But Maybe We'll Live Forever

After that kiss, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Speaking to Kobra just would feel awkward, and not speaking to him made me feel like I was doing something wrong. I was torn up inside; angry, confused, hurt, and scared. I didn’t know what to do.

So, I didn’t do anything. I just laid on the bed and watched the premium channels on the TV – it was Party Poison’s money, not mine – and was lost in thought.

Around 8pm, everyone else went out to dinner. Kobra asked very dully if I was coming, to which I responded with a quick ‘no,’ and he left without saying another word. Around 9pm, he came back with some food for me. I thanked him and ate it without another word.

As the night wore on, the silence was getting to me. I wanted to speak to him, to break the ice. But I wasn’t sure what to do. I wanted to ask him why he’d kissed me. I wanted to ask him what that other emotion in the kiss was. I wanted to ask him if he really hated me, why had he done that? I had some many burning questions that I was too afraid to ask. Or was it the fear of what the answer may be?

Around 10pm, I turned off the TV. Kobra had been at the desk reading some magazine, but he looked up at the sudden silence.

“Nothing interesting on?” he asked nonchalantly.

“Not anymore.” I matched his voice, but didn’t know what it all meant. He sounded the same as before the kiss: angry, annoyed, uncaring. It was throwing me off.

“I guess we should go to bed then.” He looked at me with his unreadable eyes, waiting for an answer.

I nodded. “Yeah. I guess we should.”

Kobra closed his magazine and threw it on the table, turning off the small lamp. It was dark now, and I could hear his footsteps as he walked over to the bed.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I noticed Kobra was slipping the shirt off his shoulders. When he lifted his arms and pulled off the shirt, stretching, I could see muscles rippling. He looked so strong; arms that could support you if you were falling.

He couldn’t see me staring, and for that I was thankful. It was awkward enough without him knowing that I couldn’t pull my eyes away from his exposed upper body. Although, somehow, I wondered how he’d react if he knew.

He was so perfectly sculpted.

I noticed his eyes turning over to my direction, so I quickly shut my own and just laid there, waiting to feel the shift of him climbing onto the bed; the squeaks of the springs under the bed.

“Do you want me to take the floor?” Kobra asked, his voice dull but somewhat caring. The fact that he asked at all proved he cared about how I felt or my well-being or something… right?

“No. It’s fine. Get on the bed,” I said, my voice sounding foreign and awkward, even to myself.

I heard him sigh, and I felt the bed creak and squeak as he climbed on the bed beside me. I turned slightly so that he’d have some more room. My eyes were wide open as I stared at the heater on the wall, wondering if either of us would say anything to break the ice.

After about twenty minutes of an awkward silence, Kobra finally spoke. “It’s funny, you know?” He sounded tired; detached, as if he were thinking out loud. “How you’ll be fighting, fighting, for something you think is the right thing… and you’ll lose yourself doing it. You lose who you are. And then you don’t know if you’re doing the right thing or not anymore.”

I blinked and turned over to look at him, but he was on his back, staring up at the ceiling, refusing to meet my gaze.

“Is that how you feel?” I asked timidly, confused. We were just acting like we hated each other, and then the kiss, and then the awkwardness, and now… this. This confession, per se. I didn’t know how to respond.

Kobra smirked. “Hah, yeah… yeah, it is.”

“If you don’t think this is right, why are you doing it?” I asked.

“It’s not that I don’t think it’s right. It’s that I don’t know if I want to give who I am up for what’s right.”

“We all have to make sacrifices.”

“Trust me, I know.”

I stared at Kobra Kid through the darkness, watching his chest rise and fall gently with his breathing. I traced the outlines of his face, and tried to read his eyes, although they were as unreadable as ever. I couldn’t help but reach out to touch him before quickly pulling my hand back when I realized what I was doing.

“Atomic,” Kobra said quietly. “You’re not one of us. You’ve been thrown in the middle of something that isn’t yours. Your brother… I don’t know what your brother was thinking when he decided that you should be part of this fight.”

I wasn’t sure whether to be hurt or not by that comment, but I didn’t respond in a way that would show either side. “I guess.”

