The first time Jack fell in love with Anya, he didn’t even know her name.
He’d been in solitary for three days, so hungry and weak he wasn’t sure what was real, stuck in a half-dream where the Refuge was a Western jail. He’d barely heard the knock, and even when he did, it took an effort to get to the door.
He was dizzy, but when his eyes focused, the girl looked like an angel—and better yet, she passed him some water and a potato.
She was only there a moment before a noise down the hall made her run, but that moment meant everything. Her image was burned into Jack’s mind: a savior and friend.
*The second time he fell in love, they were huddled together in a freezing cell, desperately trying to stay warm and keep their hopes up. They had shared so many bad times, and now they shared their dreams, Jack telling Anya about Santa Fe, and she about her childhood in Russia, both of them seeming so out-of-reach.
Jack kept saying he’d help her, and Anya kept saying she didn’t want him to get hurt. But Anya was his friend, and the rush of protectiveness, the willingness to fight for her, told him she was as good as family.
*The third time he fell in love, he’d thought Anya was dead.
There was no other explanation for why she was gone—not in the Refuge, not at the trial, not in the wagon of kids who’d been rescued with Crutchy. Anya had been so sick, so often, that Jack had finally accepted what he thought was the hard truth.
But then she was standing on the courthouse steps, and they’d run to each other, and she’d kissed him, and he’d kissed her. He didn’t know what was happening, or what was right. He only knew Anya was still alive.
*The fourth time he fell in love, it was from one kind of love to another.
He barely remembered the night before, only that Snyder’s sentencing had been postponed yet again, and he and Anya had walked over to Medda’s, and now his head was pounding, but she was asleep in his arms.
…No, she wasn’t. She was crying.
Jack frowned, pulling her closer and cracking an eye open. The dim light hurt his eyes. “Whatsamatta?” he mumbled, still mostly asleep.
Anya just whispered “Jack—” and put a hand on his chest. –His bare chest. Jack sat up, confused, and then realization hit. He swore, scrambling back, figuring out where they were, what had happened—
He swore again, suddenly crushed by a weight of guilt. “Anya,” he said, his voice shaking, “I’m so sorry—”
He expected her to hate him, but instead she clung to him, sobbing into his chest so he felt the hot tears on his skin. “No, I am sorry,” she whispered. “I was so scared—of Snyder, and—I should not have drank so much—”
“No, I shouldn’t’ve either, I—hell, Anya—” He wrapped his arms around her, feeling lower than he ever had, knowing nothing could make up for what he’d done. What they’d done. He should have known better.
He pressed a kiss to her hair, knowing all too well what the gesture meant. Last night, in a fear-driven whiskey-flooded haze, he thought he’d loved her like someone in Medda’s songs. But now he knew better. He loved her—but not like that.
He didn’t know if she still loved him.
*The fifth time he fell in love, it was too late.
He was out on the fire escape, Anya’s last letter in his shaking hand while the five-year-old son he’d never known they’d had sat inside with Sarah.
He didn’t know what to do. A kid, a wife, a dead friend whose love for their boy was tangible even in someone else’s transcription.
Jack hadn’t seen Anya for five years, but he could still picture her face, the one he’d seen through the bars of the Refuge, and then so many places beyond. They’d just been so young. Maybe it would have worked, and maybe it wouldn’t, but it just…
…This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Jack didn’t know what she was anymore; a sister, a former love, maybe simply a close friend. But now she was gone.
He folded the letter, slipping it back into its envelope, and then tucking the envelope into his vest pocket.
He didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he still, in some way, loved her, and he always would.
He opened the window, climbing back inside, seeing so much of Anya in the little boy at the table.
Jack didn’t know him yet, but he’d learn. And then he knew he’d love him too, just as much.
