Fidelity

/fəˈdelədē/

noun

faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continued loyalty and support

My mind was blank as I wheeled myself down the hallway. There have been moments in my life that were like this one: times when I would look back on everything I had ever done and ask myself why I was given this life. Usually these moments came when I was outside of the colony and walking within nature on my normal walking trail. I said my mind was blank, which it was, but it was mainly due to my brain overworking in concern to what my life would look like if everything would be different.

Why would I be born into this life with parents who are responsible for the life altering society currently reigning over most of the world? Why was I named the way I was? Why did I inherit the traits I did, and were some of my personality traits inherited as well?

These questions controlled my mind for numerous hours that day as I sat alone in various rooms throughout the colony, moving each time that a person would enter the room in order to prevent any type of conversation. My theory worked until I was met with the presence of Ashton in the multimedia room, which had become our group's typical hang out spot in the past several years.

"You seem to have a lot on your mind," he stated, sitting on a couch opposite of me within the closed confines of the room. Although the door had normally been left open, I felt at ease with Ashton's decision to close it since he was obviously wanting to speak about a deeper level of emotion than my exterior let on.

"I do," I told him, looking down slightly as I refused to meet his hazel eyes that I knew I would mistake for those hypnotizing green ones that I had desperately been missing. Tears formed in my eyes as I attempted to keep my emotions controlled; however, with the plans being made in the meeting from the previous day and the questions running through my mind, the last thing I needed was a reminder of the familiar, flamboyant boy that I had never forgotten.

"Want to tell me what's wrong?" he questioned, his voice seeming soft in the vast expanse of the room. That was when I made the terrible mistake of looking into his eyes, and in that instant, time slowed down and I was left in my own memories as opposed to the current time.

Instead of being faced with Ashton's normally deep hazel eyes, I only saw the emerald green eyes of my lost best friend staring back at me, tears welled up in them as though he could sense the pain I was in at that moment and wanted to take it all away, just as he always did when he was alive.

"I don't feel like talking about it," I told the now blonde haired boy. Despite being back in the colony for a bit over a month, I still couldn't fully grasp the concept of Michael not dying his hair a different color every week as he did before I had left- more specifically, been taken. "And I don't want you to have to take sides," I stated pointedly, staring him down with what he had come to call my 'mother eyes.'

The blonde boy shook his head, tilting it back slightly as he laughed off the tension welling up within the room. That was one thing I had noticed about Michael since being back, it was as though me leaving had caused him to grow up in an opposite way that I had never even considered. Instead of hiding away from confrontation as he usually did, Michael had grown comfortable in his skin, causing him to offset a potentially deafening silence through a lame ass joke or his boisterous laughter erupting and bouncing off the walls of the room.

Especially where we were, the media room that we had discovered was never occupied by anyone outside of our small group, Michael's laughter seemed to fill the room to the point of bursting my eardrums; however, the thought comforted me. I wasn't comforted by the thought of my ears losing their ability to hear, but instead, I was comforted by Michael's ability to laugh about the obviously emotion numbing pain of life as though it had nothing on him.

I knew the blonde boy wasn't absent minded to the pain that I felt in my heart, but he was choosing to look at the bright side of life. Michael, as weird as it seemed, still looked at life as though it could give him so much. He still had hope despite all of the horrid things he had seen in life, from his own twin being used against him to the casualties of war.

"Luke doesn't scare me Lissa," he said, shaking his head still with laughter as I found myself smiling at his apparent carelessness. Michael looked so young and carefree in that moment, but seconds after I opened my mouth, he lost all of the apparent life from his eyes, their emerald color turning into a evergreen pigment, dark and harrowing if not offset by the words I spoke beforehand.

"I can't have children," I had said, setting off the reaction given by him. His face dropped, his laughter died in his throat, and his mind connected the dots as though it were the easiest puzzle within his mind. I didn't have a moment to preface my argument with Luke before he exploded in anger, stating that Luke was a dick for any type of statement that he made; however, I cut him off before he went any farther.

"Luke didn't say anything negative about it." Suddenly his anger dissolved, his eyes narrowed at me instead, asking me silently what I was upset about if Luke's reaction had been correct. "He-" I began to get choked up on my own words, finding it hard to speak with a giant lump invading my airway.

I bit my lip in an attempt to hide my tears and offset my sobs, but instead, they came on rapidly, tears rolling down my cheeks as Michael sat beside my frame quickly and wrapped his arms around me. His attempts to calm me were futile as I lost my composure completely, the thought of my unborn child dying within my own body becoming too much for me.

Here I was, the child's only source of protection in the world, and I had failed it by my body not being able to care for it in the way it needed me too. Although I knew that Luke and I would have never been able to protect it from the impeding war, I thought of the way it would have felt to hold my child within my arms, Luke standing above me with pride written across his face. But all of those theories and plans melted before my eyes as I found myself back in Michael's arms- childless and unable to conceive.

"He said he loved me," I cried, driving my head further into Michael's shoulder as I heard a curious sigh escape his lips. His sigh sounded heavy as though he knew this moment would make or break Luke and I's relationship, and he seemed to finally understand why I didn't want to reveal this to him: because if this was the end, this was when he chose a side.

His arms held me at arm's length from him, looking into my eyes as one of his hands came up to help wipe away my strewn tears. My heart slowly came back to its normal tempo, much to Michael's appreciation as he tried to calm me even further through his own breathing.

"What did you want him to say?" he asked, moving a stray piece of my blonde hair to be behind my ear. I could sense his agitation as he attempted to remain in the middle and not take sides; however, I knew the look on his face as he looked at me, it was one of disappointment as though he thought I had worked past my trust issues. Just by the look covering his face I knew that he was on Luke's side, but I couldn't blame him.

