (which I'm super excited for)
The sun had set hours ago but the only one who managed to fall asleep was Holly. She was curled up on the couch and snored softly through the radio blaring at full volume. Jane figured she didn't fully understand what was going on. If she had she would have been a crying mess. In a way it was better that she had no clue what was going on. Holly crying would have just been another added stressor for everyone. At least someone could relax.
Each of them were a nervous wreck. Ted kept removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. Karen kept getting up and grabbing more napkins to blow her nose in. Nancy went back and forth between sitting on the couch and on the windowsill. Jane's leg bounced up and down as she whispered prayers on repeat.
Mike had to be fine. Her brain refused to admit anything else. She hadn't officially forgiven him yet. At least not to his face. She'd never admitted how she felt directly to him. There were a thousand things she wanted to say to him and she would not allow not having the opportunity to say them to be a possibility that entered her mind. Jane could feel the makeup that had run down her cheeks with her tears drying. Of course the first night she'd worn make up in over a year was the same night that she was a crying mess.
The longer they waited the more Jane felt like she might be sick. But she was terrified of leaving the room and missing something. So she kept her jaw clenched tight to keep everything down. When the clock in the room played a small melody indicating that it was midnight Jane felt a new wave of tears wash over her. Mike had left at 8. They'd heard the first report at 9:30. He shouldn't have been gone so long.
She never imagined she'd been openly weeping in front of the whole family. Well, almost the whole family. But she felt as if she'd finally reached her breaking point. Mike had been nothing but good to her. Even when he completely violated her privacy it was because he just wanted to understand her better. He saw her in a way no one ever had. He came after her during an air raid. She never even said thank you.
For the dozenth time she learned a lesson she wished she could forget. That you never knew how much you really cared about someone until you were faced with the possibility of losing them. She learned it when her mother got sick and she learned it again when her friends and father got taken away. So many people she cared about had been stolen from her. Just once she needed the universe to cut her some slack.
She heard the sound of a car door outside the house and felt her heart jump into her throat. Was it a soldier coming to inform them of news no one wanted to hear? Was it a neighbor coming to comfort them? They all seemed to hear it and jump to their feet. Jane knew she should have hidden somewhere in the house but her feet wouldn't budge. She was stuck in the spot she stood in and didn't think she could ever move.
The door flew open and she heard Nancy let out something in between a gasp and a cry. Jane only managed to catch a glimpse of Mike before his mom ran over and threw her arms around him in a bone crushing hug. His hair was a mess, standing out in all different directions, and his face was covered in what looked like soot. When Karen finally let go of him she saw that his once white dress shirt was now grey and dirty. Nancy was the next to hug him, then Ted. Jane stayed put in the same spot. Though she wouldn't have admitted it she was afraid he would disappear if she went over and tried to touch him.
Once his father let him go Mike's eyes landed on her. She wished she was better at reading people because she would have loved to know what the look on his face meant. He did her the favor of walking over to her so that she didn't have to move. As he got closer she could feel her knees start to shake and her bottom lip start to tremble. He stood only inches away from her, towering over her as always, and started to smile.
"Are you wearing makeup?" he asked
Jane managed to choke out a response, which was shocking. He'd just been at a bombing and was talking about her makeup. It was one of the most Mike things he could say. "Yeah."
His smile widened even more. "It looks good."
She let out a laugh that sounded more like a cry. Jane could feel the mascara on her cheeks and the back of her hands were covered in lipstick smears. She probably looked just as much of a mess as he did, just in a different way. The two of them were certainly a sight. "No it doesn't."
Before she could stop herself her arms wrapped around his waist and her head rested against his chest. She could feel him hugging her tightly before she even finished latching onto him. Her body started to shake as she let herself start to cry all over again. If his shirt wasn't already ruined she would have worried about getting the last bit of mascara she had on his shirt. He smelled like smoke and the last little bit of cologne that remained and clung to him for dear life.
One of his hands rubbed circles on her back. The rest of the room and everyone else in it seemed to disappear. Relief made her feel weak and she held tightly onto him so she wouldn't collapse onto the floor. The world had taken so many things away from her. Not just the people she loved but her school, her home, her freedom. But it hadn't taken Mike.
