the nature of love

A Story by Ms.BMH

Two girls defy standards in a world against differentness, and then must face the consequences.

My lower lip is trembling; I can’t seem to steady it. My checks are streaked with grey-black lines, the cause of which was my failure to wear waterproof eyeliner. The cause of my tears was, indirectly, a beautiful girl by the name of Marissa.
She was also indirectly the reason I was now sitting in a jail cell, wearing an orange jumpsuit.
Of course, there wasn’t much she could do. She didn’t create the Overlander, nor did she demand he be totalitarian, or completely and utterly intolerant of all who weren’t in the image of himself. It wasn’t her idea to “purge” the world of its differentness. No, I blame all of that on the universe; the universe gave us the Overlander, with his bizarre, psychopathic predisposition, and his hatred of diversity.
But before Marissa, I had never even given any thought to falling in love with another woman. Granted, I had never fallen in love with anyone. Despite this though, I was certain when I did, it would be with a man, in accordance with the strict rules implemented by the government, as everything in my life was. But there she was, sitting two seats ahead of me in my Science for 16 Year Old Females class. She had a head full of thick, wavy auburn hair, and she had written and drawn, in black marker, all over her state-issued clothes.
Only brave kids wrote on their clothes; even though being different and non-conforming was illegal, the law only specifically said that all citizens had to wear their grey pant and shirt combos .It didn’t say anything about altering the shirt and pant sets; doing so, however, certainly put you on the governments radar as a potential rebel. The moment I saw her, my heart had stopped. I felt a feeling in my stomach I had never felt before. After class, I went up to her. I felt a little embarrassed, to be honest, me with my plain shirt and short, black hair, and her with her gorgeous locks and embellished clothes. I felt even more embarrassed when I finally did go up to her, and saw her face; she had on magenta lipstick and heavy eyeliner; I had never worn makeup before. It was contraband technically, but this was only thinly enforced because the government, frankly, had bigger fish to fry than ladies who wanted to look pretty, especially since there were so many women using. So the government implemented a plan; you couldn’t be arrested for wearing makeup, but if you were caught with it in your possession, you were executed publically in the square, where everyone could see. That’s what they did with minor offense criminals; if you committed a major offense and got caught, you just up and vanished. No one knew what happened to you.
So from the moment I met her, I knew she was bad news. I knew she was trouble. I was a little scared of her, to be honest. But there was something inside me that needed to talk to her, to know her. And from the moment I first spoke to her, she was warm and friendly, despite what her appearance would suggest.
“Hey”, she said, in a voice with a pleasant timbre that vaguely reminded me of bells ringing, “What’s your name?”
I swallowed heavy. “Emily.” I said, looking down.
“Well, Emily,” she said, “ It’s lovely to meet you. Say, how would you like to be my partner for the plant project”?”
I looked up at her, slightly abashed, and nodded. “ I’d love to.” I said.

And though neither of us knew it at the time, this was the beginning of the greatest adventure of our lives, an adventure that I now know will be the death of me…

I can hear the guards speaking gruffly and low outside my cell. I take a deep breath, and open my eyes to survey my dull surroundings. My cell was dirty, dingy, and grey. And cold. Very, very cold. As I exhaled, I could see my breath. In the distance, I thought I could hear the faint bang of the firing squad, although perhaps it was my own morbid imagination, picturing my near future. My only consolation was that I hadn’t seen Marissa get captured; I hoped, I prayed, with every fiber in my body that she had gotten away safely. Please, I silently begged, though I wasn’t sure to whom, please let her be safe. Please let her be happy…
The first time we kissed was in her bedroom, when her parents weren’t home. I had been over to her house, and we had been working on the plant project for Science for 16 Year Old Females, which basically consisted of measuring the growth of a bean sprout from week to week. She had just finished helping me revamp one of my shirts so it was like hers, which was much harder than I thought it would be.
She had told in school to bring an extra shirt to her house, after I’d complimented hers. She seemed excited to help me make one of my own design .However, even having been supplied with the black fabric marker and scissor, I still didn’t quite know what to do with myself.
“it’s easy,” she insisted,” just do whatever you want to it.”
“What I want?” I asked, unsure. I had never seen what I wanted as a relevant factor before. In our world, what you want didn’t matter. It was always what the government wanted. And anyway, what I wanted in conjunction to Marissa was a confusing topic currently.
“What you want,” she said, those bubblegum pink lips of hers still making my heart flutter in a way I wasn’t quite ready to admit to It wasn’t allowed, a steely voice in my head kept insisting. But another voice, a quieter one, really didn’t care about the rules anymore.
In the end, I drew large ornate wings on to the back , and cut the sleeves off, and deepened the neckline. She studied me as I worked, and I caught myself wondering if she thought about me the same way I thought about her. When I finished, I put in on to model for her, and she let out a long whistle.
“What?” I asked tilting my head slightly.
“Hold on,” she said, as she rummaged through a draw to produce bright purple lipstick, pot of liquid eyeliner and a stick of mascara. She sat me down on her bead, so my head was at the proper level for her to apply makeup to me. And that she did. After a few moments, she set the makeup down, took hold of my shoulders, and studied my face from arms length, a conflicted expression on her face.
“What?” I asked again, and her features softened.
“Emily,” she said, her usual light, crystal voice suddenly husky, “Emily, you are beautiful.”
And then I leaned up, and she leaned down, and our lips met, and from that moment, that millisecond our lips first met, I knew that this, whatever it was, this, was what I wanted.

