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Amo had learned that time tended to blend together when your mind decided to punish you.
She squeezed her eyes tightly as she bundled herself in her soft blankets, curled into a ball. She was tired. She wanted to sleep. But her brain decided once again to make it as difficult as possible.
Amo reminded herself that she was no longer in her sad, walled garden but instead free and surrounded by good people. That didn’t mean that she could no longer feel the ghost of Mister’s clammy hands on her skin, sour breath clouding over her face with his concentrated efforts and claims of “love”.
She hugged herself as she recalled the times she had the strength to try and fight back, stand up for herself, not lose herself entirely. All she received in return were slaps, punches, pinching of skin and twisting until she shrieked.
“You’re mine! You’re mine and you do as I say, you little bitch!”
How could she have thought that was normal for so long? Those “rituals” did not feel like love.
They felt like nothing but pain.
She had been so small when it started.
It hurt more than anything. And all she could do was remember.
Amo unravelled herself from her fluffy cocoon and sat up, legs hanging over the side of her bed. She reached over for her boots, slipping her slim legs inside them and immediately feeling better. They had opened her heart, made her more human.
Amo couldn’t turn off her brain but she could go for a walk. At least she had the freedom to do that now.
She slipped her baggy pink zip hoodie over her large t-shirt and sleep shorts. Tomme had gifted it to her. It was soft and warm and Amo wished once again that her mother had been someone like Tomme instead. Her life surely would’ve turned out differently then.
Opening her bedroom door, she slipped out and wandered around the halls as she attempted to quiet her mind. The walls of the Cleaners HQ were covered in posters and various forms of graffiti, random statues also painted over in various scribbles that were unclear under the low light.
Amo absently wondered if getting a glass of water would help before she realised she had found her way outside of Rudo’s door without meaning to. She slowed and stood still, head turned towards it. She clenched and unclenched her hands, fingers hidden in the large, comfy sleeves of her sweatshirt.
Should she knock? Amo almost lifted her hand but took a step back instead. Wouldn’t that disturb him? She knew Rudo well enough by now to be aware that he wasn’t much of a sleeper but what if this was the one night he had finally found it in himself to relax? She bit her lip and then moved forward again, raising her hand to knock anyway. She felt a little bad but she made sure to do it lightly enough that if he was up he would hear it but if he was asleep, his slumber would go without interruption.
A moment passed and Amo let out a soft breath, ready to keep walking before the door swung open with Rudo blinking at her from the other side. His lamp was on and there appeared to be various tools on his desk. As usual, he wasn’t sleeping at all.
“Amo, hey.”
His voice was soft and hushed to reflect the time of day. Amo liked how it sounded. She fidgeted a little bit, looking at her boots.
“...Amo couldn’t sleep. Can she come in?” she asked, looking through her lashes.
He nodded wordlessly and opened the door wider for her to enter. She shuffled inside and he closed and locked his door. Rudo sat at his desk again and reached out his hand, beckoning Amo forward. She smiled and took his hand allowing him to pull her into his lap, sitting sideways and resting her head on his shoulder. He had fixed up an old office chair that was cosy and roomy enough for the both of them to fit comfortably in moments like these.
Rudo made sure she was secure before continuing with what he was doing before she knocked. He was now holding a screwdriver as he secured a set of screws into an old music box, the paint dulled and scratched from the passage of time.
The quiet intimacy of the moment made Amo a little nervous, as if the slightest wrong move would cause everything to crumble and Rudo would push her to the floor and kick her out, maybe scream and call her names just like that man did. It didn’t stop her from craving the closeness though as she lightly gripped Rudo’s soft undershirt.
And she knew he would never do that but it wasn’t always easy to break away from the patterns you have grown used to.
But there was a new routine in place now. Amo and Rudo had become close, closer than she ever thought she could be to another person in a way that didn’t make her want to run and hide and scream. Their days were coloured by hand holding and soft hugs in pockets of silence that were hidden away from prying eyes. It wasn’t clear what they were but they gladly held onto each other in the liminal space they had built for themselves.
Amo and Rudo had once hurt each other. But they had both said sorry. He had saved her after she was abducted. All either of them had ever wanted was someone to reach out their hand, to understand, for the world to stop rejecting them and all their efforts of normalcy. Amo had long since decided that meeting Rudo was fate.
She closed her eyes and smiled into his shirt.
“You okay?” Rudo murmured.
“Amo’s just happy. Happy she met Rudo and they became friends.”