It felt like an eternity before she let go of him. He sat in between her and Nancy while Karen and Ted pulled up chairs so they could be nearby. Jane couldn't get close enough to him. In contrast to before she now felt like he would disappear if she let go of him. He told them about what had happened. Apparently he and his friends had just been leaving to go to Will's house when the bomb hit a convenience store down the road. One of them had been taken to the hospital. He didn't look too hurt but a brick from the building had hit him in the shoulder. Since his other friends had been parked closer to the store their car had been destroyed so he had to drive both Will and Dustin home.
"Just before we left more soldiers started showing up." He said. "So we got the hell out of there."
After he told them the story twice he then tried to convince everyone that he was fine. Though his words did little to ease the anxiety they all felt it helped that the only sign of injury he had was a scratch on his cheekbone. They all sat in the living room listening to him for almost an hour before Mike got up to change out of his clothes and wash his face. Jane figured she should do the same.
She closed the first floor bathroom door behind her and let out a long shaky sigh. He was okay. He was okay. Jane scrubbed the remaining makeup off her face until her skin was red and splotchy looking, and not just from all the crying. Even with a clean face she looked like a total disaster. Her eyes were red and bloodshot and heavy shadows had settled in underneath and made themselves nice and comfortable. Once she was done she stared at herself in the mirror.
What the hell did he see in her? She had yet to figure it out.
After a bit more crying she finally emerged from the bathroom. The rest of the family seemed to have gone up to their rooms since the living room was empty. Jane's adrenaline finally started to calm down enough that she could breathe normally again. Part of her couldn't wait to crawl into bed. The other part of her was nervous about what dreams she would be met with that night. She gripped tightly onto the railing as she climbed up the stairs.
When she reached the second floor she spotted the open bathroom door down the hall. The light was on and she could hear the sink running even from where she stood. The floor creaked gently under her feet as she walked over. A few feet away from the door she could see Mike in sweatpants and a t-shirt that hung loosely off his shoulders. He stood in front of the sink and was scrubbing his face with a wash cloth. She leaned on the doorframe once she finally reached him.
Only a few moments later Mike spotted her in the reflection of the mirror and his lips quickly turned up in a smile. "Hey."
"Hey."
He squeezed the washcloth out under the running water. Jane watched grey water pour out from the cloth and disappear down the drain. "So," he said as he brought it back up to his face and pushed his hair back so he could wash off his forehead. "You were worried about me?"
Jane rolled her eyes. "Yeah." She admitted. In all her worry she had momentarily forgotten how annoying he could be sometimes. "We all were."
"I knew they would be worried about me." Mike said. "It was you I wasn't sure about."
She resisted the urge to punch his arm. She'd also forgotten how much of a smart ass he was. "Just because I was mad at you doesn't mean I don't care about you."
His eyes met her in the reflection of the mirror and his smile grew. "Was mad at me?"
"Yeah. Was." Jane walked into the bathroom and leaned on the counter next to him. She grabbed another wash cloth and ran it under the water. Her cheeks were already starting to go warm but she ignored the feeling. "I thought that you weren't going to come back for a second."
Mike glanced down at her for a second before looking back at his reflection. "You're not getting rid of me that easily."
Jane grabbed his arm and pushed him towards the toilet. "Sit." She said simply. He didn't offer up much protest as he set down the cloth and did as he was told. There was still a thin layer of soot on his face dark enough to cover up his freckles. She stood close enough that their knees pressed together the same way she had when she cut his hair. Only this time her heart was beating a mile a minute.
"Is that what it's like?" he asked as she started rubbing the cloth against his cheeks. "In the city where it gets bombed more often."
"I don't know." Jane admitted. "I've never been that close to one before."
Silence fell over them and her mind forced her to imagine what it was like. To be so close to a bomb. To see a friend taken away to the hospital because of it. To see the destruction and devastation firsthand and in real time. She wished she could reach into Mike's mind and take the memories out so there was a perfect gap in between when he'd been at the dance and when he'd gotten home. It had been frustrating when he didn't understand what it was like but now she was desperate for him to return to his ignorance.
"Did you have fun at the dance?" Jane asked when she couldn't take the silence anymore. She needed to hear his voice as much as possible.