“I just don’t understand how someone like Bullet – someone so smart – could decide to throw his sister into the middle of this. I don’t understand how someone could be so… so cruel. It was sick of him to do that. He’s no better than Korse, throwing people into the middle of something that they don’t deserve—” Kobra was sounding angry now.

But that’s okay, because I was, too.

And in that moment, I did something that I couldn’t imagine myself doing – ever.

In a quick movement, I swung down and grabbed Kobra Kid’s gun out of his belt – he had it on him at all times, even when it was time to sleep – and aimed it at his head, feeling the venom coursing through my veins. “Don’t you dare talk about my brother like that.”

At first, Kobra looked shocked. His eyes were wide, and I could see confusion and shock plain on his usually expressionless face. Then, his face changed to a dull, self-satisfied smirk. “Atomic, you’re not going to shoot me.”

“Maybe not right this second,” I said, seething, still keeping the gun pointed to his temple. Words could not describe how much I wanted to shoot him right then.

“First of all,” Kobra said, gently putting his hand over mine and lowering the gun, “you don’t know how to shoot that – hell, you don’t even know how to hold it right.” He pulled the gun out of my hands with ease, as if I were a child. “Secondly, you wouldn’t shoot that in here and cause some trouble. it would blow our cover.”

I glared at him and then turned back over, facing the opposite direction.

“Atomic,” Kobra Kid said, also turning on his side.

“No.”

“Atomic.”

“No!” I felt tears coming to my eyes. I didn’t want him to see me like this and scoff at me – well, more than he already had.

“Atomic Battery. Turn around right now and look at me.”

“No. Leave me alone.”

“Ato—”

“Goodnight, Kobra. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It was silent for a moment. I felt the tension in the room ease ever so slightly, as if Kobra Kid had come to the realization to leave me alone, or he had fallen asleep, or his mood had changed. Finally, though, he did speak, saying, “It’s okay to cry.”

“I’m not crying,” I said, my voice cracking. I sighed and wiped my eyes, refusing to turn back to even glimpse the look on Kobra Kid’s face.

“Look, Atomic…” He seemed awkward; he didn’t know how to respond to a crying girl. I had a slight flashback to the car when I had been crying and they all had been staring at me – he’d looked at me blankly not because he didn’t care, but because he wasn’t sure how to react.

I didn’t speak. I didn’t cry. I let him stumble along, because I knew if I did speak, I’d give something away – and I didn’t want to even think about speaking to him about something important to me right now, because he never knew how to respond, or worse, he’d respond wrong.

“In the beginning of all this… I cried a lot, too.” A slight awkward silence. Then a sigh. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay? You’re new to this. I shouldn’t… my temper… I’m sorry about the hotel. I’m sorry about choking you. I’m sorry about everything – I’m sorry about kissing you, okay? I’m sorry. I’m sorry about this whole mess, and I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch about everything. God, you’re practically just a kid in this world.”

I was silent for a moment; unsure of what exactly to say. Then, trying to avoid almost everything, I said, “You cried?”

“All the time. I cried when we… when we killed that woman and her kids. All of us did. After we’d done it, we looked at the blood everywhere, at the mess, and we… we were ashamed. And angry, not only at Better Living, but at ourselves. We were being no better than Korse, slaughtering innocent people… I… I just… those kids lying there… Their eyes wide open in fear, their mouths open, frozen in a cry for their mother who was already dead… I just… I broke down and I…” Kobra’s voice was wavering. He was going to cry, too. He seemed almost frightened, like a little boy, lost from his family.

I turned around and looked over at Kobra. His eyes were cast downward, and I could tell he was holding back tears and shudders of fear and regret and pain. He looked so lost at that moment – he wasn’t the same. He wasn’t Kobra Kid, he was a young man thrown into the middle of a war. He was… whoever he’d been before he was Kobra Kid.

I reached over and touched his hand. He jumped slightly and looked down at it, then looked back up to me. His eyes were sad, full of pain he’d never let cross his face before.

I felt tears in my own eyes.

We fell asleep like that; crying, my hand softly against his.

I wondered if the morning would bring anything new, or if this had all been a dream.