Chapter Eight

I get knocked down, but I get back up again

Natalie, Michael and I came back to the Aid agency late at night. Personally, I was really tired because it was Friday and if you would remember, jet lag had just begun to kick in! Michael was busy chatting Tally up with sweet words so it was clear I would be going back to my room alone. Really, it was cute and all how Michael and Tally were being so mushy but I could only handle it for a little while!

However, I didn’t want to go to a completely empty room. I mean, here I was all the way on a different continent and all I was gonna do was sleep all night? Tch, thanks but no thanks! I can make myself have a good anywhere, even if it’s with no one but me and I don’t mean that in a dirty way!

I went back to my room just as it started to downpour, which was apparently weird for Kuwait, seeing how it’s all hot there most of the year. It didn’t matter to me though because I had seen plenty of rain in my day! I mean, yes, I lived in Los Angeles where it’s always hot, but there were some pretty serious floods going on a while back.

I made sure nobody was gonna rat on me in my room-all my other room mates were dead asleep. I guess when you actually know what you’re doing puts a toll on you-and put on a nice cashmere, scoop-neck sweater-don’t think I would ever sink so low as to wear a sweater vest!-and this skirt I probably shouldn’t have brought with me to Kuwait, but I was stupid back in the states and Tally and I were absolutely convinced that we would be able to party at all these hotspots around where we’d be helping.

Turns out, Kuwait has a curfew! Which meant that Tally and I would not be partying unless it was in broad daylight and we were covered up in chadirs.

But don’t think I was just gonna go to sleep, because I wasn’t. Oh no, curfews meant nothing to me, even if I had cured myself of The Life. Curfews were guidelines, not rules to me! I would be out at night and I would party, even if I had to find some illegal party to do so!

After pulling on a Hoodie I broke out of the one tiny window we had in the room and almost had a heart attack when a bomb went off about a mile away from where we were staying. I was thinking maybe I should go back inside, but there was no way! It was raining, I was already wet and under no circumstances would I stay inside on a Friday night.

I braved a few more explosions before deciding that maybe it was a good idea to have a curfew around here, but nothing was stopping me. I mean, I wasn’t really that scared. I was more afraid of running into people who would want to kill me-cos I was a white American, remember?-than a bomb exploding on me. So really, clinging to the sides of buildings didn’t faze me unless I saw somebody else sneaking around.

Which didn’t happen. Okay, well, at least until I saw him. I know this sounds corny and cliché, but he was like a beacon of light in all the rain and explosions around me!

This guy in a Hoodie-I think it was a dark blue color, but I couldn’t tell in the dark-suddenly took a stride into the middle of the street and towards me. I guess this was an unwise move on his part because all of a sudden some sniper began shooting at him from a rooftop. The guy quickly realized he wasn’t being too street smart and lunged across the street for me before he could resemble Swiss cheese. He tumbled beside me and I swear I would have screamed, but I figured that screaming wouldn’t help seeing how it would let the sniper know where we were.

The guy grabbed one of my legs-I was praying he wasn’t just looking up my skirt-and pulled me down towards the ground.

“Get down!” He hissed at me. “Are you fucking insane? What the hell are you doing out at night?!” I got down immediately because now I was scared the sniper was gonna know exactly what my shadowy form looked like.

“I was gonna ask you the same thing!” I hissed back. That got the guy to smirk good-naturedly.

“Just looking for someplace to party.” He replied quietly. I was going to say I was out for that exact same reason but a bomb exploded closer to us than expected and I practically jumped.

Without thinking, he pulled me close to his body and wrapped his arm around me so he was closer to the explosions than me.

Oh god, if that wasn’t chivalrous then I don’t know what it was! I couldn’t help but get this big dopey grin on my face.

“Don’t worry about the bombs.” My knight in shining armor told me. “You get used to them after a while.”

Used to them? I moved my head so I could see my guy’s face. Let me tell you, I could hardly see his features but I could just tell he was gorgeous!

“How long do you have to live here to get used to them?” I asked after some gunshots rang through the air. He shrugged.

“About a month.” He replied nonchalantly. “I’m Orion, by the way.” I felt so special to know this guys’ name! I don’t know why, but I felt so…smitten!

“I’m Jimena, but you can call me Jimmi.” Orion looked back to me, his face dangerously close to mine. Damn, why hadn’t I brought more makeup!? I probably looked like a wreck!

“Nice to meet you, Jimmi.” He said warmly. “I take it you’re from the states?” I blushed-again, don’t ask me why!-and nodded my head, hardly hearing the next explosion.

“How’d you know?”

“You don’t have a stuffy accent.” He joked. I laughed quietly and noticed he had no accent either.

“Are you from the states too?” I asked while a bomb went off dangerously close to us. Orion pulled me closer when some rubble started falling near us.

“Yep.” He replied. “You’re looking at NYC’s finest.” I giggled.

“That’s cool. I’m from Los Angeles, but right now I’m over in Massachusetts.”

“College?”

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Orion shrugged humbly.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that…hey, you wanna get out of here? You know, go find a party or something?”

“Oh my god it’s like you’re reading my mind!” I said as I slowly began to crawl after him to wherever he was going. “I mean, the only reason I’m out here cos I thought I could find a party, but it turns out they have a curfew. What’s up with that?”