He shrugged, making the collar of his shirt fall farther down. If she didn't see how much he ate at meals she might have been concerned about him he was so skinny. "It was alright."
Jane cracked a small smile. "Did you dance with any cute girls?" It was the best attempt at a joke she could manage.
She figured it was better a better attempt than she thought it had been when he smiled back at her. "No." he told her. "There was no one there I wanted to dance with."
Jane turned just enough to run the cloth under the water. She then grabbed a clean one to dry his face off. "Sounds like a sucky night."
He smiled a little wider and she couldn't stop herself from copying him. "I had something planned for when I got home but it kind of got ruined. It got too late. Plus the whole bombing thing probably killed the mood."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh yeah?" she asked. "And what did you have planned?"
"I was gonna bring the radio into the library." Mike said. "And I was going to ask Nancy to bring you down because I figured you wouldn't come if I asked. Especially if I had to wake you up."
Jane let her hand drop down to her side and felt yet another wave of tears wash over her. He was too good for her. She felt bad that he was wasting his feelings on her when he could have fallen for any number of girls at his school. As much as she wanted to push him away in hopes that he would get over it she didn't think she had it in her after such a scare. Now that she knew just how badly she wanted him she didn't think she could ignore it. Mike's eyebrows pulled together on his forehead when he saw the tears forming in her eyes.
"Hey," he said before getting to his feet and taking the cloth from her hand. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong is that you're stupidly optimistic." She said. The first tear escaped and rolled down her cheek and Mike instantly wiped it away with his thumb. "I want for things to work so badly but I just know that they won't."
His hand lingered on her cheek and she didn't try to push him away. "How do you know that?"
Jane let out a humorless laugh. "Look at you and look at me, Mike." She said. "Pretty much everyone in the country wants me and everyone like me dead. I can't leave the house until the war is over, if it'll ever even be over. Nothing about us could be normal."
"Normal is boring."
She rolled her eyes at him. "Normal is safe. And you deserve to be safe."
Mike sighed and moved his hand to hold onto hers. "Look, I know that you're too stubborn to listen to anything that I have to say so I won't try. But you can't shut me out because you think it's what's best for me. Let me be stupid, okay?"
Jane couldn't keep herself from smiling. "Yeah, okay." She said. Jane wiped away the remaining tears from her face and looked up at him. "Can we hang out for a little bit? I don't wanna go upstairs yet."
"Yeah, of course."
Mike held onto her hand as he headed for his bedroom down the hall. Jane hadn't been in his room in over a month and this time felt very different. She forced herself the push down the nervousness that started developing the closer they got to his room. She would go upstairs in a little while. But for now she was terrified of being separated from him.
As he sat down on the edge of the bed she looked over at the clock on the wall. It was just past 1:30 AM. She was thankful it was a Friday night and that he wouldn't have to wake up early in the morning for school. "Are you tired?" she asked when she looked back at him.
Mike shrugged. "Yeah. A little." He admitted. "Are you?"
"Not really." She said as she sat down next to him. "You should lay down. I'll leave when you fall asleep."
When he hesitated she thought he was going to protest and try and stay awake. But after a few seconds passed he moved behind her and lay on his back. After the night he'd had she was amazed he hadn't already crashed. Jane kicked off her slippers and lay down on her side facing him. A wide smile had spread on his face before her head hit the pillow.
"Wow," he said as he wrapped an arm around her waist. "You must have been really worried."
Jane rolled her eyes at him. "Yeah. I was." She moved to rest her head on his chest so that he wouldn't see her face getting red. "I thought I was never going to see you again." Admitting it out loud made her mouth taste bitter. "And I felt stupid for still being mad at you."
"You shouldn't feel stupid." He said almost immediately. "You didn't know what was going to happen."
She let out a small sigh. Though his words made her feel a little better she still felt guilty. She imagined Mike at the dance with his mind stuck on a girl who couldn't leave the house. Jane didn't understand what he saw in her that was so amazing that he was ready to put himself in harms way just to be with her. She looked up at him with her eyebrows knit together. "Do you really not care what people would think?"
"I really don't." Mike said. "People already tease me and my friends. I think I can handle it."
"It would be more than just teasing."
"I can handle it."
