Chapter 32. Buried Love

You may not know
the reason why,
for a time
I wasn't I.

There was a man,
who came and went—
on him every breath
was spent.

I'm sorry I forgot
all else—
it was the most
I ever felt.
— Lang Leav

Anakin.

I thought the name before I left the glazed realm of deep sleep. The notes of it traveled with me through every elevated ripple of waking I crested. It was the starting point, the upward current, and the ultimate destination.

Anakin.

It's easy to fall asleep when the heartbeat of the person you love is your lullaby.

I knew I still lay beside him even before I blinked open my languid lids and the rest of my consciousness fell into place. At some point during our slumber, my body seeking a change, I'd turned over to my other side and faced outwards. Now, Anakin snored softly— that low rumble I'd come to adore— behind my ear. Grogginess clung to me like waterfall mist on meadow grass. I was just awake enough to remember our situation and know it was inappropriate, but not yet awake enough to care.

That shifted, however, when all my attention zeroed in on the weight I sensed on my middle. For my chest to expand in breath was to exert a fraction more effort than what my lungs were used to. Putting further context clues together without physically moving my head to look, I realized Anakin's arm was wrapped around me. Adept fingers had burrowed themselves under my rib cage; his forearm rested along the plain between my navel and my bosom.

A bounty of reactions immediately came to life within me. Joy. Amusement. Nervousness. Anxiety. Surprise— and the wry lack thereof. There was even an underlying giddiness, the kind I imagine lovesick teenagers trade in; an energy so stereotypical in its swoon only because the description is so true. I had no suspicion that our pose was anything other than an innocent move sprung in his sleep— out of sorts as he was, Anakin wouldn't have put his arm around me had he been awake— but the accidental purity made it that much more precious to me.

All I dearly wanted was to envelop us under this blanket of contentment and fall back asleep. But just as my lips climaxed their stretch of a private smile, the parade of feelings reduced itself to one unspectacular exhibit.

Sadness.

My loving him changes nothing.

Wildly, my heart began to cherish the reality of an arm draped round me by this man I loved— not because I'd secretly yearned for exactly this and was finally experiencing it, but because such a wanted moment with him would have to stand alone. This was not the new normal. This was not the beginning of a successful love story. That we were currently on a planet outside the jurisdiction of the Republic no less made me a Galactic Senator any more than it ceased to make Anakin a prodigal son of the Jedi.

There is no future for us.

Behind me, the young man's breath suddenly hitched in his throat. The encircling limb tugged once, lightly, on my torso. Though I had not moved my own body, I froze— even suspending my thoughts until I heard his airflow return to its routine melody.

Dear Gods, I already missed the sound of it.

I thought about carefully removing his arm but was far too worried to do so would wake him. I didn't know what time it was, but my desire for Anakin to reclaim all the sleep he could was just as strong as it had been when we'd left the garage. With this in mind, I wondered if it would better suit his needs to give him the entire bed. For an honest minute, there was serious contemplation about my making the trek to the ship to sleep. In the end, it all circled back to my fear of rousing him. Even if I managed to lift the Jedi's arm without waking him— a surely impossible feat— I doubted I would succeed in removing my weight from the mattress without his notice.

Anakin slept on a hut floor. He was traumatized the following night by hellish nightmares. He never relaxed while we were in transit to Tatooine. Landing, going to his old home, seeing Watto, tracking down the Lars homestead, traveling here, meeting his extended family, fixing the speeder, searching for his mother, finding her and everything that ensued, the journey back, culminating in the emotional drain of his outburst—

No. I wouldn't dare move. It was a miracle he'd been able to stand up in the garage and finish the work on the shifter. This was Ani's first true sleep in days, maybe even weeks, and I would not be the cause of its interruption. I could do almost nothing to help his general circumstances, but I could do this. I could give him this. I could only give him this.

Nothing has changed.

To tell him now how I felt would be unforgivable. With sorrowful confidence, I knew the information would only add to his confusion and pain when he was already struggling for calm and peace. Anakin needed time to grieve his mother, heal, and repair the gashes in his self-perception he himself had lacerated. Under other circumstances, to a man in almost any other profession, my love declaration might be a cloud parting in a dark sky— a ray of sunny optimism pointing to the future. Instead, I couldn't be sure it wouldn't be yet another weight on top of him, especially once I reiterated how our fates would not be changed by my admittance. What was a promise of love if not a burden when there were no wings of hope to lift it? I would not compound his mental workload with a reopened problem that had no happy answer. For Anakin's own well-being, it was better for him believe this road remained closed.

