Do you love me?

It all started because I wouldn’t stop. Nor did I want to stop. Everybody warned me, my family warned me, my friends warned me, hell even you warned me. But you warned me not to stay away but to never leave you because there would serious consequences if I were to leave.

But one day something happened, we went on a mission and I got hurt. You left me because you thought I was dead and you didn’t want ‘dead’ weight holding you back from your escape. But I survived and was extracted from the scene, put in hospital and was left to recover for a few months from my injuries. You never came to visit me, why would you? You thought I was already dead so why would anyone tell you that I was still alive. But I know you knew, I saw a single white rose in my hospital room. I knew it was from you, you are the only one who knows that white roses are my favourite flower.

A few years later and I am now working as a freelance agent, do anything and everything for the highest bidder, until one day when I am walking through the airport with my best friend after coming home from a working vacation. You have me followed by another one of your agents you have them detain me at the airport for relentless questioning about nonsense that have no correlation with what I was doing in Spain. Then you walk in, I know you’re there but I don’t acknowledge your presence. I continue to talk to the other agent, he looks at you, he nods and he leaves me with you. I turn my attention to you, I look at you with distain and hatred. You smile at me knowing exactly what it does to me.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ I spit out.

‘Just seeing for myself if it was true.’ You say walking closer to me.

‘You know it’s true. You gave me a white rose.’ I scoff. You smile your cocky smile then you lean over the table to look at me, you’re crowding me. I know you are doing and its not going to work. I stare into your eyes, suck my teeth and make it known to you that you can’t make me fall for you again.

‘I hear you are freelancing now?’ You ask me with your trademark smile.

‘Yeah, since you left me for dead, and clearly MI6 didn’t want me anymore, so I decided to use the skills that you taught me, to be my own agent.’ I say standing up to match your stance.

I try very hard not to think about the feeling of your hot breath on my face, the lost look in your big beautiful eyes, you look like you have aged a lot in only the last few years almost like you have been worried.

‘Why are you here, Thomas?’ I ask you.

‘I need your help.’ You whisper almost to low for me to hear. But I still heard it, I am feeling cocky now.

‘I-I’m sorry, what did you say, tough guy?’ I ask you.

‘I need your help.’ You say with a defeated sigh. I smile widely, I stand up and fold my arms.

‘You need my help? This really is delicious. You, Thomas Pritchard, MI6’s best spy needing help from a freelancer? Can you really be that pathetic?’ I say laughing hysterically. I watch you as your face becomes both angry and upset.

‘I didn’t want to leave you.’ You says with tears in his eyes.

‘But you did. You could have taken me with you.’ I say with a growl.

‘I carried you out of that place and into a hospital. That was me, I made sure that you were okay and I left you there. Was I annoyed that you ruined our last mission? Yes. Was I so scared about seeing you in that hospital that I made sure that you were asleep so I could sneak into your room and leave that rose for you and then slip out without you ever knowing I was there? Yes.’ You say lowering your head in shame.

‘Are you serious?’ I say to you.

‘What?’ You ask.

‘You get one of you lackeys to snatch me up so you can stage a fake rescue? Come on, is that really the best you can do?’ I scoff. You raise your head to look at me, you smirk at me.

‘Well, at least I was gracious enough to pick you up at the airport.’ You say to me as you place your hand on my arm. I look down at your hand.

‘Really? You think that your hypnotic smile and dazzling eyes are just going to make me magically forgive you?’ I ask you staring you in the eye.

You boldly place your arm around my waist and you bring me closer to you. We never break eye contact because we know that the first one to break is going to lose and I can’t lose, but neither can you.

‘You said it yourself, I have a hypnotic smile and dazzling eyes you could never, ever resist watching me, lusting after me. You don’t think I hadn’t noticed the way you looked at me when we worked together?’ You say, you place your free hand to lightly caress my cheek. I still never take my eyes away from yours.

‘You’re not going to win this fight. But you don’t think I didn’t notice the way you looked at me too?’ I ask with a raised eyebrow.

‘Excuse me?’ You ask faking offence.

‘I have seen the way you look me. You want me too. It’s just a shame we never actually did anything.’ I say with a smirk.

‘Yes, because that it what you decided.’ You continue as you move your face closer to mine.

‘What I decided? Like hell, this was all you. I would have loved to have jumped your bones the second I saw you. It was you that wasn’t interested in me.’ I say moving closer to you until we are only centimetres apart.

As I feel your hot breath on my face I begin to tremble and let out shaky breaths. You can sense that I’m about to fold, crack, break.

‘What do you want, Thomas?’ I whisper to you. You just look into my eyes and smile shyly. Because even though you talk a big game, but you are a very shy person.

‘All I want is you. All I ever wanted was you.’ You whisper.

‘What do you want to do?’ I respond.

‘I want you. But not here.’ You say.

‘Will you tell me what happened that day?’ I ask.

‘What day?’ You ask me, taken aback by the sudden question.

‘The day I got hurt.’ I reply.

You move away from me and begin pacing the room. You run your hand through your hair and lean against cold steal table before you.

‘All you need to know, is that you are okay and that we are both here, now.’ You oversimplify.

‘Alright, whatever, don’t tell me.’ I counter as I take a pendant out from inside my shirt and begins playing with it. You see it and you take it from me.

‘You still have it.’ You chuckle as you look at the heart-shaped locket in your hand.

‘Of course I do. The second you gave it to me, I never took it off.’ I say poking your body. I watch you flinch. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘Nothing, it’s nothing.’ You say swatting my hands away as I try to raise your shirt up.

‘Come on. You never flinch when I poke you. So come on, what’s wrong?’ I ask as I go to poke you again.

‘Fine, fine, I was out in the field yesterday and I kind of got shot.’ You say flinching.

‘Kind- of- what?’ I almost scream.

‘Don’t worry I was wearing a bulletproof vest.’ You say waving it off. I roll my eyes and I lift up your shirt to find that you are wrapped up in bandages.

‘Yeah, that makes it all better. But you are still hurt. Is this why you need me? Because you don’t have your full range of motion?’ I ask in a matter-of-fact tone. You sigh when you know that I am right. ‘Do you want to go?’ You push your shirt back down and whack my hands away again.

‘Let’s go. You’ll need this.’ You say giving me a gas mask.

‘What? Why?’ I ask taking the gas from you. I watch you put on your mask. I follow your lead and I put on my mask.

‘The city hasn’t exactly kept up with the clean air since the revolution.’ You explain. I look up at you with worry.

You offer me your elbow and I take it and you lead me out of the room and back into the airport. As we walk I see many people wearing gas masks just like we are. I have never been so scared about breathing the air around me before. When we walk out of airport I see what has become of the beautiful city I grew up in.

‘What happened here?’ I ask.

‘Nuclear war happened.’ You say taking my hand.

‘This is why you need my help?’ You lead me away from the sight before us. I can’t help but look at it as we walk away.

‘Here.’ You give me a gun and a sword.

‘What are these for?’ I ask cocking the gun and strapping the sword to my hips.

‘That locket I gave you. It’s an important piece of evidence into what happened here. The new breed of humans that have bread from the noxious gas surrounding us.’ I look down at my locket and I grab ahold of it involuntarily, like I do when I start to stress.

‘How many people are going to want it?’ I ask.

‘Too many people. So we have to go now.’ You say as you take my hand and lead me toward your car.

We get in the car and start driving. I just watch from the passenger side window as the town I once loved crumbling before me. You know that I’m worried and you place your hand in mine and squeeze it tight. You know what we have to do and I will follow your lead, wherever you may go and that will never change.