Jane propped herself up on her elbow so she could look at him better. For months she'd been asking for the universe to give her a break and let her have at least one good thing in her life. Now that she had that one good thing she was terrified. She knew that if they were together she would experience the same fear she had that night as she waited for him to come home even more in the future. It would put him in more danger than he was already in with her living in his house. She wanted to protect him.
But she wanted him so badly. Her feelings for him were foreign and scary but exciting none the less. The way he felt about her, and how he hardly bothered trying to hide it, was something she'd never experienced before. No one ever looked at her the way Mike did. Even half asleep and still smelling like smoke he looked at her like she was something special. She couldn't help but feel a little bit special when he smiled at her.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked. His eyes were barely open and his voice was quiet and mumbled.
"I'm scared."
She watched him struggle to open his eyes fully. "That's okay. I'll still be here when you're not scared anymore." His hand that wasn't resting on her waist wrapped around hers. She had to admit that their hands looked good together. "The war isn't going to last forever, you know. It's going to end eventually. Things will go back to normal." He squeezed her hand lightly. "I'm way too crazy about you to just give up."
Jane could feel her face break out into a smile all on its own. It was hard to not believe him when he sounded so confident. He should have thought about perusing a career as some sort of motivational speaker. "I think you're just as stubborn as I am."
Mike hummed softly, "I prefer the word optimistic."
She liked him so much it made her heart hurt. It would be easy to just give it up and let herself be with him. She was more tempted to give in than ever. "What are you thinking about?" Jane asked, curious about what would be on his mind after the night he'd had.
"I'm thinking that it really sucks I didn't come home early enough to set everything up in the library." He said. "Because I was going to kiss you if you stayed."
Jane felt her heart stop for a second before it started pounding like a hammer in her chest. No one had ever liked her before let alone wanted to kiss her. As much as she tried to stop herself her eyes kept trailing down to his lips. The more he spoke the closer she came to giving into his stupidly optimistic fantasy. They were treading into dangerous territory and Jane didn't know how to turn around and run away. She didn't even know if she wanted to bother running anymore.
Mike sat up and leaned against the headboard behind him. "Should I not have said that?"
She shook her head. "No, no, it's okay." She said quickly. "It's just… I'm really not used to someone being interested me. Like at all."
He smiled a little bit wider. "You should start getting used to it."
Jane's eyes once again trailed down. The night was full of things she wasn't used to doing. Crying in front of people, being honest about her feelings (as best as she could), praying. What was the harm in one more first?
Her eyes fluttered shut as she leaned towards him and pressed her lips against his. The second she touched him she could feel fireworks going off inside her. Ever cell in her body started going out of control and short circuiting. Suddenly she was wide awake and had the energy to run a marathon. She wanted to announce to the world that she kissed Mike Wheeler. And that he kissed her back.
Their lips moved perfectly synchronized like they had been practicing for weeks. A small chill went down her spine when she felt one of his hands rest on the back of her neck under her hair. She wanted to kiss him until the war over. Then, when it was safe, she would drag him out in the middle of the road and kiss him in front of the whole neighborhood. With her lips pressed against his she realized she was the stupid one for resisting her feelings for him for so long.
When they pulled away from one another to catch their breath she rested her forehead against his. Jane felt as if the floodgates had opened and she would never be able to go another day without kissing him. She could feel him start to smile under the hand she had on his cheek. "You're shaking." He said
Jane leaned back and held up one of her hands. Her fingers and hands looked about as out of control and wild as she felt. Jane had been to focused on what his lips felt like to feel anything else. Now that they were separated she could feel her whole body practically vibrating. The realization made her cheeks flare up immediately. She clenched her fist in hopes of making herself be still. "Shut up." She said halfheartedly. "Shouldn't you be sleeping by now?"
"Well, now I'm wide awake." Mike said. The freckles on his cheeks were faded by a heavy coat of blush. "You still going to stay until I fall asleep? It might take a while."
"I'm staying."
Mike grinned at her and leaned towards her. Their lips fit together like two puzzle pieces that created a picture all on their own. The feeling of his hand sliding onto the back of her neck sent a chill down her spine. Suddenly the way Gwen used to constantly be drooling over boys made complete sense to her. She would have gladly stayed up all night if it meant she got to keep kissing him.