Orion led us back to where I had started in the first place-the Aid agency, not my room you perv!-and as it turns out, surprise of all surprises, Orion was here for the same thing in the same Agency! Okay, well, he had been here much longer than Tally and me, but it seemed like he didn’t know that many people around here. I asked him why this was; he only smiled at me sympathetically and shook his head. I took that as a sign that maybe I shouldn’t ask if he was a serial killer or not. I just went along with him because…well, he was hot! I mean, hot as far as I knew. Really, if we suddenly stepped into some sort of electrically lit area, maybe he’d look like a clown!

Although the odds of that were very low. In the mean time, I was focused on keeping myself alive. I mean, you never really appreciate life until you’re stuck in the middle of a war zone with bombs going off all around you. Seriously, how were people in my room sleeping?

“So…which college you attending?” Orion mused as we skidded down a hallway-it would have been romantic and cute if the lights weren’t flickering on and off so eerily. I could just barely make out that he was wearing adidas!

“Oh, you know, just the usual Ivy league place.” I informed him. Orion looked back at me, as if he didn’t believe that.

“Naw, you’re kidding!” He replied, laughing. “No gangster I know attends college without a good reason.” I swallowed a lump in my throat and smiled back at him.

“Well, you know, I just had to get out of The Life…” I was going to go on about how I didn’t want to be in The Life anymore when something in his words caught me. “Hey! What makes you think I’m chola?” Orion stared at me for a moment to see if I was serious.

“Well, captain obvious, you’re kinda wearing a Hoodie.” He explained. “Not too many people wear Hoodies around here-or anywhere-unless they’re part of…well, you know.” He leaned towards me and whispered, “The Life.”

Okay, I’m sorry but I couldn’t help it! I was getting Stupid Smile Syndrome. You know, you smile when you’re around someone you like and you don’t quite know why? It’s like some sort of stupid girly reflex! So there I was, smiling in a really stupid way and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out something else to say, when thank you Jesus a bomb exploded really close to the Agency’s building. The building shook and rubble started to fall form the ceiling. Now, if it had been me, I would have ducked to the floor and huddled, but oh no, Orion wasn’t going to waste any time sissying about.

“Come on!” He exclaimed as he pulled me along after him down another hall. Oh god, don’t tell me you think this wasn’t romantic, because it totally was! It was like some sort of dangerous first date!

“Hold on a minute!” I cried as we rounded a corner and nearly ran into some Aid workers. Orion backed up, spun me around and pushed me back towards where we had come from. The entire time he had this smile on his face that practically shouted to me that he lived for moments like this. It led me to believe that this had happened before and that he knew what he was doing, so why not enjoy myself? “Where are we going?” I asked, laughing when some worker I knew slipped on a tile.

“You’ll see.” Orion told me, leaving everything to my imagination. It was at about this moment that I totally forgot I had ever liked a guy named Jesse. I mean, why on earth would I like Jesse when Orion was taking me on some risky adventure that was absolutely romantic in the same sense?

It was weird. I mean, not weird in a creepy way, but in an odd way. I felt like I could follow Orion just about anywhere, as long as I got to go with him.

He took me up this short stairway up to the roof and burst open the door with his shoulder because it was rusted shut. The door opened with a bang, and all of a sudden you could see the rest of the city, exploding before your eyes. Of course it was sad to watch, but you’ve got to remember most people had been evacuated by now. I glanced at Orion and was awestruck because there was light somehow on this roof and it lit up his features perfectly.

He had gorgeous dark brown hair that was shorter than Jesse’s, but not short enough to look like he was an army recruit. He had a tan complexion like me, so I guessed it was easy for him to blend in around here. I could definitely tell though, that he wasn’t of Spanish descent like Jesse or anybody else I knew. This guy definitely had a Greek background. He had a slightly large looking nose, which was what led me to believe he was Greek. And, I wouldn’t know this until later but his liquid brown eyes made me feel like I was drowning in them when I looked into them.

“Be careful up here.” He advised me, gently taking hold of one of my hands. He curled his fingers around mine-let me tell you, his hands were big and strong looking compared to mine, which had just been manicured before I had left-and pulled me up so I was standing on the step above him. From my new height, my face was directly in front of his. I coyly smiled.

“What if I’m not careful?” I inquired. “You’ll catch me, right?” Orion pretended to think about that for a moment, and then broke into an even more dazzling grin.

“Of course.” He replied. “As long as I can do this first.” I was only confused for a moment.

“Do what?” I began to ask suspiciously, but he silenced me with a kiss on my lips. It was one of those deep kisses that only happen once in a while in a relationship. I let him kiss me. Because this was…perfect. Even with bombs going off in the background and snipers shooting a few roofs over, even with the drenching downpour, it was one of the most perfect kisses I’d ever had.

Orion pulled away from me after some time and looked directly into my eyes, as if searching for approval that what he had done was okay. Well, of course it was okay! I was a girl, after all! Sensing my approval, he smiled again warmly and pulled me to him in a hug.

“We’ll be safe up here.” He said softly. “It’s the safest place to be as far as I know when it gets bad like this.” I nodded my head, feeling completely safe in his arms.

Yep, I had been wise to come to Kuwait. I didn’t know it was so wise when I was back at Harvard, but now, in Orion’s arms, listening to explosions going off and feeling the heat radiate from his body, I knew it was the best choice I had made.