All the solid reasoning aside, and even though this decision was born out of concern for him, my heart yelled out in pained rebellion. I could feel my love sing for Anakin in every part of my body. The beating organ in my chest wanted nothing more than to tell him.

With an intensity that caught me by surprise and applied pressure to my tear ducts, I ardently missed Sola.

I was Amidala— Galactic Senator, former Queen, and shrewd political mind. I could negotiate a treaty, breakdown a taxation charter, and deliver a rallying speech all before lunch. I could converse in more languages than I had fingers and go toe-to-toe with the biggest hardliners in the Republic. But, Gods help me, I was out of my element here. I craved the guidance of my big sister to tell me this craziness inside me was natural in the arena of love, even if the parameters of the unique situation were not. And yet, how could I relay what had happened to anyone— Sola, Dormé, my mother— bemoan the fatalism of it and seek a sympathetic ear, all without searching for that look in their eyes that said, "Well, what did you expect? He's a Jedi."

Thinking of my distant loved ones made the hallway of holographic images at my family's house come to mind. It was the very one Anakin and I had flirted our way through. He and I could never adorn a home in such a way. There would not, could not be joyous evidence from our life together which we could display with luscious abandon. The only mantles or passage halls on which they could exist were ones buried deep within my own mind. Longing gazes, resplendent smiles, harmonious laughter, and comforting arms— all exquisite memories hereto sentenced to be packed away in secrecy like they were tawdry outcasts. I rolled my lips under my teeth and pushed down tears, realizing I was destined to take some of the most beautiful feelings and happiest moments of my life to my grave.

As the weight of this leveled my spirit, my eyes stared, unfocused, at the outline of the door on the opposite side of the room. I found solace in feeling numb. The only element I chose to remain steadfastly aware of was the continued sound of Anakin's breathing. Did all breath pass through lungs as musically as his did, or was that just the bias of love bewitching my ears?

Insecurity suddenly tightened my throat. So profound were my feelings, I couldn't even fathom any suggestion that Anakin loved me as deeply as I did him. It simply wasn't possible. Yet there was a strange relief in this. Gravity from the loss of his mother was currently more than enough pain to drag him down; I would absolve him of all of it and take it within me if I could. I wouldn't want him to be the one between us to carry the largest denied love as well. His words by the fireplace had been soulful and heartfelt, but so deep was my own passion for him, I could not imagine it being equaled, much less outbalanced. I loved Anakin beyond logic and reason, even if doing so did not remove their obstruction.

What was I thinking? How could I have fallen in love with a nineteen-year-old Jedi?

Conscious confrontation of it in the garage aside, I tried to locate the earliest moment when I loved him. It was hard to pinpoint. So ingrained in me now was this well of love that it was almost impossible to think of a time when it hadn't been present. I'd felt something from that first reunion in my apartment, when the electric energy of the air registered even before he'd opened his perfect mouth. Loving Anakin was a luxury I could not afford, but that hadn't stopped it from happening as naturally and easily as breathing. With each passing day, the yearn for him had grown stronger; the smothering of it feeling like a slow death. My denial was only matched by the dagger in my heart, twisting its tip through my arteries.

Unbidden, a consoling voice in the back of my mind guided, To be in love is to be human.

I recalled the expression on Sola's face the first time she'd told me about Darred. My sister's eyes sourced a radiant light I'd never seen in her before. She'd gushed to me with a level of animation that outdid my most impassioned speeches in the Senate chamber. Love, by all accounts, was supposed to make one want to climb the walls in their celebration.

In my mind's eye, I looked around me for my bliss. For my ecstasy. The only joy I found existed in the weight and warmth where Anakin's body touched mine through the fabric of our clothes. Glorious rapture died where our cocoon ended and the rest of the galaxy began. Even my fingers, resting in cups by my chin, felt barren in more ways than one. I feared a future with Anakin as I feared a future without him. I felt both loss and lost.

My thoughts found themselves drifting back to the darker revelations of the night. I did not rejoice the fact that a particular lightsaber laid in our bed with us— the last bed we could ever share. I involuntarily shuddered as I thought of the blade's last activation.

