Chapter 7 (Not a Lover's Love)
Running across roof tops isn't that frightening. I've never really been scared of heights. Plus, it has a great advantage point; I have a great view.
Crouching down, I peer over the edge. I've finally caught up with him. Since he wasn't really trying to escape death, he didn't work hard to become invisible. So I was able to find him in about two Earth hours.
He was stiffly walking down a main passage where street vendors lined the walls and shoppers were gazing at certain goods. Riddick turned a corner, and started to walk down a vacant ally. He easily jumped through a window in an abandoned building. Sighing, I climb down the skylight and jump aways to the ground. The landing jarred my legs, making them ache. I was used to pain.
Looking towards the building Riddick had entered, I get a wave of panic. I decide I'm going to be stubborn to convince myself to start walking. It works.
When I enter the building, the light from the door sends critters scattering, and I hope that he hasn't been staying here the nights he was gone. But as I reach the fifth floor by disintegrating stairs, I see signs of human life. Beer bottles littered the floor, as well as a few used condoms lying in a corner.
Disgusted and amazed, I stand anxiously toward the window . . .and wait.
"Saw you come up."
"Yeah, you have a knack for seeing things I don't want you to see." I spat back.
"'Cuz you always seem to do the exact opposite of what I tell you to do."
"What can I say, I'm rebellious."
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. I knew he would have spotted me. His senses are just too strong not to notice someone tailing him.
He wouldn't look at me. He was sitting in the window-sill, watching everyone below; but he wouldn't look at me. The emotion from being shunned by someone I loved so much was so overwhelming that a tear slipped unwilling from my eye. Words formed in my head, and I tried so hard to keep myself from saying them, but they slipped out. "Will you take me back?"
He turned then, put those shining eyes on me. Then his low voice rumbled throughout the empty room, bouncing off the metal walls. "I wasn't going to leave you Jack."
More tears slipped, making me angry. "You did leave!" I yelled, feeling like the thirteen year-old Jack Riddick had come across during the Nightmare.
"Just to get away for awhile." he mumbled, turning his head back out the window.
This made me angrier for some reason. He wouldn't look at me!
"Damn it Riddick! I know I messed up! It was bound to happen! Just . . .let's just forget this. Please?"
Hearing the emotion in my voice, Riddick turned back around and hopped off the window-sill. Probably for the first time in his life, I could tell that he didn't have any idea what to do with his hands. He fingered his shiv out of a nervous habit he had acquired.
With him staring at me, I began to feel ashamed of the emotion clearly written across my face. I folded my arms across my stomach in a week attempt to hide myself from him. Everything I was feeling was laid out bare for him, and I could tell that he was having difficulty containing his own emotions.
"Say something, please Riddick." I begged, trying to stop the flow of tears.
"What is there to say?"
"That you'll still be there for me."
"I'll always be there for you."he growled, almost offended.
With a grateful sob, I ran to him, arms flung open. I saw his eyes open wide with shock right before I tackled him.
I didn't care if I was acting childish again. I had my Riddick back. We still had each other. I hadn't ruined everything I worked so hard to build between us. He let out a laugh, most likely relieved and happy I had accepted his vague refusal. And I realized that maybe I had mixed up the type of love I had for him. It's just that the love was so strong, I couldn't determine what it was. I didn't know what to make of it. And out of loneliness and desire, I misread it as a couple's love. A lovers' love. I still don't know what our relationship is, but all I know is that it's strong enough to keep us together. He'll always protect me, and I'll always support him. We need that in each other. For what we've been through, we need to stick together.
The End