"I don't know," I whispered, sniffling lightly as I tried to hold myself together with the little motivation I had left. "I-" My voice broke as I tried to speak, the thoughts and visions I had before coming back into view. "I wanted him to be mad," I said curiously, suddenly finding my true feelings in the whole situation.

My response seemed to shock the blonde boy as he stared at me incredulously. By Michael's reaction, I knew I had opened my mouth too much and he wouldn't understand the feeling running through me at that moment. The curious look gleaming in his emerald green eyes spoke all of the words I needed as I attempted to stand up from the couch only to be pulled back down to answer all of Michael's questions.

"I wanted- no, craved. I craved with every inch of my being for him to be mad because if he was mad, then at least I knew that he wanted this baby, but right now," my voice trailed off, not wanting to finish my thought as my throat threatened to close up once again and tears invaded my vision. A flash of realization crossed Michael's face as he looked at me as though he couldn't believe what I was saying.

"Luke may be afraid of commitment sometimes, and he may be an ass at times too," he began, allowing me time to laugh at his corny jokes, but then he continued with his speech, wanting to get all of his thoughts out before I felt the need to leave again. "But Luke would never be upset about a baby with you Lissa," he whispered, holding my hand in his and rubbing my upside of my palm with his thumb.

"How do you know that?" I asked him dumbly, observing the way his smile lit up the room more than the lights littering the ceiling.

"Because," he paused for a moment, standing up and making his way toward the door to leave, "he loves you more than life itself."

"Lissa?" I heard from beside me as I shook my head to come back into the present time. My eyes diverted from the door and came to meet with Ashton's hazel ones for the first time since he entered the room. "Are you okay?" he asked curiously, leaning a bit further toward me in concern but backed away when he saw me nod my head.

"Yeah," I said hesitantly as I tried to recover from the flashback once again. I felt embarrassed at my scattered brain but brought my focus back to Ashton soon after I was left in my own thoughts."What did you need?" I asked, knowing that he was trying to ask for a favor.

He let out a sigh, relaxing into the couch he was sitting in before readjusting in his seat so that his was leaning forward with his arms resting on his knees. "With Bob on this war path, I don't know when he will kill the next one of us," he explained, one hand coming up to weave its way through his hair as all of the boys did when they became stressed out.

"And I have Riley to think about," he stated, never fully finishing the thought, but I knew what he was beginning to imply about Luke and I. My breath caught in my throat as I remembered the moment I had just been reliving moments before Ashton suggested this.

"You want me and Luke...." the words didn't make it past my lips, but somehow, Ashton knew what I meant and nodded his head quickly in affirmation. I swallowed the lump forming in my throat as I fought the urge to vomit on the rug in front of me.

"I need to make sure she is taken care of, Lissa," he spoke seriously, pausing when my eyes would lose contact with his as though he wanted to ensure that I was listening to every word he was speaking thoroughly. "I want her to have a normal life if I am not here," he whispered as though the thought of him leaving his younger sister pained him to a new extreme.

My heart broke as I saw the dirty blonde boy break down before me. I fought the urge to allow my tears to stream down my face as I watched the man that had survived multiple bullet wounds without so much as a flinch in some cases grimace in pain at the thought of leaving his baby sister to the care of two people he trusted. He wanted to be there for her, and that much was obvious to me.

"Ashton," my voice trailed off; however, those hazel eyes of his pierced through me, making me cower in fear as I hurriedly changed my tone. "You aren't going to die," I attempted to assure him, despite his shaking of his head and obvious objections to my mental reservations.

"Michael wasn't supposed to die either," he spat out furiously, making my body quake in fear as a shiver of remembrance ran through my cold body. The tears I tried to hold back finally streamed down my face as I narrowed my eyes at the boy in front of me.

"No," I spoke through gritted teeth, taking in his shocked expression as I nudged the brakes of my wheelchair and began moving for the door of the room quickly. "He wasn't supposed to die," I practically yelled over my shoulder as I saw the various memories of myself and Michael throughout the room as I rolled myself out.

Memories of the liveliness of this room flooded my mind as I compared those happier times to now when the cold and dullness of the room felt as though it were suffocating me to a greater extent than I had ever experienced in my life.

"Lissa," I heard Ashton call after me, causing me to stop moving and hope for an apology or some sort of saying of solace. Instead, I was caught off guard with his repeating of the question, "Will you and Luke take care of Riley if I die? I need an answer." I rolled my eyes at this, shaking my head at his informal way of asking and extremely impromptu time of doing so.

"Yes," I said finally, moving out of the room after the one word answer left my mouth. I didn't sense Ashton following me, signalling that he was no longer caring of my opinion since I agreed to take care of his younger sister in the event of his death.

'Why did I agree to that?' I asked myself that question my entire way home, but the only answer I could come up with is that I didn't want Riley to be stuck in a system of random colonist's families taking her in and trying to take Ashton's place in her life. At least with Luke and I, maybe Riley would feel more at home and would open up to us a bit more than a group of strangers.

'Maybe Riley would be able to actually find some solace in Ashton's death if we were able to be by her side throughout all of trying times,' I tried to reason with myself, but when I reach mine and Luke's shared room, I realized how large of a step this was. The feeling of guilt settled into my stomach as I recalled the way I agreed to it without consulting Luke, but then again, it would never come down to that, right?

It would never come down to that because they were going to kill Bob, and at that moment, I couldn't have been more welcome to the idea of that.