My feet have begun to pace in the four by four space that is my temporary home, impatient for the inevitable. It wasn’t that I wanted to die, but the fear and gloom that had now set in was almost too much to bear. My only comfort was the thought of Marissa.

I began to go over to her house almost every day to “work” on the “plant project”. My parents, who never cared much for me to begin with, simply took my word for it. They never seemed suspicious, although, in retro-suspect, they probably were, as I’m pretty sure they were the ones who gave us up to the Overlander’s officers. Her parents were hardly ever home, because they were both doing menial labor from six in the morning to eight thirty at night because a friend of theirs was caught harboring a fugitive, and while the government had no proof Marissa’s parents were involved, if you were known to be close to an offender of the law, you automatically got drafted into the menial work force, as a precaution. Grave digging, construction working. So it couldn’t have been them. And I am certain no one ever saw us, for we were very careful.
We would go places, Marissa and I. Do things. Hike out into the middle of the woods, past the walls of the city. Climb cliff sides. Watch clouds. And, of course, kiss. We kissed a great deal. Sometimes we did more. And we never, ever spoke of how dangerous what we were doing was.
Engaging in any sort of a same sex covenant, beyond polite friendship, was punishable by death.
We knew that, even then. We didn’t care…

The door to my cell begins to open, slowly, and as it does so my entire starts to tremble like my lower lip. But as they call me out of the cell with a gruff,
“Get out here, scum. STAT.”
I hold my head high, and look them in the eye as they handcuff me.

We were in her room, when we got caught, kissing. We hadn’t heard the door opening as the officers entered the house. We were kissing when the first of them opened the door. He lunged at us, but I pushed Marissa aside and took the full brunt of the blow myself as he began to shout for his comrades.
“Go,” I screamed, gesturing as best I could under his weight towards the empty window.
She looked to the window, then to me, the same conflicted expression shed had on her face all those months ago when she had finished my make-up.
“Go”, I insisted, and she finally did, although she didn’t look happy.
She had her car keys in her back pocket, and her car parked a mere five strides from her first floor window. I’d driven with her before; once that girl had road-range, nothing could stop her.
Or so I hoped.

The guards each hook arms with me on either side once I was handcuffed, and we began our long procession down to the firing squad. I could most certainly hear the bang of bullets now. My feet fell heavy, heavier than my heart. With every step, I pray;

Let her be safe
Let her be happy
Let her be safe
Let her be happy…

We came to a sort of long, dimly lit hallway and got on a short line of similar situations, one orange jumpsuit, flanked by two guards; the difference being, most of their heads were hung low. I shut my eyes, focusing all my might on those words;

Let her be safe
Let her be happy
Let her be safe
Let her be happy…

We keep getting nearer and nearer to the front of the line.
As we approached the very front, I heard footsteps behind us. The footsteps stopped just behind us.
Behind me I hear a strangled cry in a voice that was overwhelmingly familiar;
“Emily?”
I turn my head as far as I can, and see her standing there, her auburn hair every bit as beautiful as the day I met her, and it becomes evident to me that the universe truly must hate me. The expression on her face quite nearly broke my heart. She looked scared, so scared, and her features lacked the confidence and kindness that always seemed to seep through her skin and make her glow.
“Marissa,” I crooned quietly, because though my hopes lay shattered at my feet I knew I must be brave for both of us, brave as she had been, to draw on her clothes and wear makeup to school. “Marissa, my love, don’t be scared. I’ll be on the other side waiting, and we’ll face it together. It will be just like another one of our adventures.”
Her features soften the panic that had taken over abating for a moment.
“I love you,” she says.
“I love you too,” I say, turning forward, as I feel the tears slide slowly down my cheek again, as one of the guards, who had remained silent till now, spoke up.
“Shut up, scum,” he snarls, as we reached the door to the courtyard where the firing squad is, ” You’re next.”
I can see the man who was in front of me in line walking, still flanked by his guards, who then push him down to his knees in front of the firing squad, and then walk off to the side. I watch as they shoot him, as the guards come back and drag his body away.
And then it’s me who’s walking outside, flanked by the guards, walking to the firing squad. Its me who is pushed down. I shut my eyes one last time as the guards walk away.
She will be able to see them shoot me.

“Emily,” she said, “Emily, you are beautiful”….