Rudo swallowed and his heart started to thud harder in his chest. He wished she wouldn’t say such sweet things. His hands shook slightly, nerves coming from nowhere as his cheeks flushed lightly.
He looked at his gloved hands. Hands that held Amo’s own at every opportunity. Hands that had once made her bleed.
Rudo set the music box down and held the girl close, breathing in the sweet scent of her hair. They had hurt each other once but not now - not ever again.
He wondered how he had ever found someone like her. Someone just like him. They just fit together like a puzzle, perfectly aligned and securely in place. It felt like they were the last of their kind and had by some miracle found their way to each other.
“What was Rudo fixing this time?” Amo asked.
Rudo opened his eyes and reached for the object on his desk, a hand still resting on her thigh.
“A music box. Though if I could fix it, I could give it to you as a gift,” he responded bashfully.
He pulled it towards her.
“Give it a try.”
Amo held the music box as if it was a most precious object, tracing the lines and faded patterns across its surface. She then wound the handle, turning it until she felt resistance and set it down as the soft tinkling of its song filled the quiet room.
Amo sat forward now, nestled between Rudo’s legs as wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his head into her shoulder.
“Amo wishes she had met Rudo earlier,” she whispered. “Even if her mama had still given her to Mister, at least she would’ve had the memory of kind hands to make everything stop hurting so much. Would she be a different person altogether?”
Or maybe this was who she was always supposed to be. Before the trauma, before the fighting for her life. Was she always meant to be this person or was there a version of herself that was nothing like the Amo she was now?
Amo had no idea but in the infinite now, she had met Rudo and she was so glad that they had crossed paths. She was no longer the lonely and defensive girl she had been before. She didn’t believe she really needed an answer anyway.
Rudo’s walls had been so, so high. They still were. But Amo had a way of tearing down his defences with little effort. He hugged her tighter.
The music box’s tune ran its course and they were plunged into silence once again, basking in the tranquility and each other.
“Amo loves it, Rudo.”
Flushing, he just grunted a thanks into her shoulder before peeking out from the strands of her hair.
“Amo. Can you stay?” Rudo mumbled.
She nodded.
He pushed his chair back and they both stood, walking over to his bed. Rudo practically flopped down and Amo let out a laugh as she sat to slip off her boots first.
They lay down facing each other, bodies curling together and limbs intertwining. The bed wasn’t that big but it was fine; neither were they.
“Oh, the light!” Amo exclaimed.
“It’s okay,” Rudo said. “I…want to see your face.
He looked serious, almost mad, but Amo knew this wasn’t the case. It was a look that crossed his face whenever they did things like this. He rested a hand on her waist and she cupped his face in her small hands.
It was a miracle that two children who were as damaged as they were still found it in themselves to be as gentle as they had become.
Amo’s thumb brushed against Rudo’s cheek and he closed his eyes, brows furrowed as he accepted the warmth of her touch.
He pulled her closer still and opened his ruby eyes before reaching to place a soft kiss on her forehead. Amo closed her eyes in contentment and Rudo did it again and again, soft as a feather. His blush was raging and he was twitching slightly but he still held on to her.
It felt different to all the times she had been kissed before. There was no force, no clawing, just a gentle gesture that said “I’m here”. Amo liked it a lot.
They shifted again and she rested her head against his chest and he had her tucked under his chin, the warmth of her body relaxing him and he felt his eyes droop.
For all the pain no could understand, for all the ache others could never comprehend, they would be there for each other.
In this landscape full of dust and disorder, it suddenly felt as if there was no one else but Amo and Rudo and Rudo and Amo and everything was good even if it was a feeling only to exist between the few delicate hours between the darkness and the dawn.
Amo felt her mind get fuzzier around the edges, softness coating the harsh, blaring emotions she had been feeling in her own room. Rudo’s arms felt safe and secure around her, the pressure of his hug keeping her tethered to this world.
Amo’s arms grounded Rudo, her hug telling him that he was no longer “nothing”, that he had always been someone after all. He felt like she turned him inside out but in a good way, like he was becoming anew every time he was around her. The pain in his hands dulled to a more tingly, buzzy sensation as his veins flooded with an emotion he couldn’t quite place.
Quietly, Amo’s voice more of a breath than a whisper, came the words, “Rudo is Amo’s true first love.”
The sleepy strokes of her hair were painstakingly gentle.
As they fell into slumber, neither of them let go.