Page 92 of Anarchy Missing

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - LULU

I can carve things in his body and it will stream out as light.

It’s weird. It’s… frightening, if I’m being honest. But it’s all so fucking beautiful at the same time.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Case says. We’re in the shower now. The media room has a nice big bathroom and a huge walk-in shower with a granite bench on the far side of the stall.

I’m sitting on his lap, washing the cuts in his arms with a soft cloth. We didn’t talk after the light show ending to our lovemaking. I think Case was embarrassed so I got up off him, took his hand, pulled him to his feet, and brought him in here to clean up.

He got the hint and turned the water on. And then sat on the bench, beckoning me to sit astride him with a slap to his thigh.

I sigh, not sure what to say. But he’s waiting, his eyes trained on mine like I’m the only thing in the world that matters. “Well, we don’t know what it is, right?”

He nods, but stays silent.

“So that’s concerning. But I’m not… I’m not leaving because you happen to have red light bottled up inside you, Case. I’m just not gonna do that.”

“Why?” he asks. He’s vulnerable in this moment. Very. I know he’s afraid. Much more than I am, for sure. I mean, this is happening to him. He has light inside his body and he has a need to cut himself to let it out and ease his pain. How scary to not know the cause, or the outcome, for that matter. This could be killing him. And as soon as that thought manifests in my head, my heart hurts. It aches at the possibility that I could lose him.

“Why?” I repeat. “Because love doesn’t turn on and off like light, Case. And I love you. I have loved you since that first time you held my hand at rehearsal all those years ago. The first time you looked down at me with the most serious expression on your face and asked if you were doing it right.”

“Hmmm,” he says, a small smile appearing on his lips.

“And look,” I say, dragging my fingernail across his chest in a heart pattern. It’s just enough to leave a scratch, but the light pokes through like the sun trying to find its way through billowing thunderhead clouds, stray beams that shoot out and up. Some of them dance on my arms and breasts. Like he’s blessing me.

Case lets out a long breath as he studies the pattern I just made on my body with his light. Shakes his head. “There’s something wrong with me, Lulu.”

I press my lips into a flat line and stare into his eyes. Nod. “Yeah. But everyone has problems, Case. Love…” I shrug. “Love gets you through it. I’m not leaving.”

“I think there’s more to it than this,” he says, motioning down to his scratched and lit-up arms. “Much more.”

“Like what? I mean, I know there has to be more. The reason behind the light is enough to figure that out. And no one seems to understand it. Not even that Sheila. But the good news is…” I suck in a gulp of air and then let it out in a tired exhale. What a weird few days. “The good news is there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with you.”

“Yeah,” he says, holding onto my waist with one hand as he reaches past me to grab a bar of soap. He presses it against my chest and begins to wash me. “But the thing is, Lulu, it could be a lot worse than it looks. You have no idea what they did to me at that school. Hell, I don’t even know what they did to me. Lincoln didn’t know what they did to him. And yeah, he changed himself. Kinda embraced it, you know. But he’s so fucking far away from the kid I knew.”

“Is he better or worse, or…” I let the sentence trail off because I’m not really sure what I’m asking. “Is he OK? I guess that’s my question. With who he is?”

“I guess,” Case says, rubbing the soap up and down my stomach.

“Will you be OK with who you are? I mean, suppose there’s nothing else wrong with you—”

“There is,” he interjects.

“But just pretend. OK? Pretend this is the extent of it. And you have to spend the rest of your life cutting yourself to get through the night. What then? Is that something you can live with?”

He looks down at the anarchy scar on his left biceps, then looks back up to me. “What if they all leave scars on me like that?”

I think about this for a few moments. Enough moments to make him squirm underneath me with uncertainty. “Well, then I should probably be more careful when I draw patterns on your body.” Small smile for that remark. “Seriously, Case. It could be a lot worse.”

“It will end up being a lot worse, Lulu.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I feel it. Something’s inside me. I know it. Something left over from school. Or some poison that was on those barbs when Molly tried to take my head off. Or maybe it’s just a bad reaction from that jellyfish shit. The point is… I’m not normal. I’m some kind of fucking freak. And Lincoln’s different. He did that himself. He modified his body in the way he wanted. He planned it, Lulu. For many years. It was something he dreamed up. He’s got no problem with it because it was his idea to begin with. I didn’t plan any of this shit,” he says, nodding at his arms. “I didn’t want it. I didn’t choose it.”

“Well, you have it now,” I say in my lawyer voice. “So it doesn’t matter how it happened. We just have to deal with it. No matter what happens next, it’s got to be dealt with. And you’re lucky you have all these people around you who can help. Sheila will figure it out. And Lincoln will help.”

“Sheila doesn’t know what to do. I don’t think you understand. She has run every test she can think of and it always comes up the same way. Nothing’s wrong with me. But clearly, Lulu, clearly something is very much wrong with me.”