By this time I was gasping and he was trembling. He pulled back and looked at me, the air so charged between us I felt like everyone in the world must be feeling this heat.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered then, and I felt tears pricking my eyes. Because I believed it. Because in that moment under the moon, under his gaze I felt it. As if just by his touch, he’d erased every scar that crisscrossed my flesh.

In that moment I felt like everything was alive. The world was new again and nothing but hope. When he pulled me down to the mattress and pressed against me, it was the first night in my life that I drifted into an easy sleep, a smile so wide on my face I was sure it would break me.

When I woke up, Elias was gone. He finally came home as the afternoon sun burned down around me, as my entire mind had been consumed with a frantic worry. In his arms he carried a Recruiter uniform. He’d signed up that morning and would leave for training in the evening.

Every day, the pain of that moment has scored through me. The humiliation and anger and misery and rejection. So many emotions that churn over me, always forcing me to feel it all fresh again and again—never in my life had I felt so ugly and unwanted.

And what took root that day has done nothing but thrive and bloom ever since.

I’ve drifted so deep asleep that the shift of air in the room and the sound of footsteps doesn’t wake me at first. It isn’t until hands grip my arms that I’m able to struggle awake, muscles tense to lash out until I see who’s holding me.

Elias. He kneels in front of me, shaking me gently. “Annah,” he says softly. His voice makes heat flare across my skin and my stomach drop.

A look of relief flickers across his face when I open my eyes and he falls back until he’s seated next to me, legs crossed, knee brushing my thigh. My mind flashes to the memory of him—the feel of his hands on my body—and I take a deep breath.

“I was terrified something happened to you,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I wasn’t sure where else to go.” There’s only one lantern lit and it casts weak light around us, making it seem almost as though we’re underwater.

After Elias left for the Recruiters I dreamed of this moment: him coming home. Me seeing him again, finally. I’ve had this conversation with him so many ways and in so many places. I’ve imagined his voice, his expressions, the feel of his hands along my body.