{Do you wish you could punish the ones behind it?}

{Do you mean kill?} Grim eyes told me did. {I am beyond angry. When Obi-Wan tracks down the culprits behind the plot and they are taken to trial, whatever justice the courts decide is what I will live with.} A somber pause as he awaited a more definitive answer. {No, I can't wish death on anyone like that.}

A deep sigh stirred the hair behind my head. The unsatisfied arm smoothly pulled me in closer to its owner's chest. Lost in his sleep, one of Anakin's thighs moved forward and pressed against my rear, shifting his bent knee upwards. It brushed against the back of mine, as if gently requesting admittance between my locked legs. An aching storm of longing rose alongside my racing pulse. The desire to turn over and embrace him like the lover I wanted him to be was as powerful as it was inexcusably selfish. But I lacked the willpower to wake him and separate us. Torn between outcomes, I held my breath and waited, heat rising in my cheeks. A short and unintelligible mumble tumbled from Anakin's mouth before he burrowed his nose into my hair and went still.

Without further movement from the warm body behind me, my inner storm gradually subsided, but not without my torturous mind having its way first. I was a sharp-eyed passenger through its gallery as it conjured forbidden, moving paintings— passionate canvases of what could've happened had Anakin woken and been favorable to my own seeking touch.

I resisted the urge to adjust my head and bury my face in the pillow as I mourned for the rest of my life's outlook. How could I ever fall for another man when just the faintest, accidental preliminaries with Anakin were enough to turn my body into a frenzy?

My love for him overrode all familiar internal maps. It had gotten more and more difficult for me to recognize myself ever since our reunion, but that was no defense. I tried not to imagine his disgust if he ever knew I was battling my physical wants on the same mattress on which he'd poured his grieving flood of tears.

{Would it have changed your answer if we'd been talking about your mom?}

I replayed the moment from hours ago pensively, scrutinizing my response more closely and not without worry. Like many others, it had been an emotional moment when he asked the question. Though I'd definitively replied 'yes'— at least, at first— surely Anakin understood I was not implying I would enact revenge on an entire village? Mine had been a knee-jerk answer to the violent hypothetical of my mother's murder, but even then, I'd only been thinking of anyone directly responsible. The strongholds of my pacifist's beliefs and the wisdom not to deal in absolutes had reappeared almost immediately. The longer I lingered with my answer to Anakin the more I regretted the simplicity with which it had been delivered. Given the adamant way he'd pushed back on it seconds later, I began to fear my initial answer may have been misconstrued. At any rate, it was too late to amend the conversation now.

An abrupt chill stood the hairs on my skin at their end as more of the night resurfaced in my memory. Anakin's raging speech in the garage had occurred simultaneously with my realization of my true feelings. In the moment, I'd attributed his terrifying words as the opening prose to our love story. Now, in hindsight, I saw this marker couldn't have been any more wrong.

Agony. Haunted. Scar. Can't breathe. Tormenting. Secret. Lie. Destroy.

If the words that night were scrambled into a different order, one might think Anakin's confession a eulogy.

{My heart is beating, hoping…}

Like the runt of a litter who refuses to be left out, hope always finds its way into the circle. I believe hope to be a muscle as formidable as any other, one that shrinks or grows over time based off the soul's practiced exercise of it. There was no optimism I foresaw in my own solitary future, but I prayed Anakin's Jedi teachings would ease his pain after our parting. With this in mind, I flexed my well-trained hope for his own sake, willfully leaving none for myself.

Afterwards, I concentrated on the arm around my middle, memorizing the exact feel of the weight. I studied the form on my back and lower half like I would later recreate a mold of it in a sculptor's studio. I focused on the even sound of Anakin's breathing, cataloging every resonance into a library I intended to ghost through in the cold, lonely nights ahead. My heart sang a swan's song from behind its prison bars and, only after I'd committed every detail to record of what it felt like to be wrapped by Anakin's body, I let myself succumb to the land of slumber.

It's easy to fall asleep when the breath of the person you love is your lullaby.

Anakin.

Later, my husband would tell me how he woke during that night to find my fingers intertwined with his. In my sleep, I'd linked them together and nested them against my chest. "Not wanting to risk rousing" me from my own recuperation, he'd graciously let his arm, chest, knee, and our clasp stay exactly as they were.