Chapter fifty-three

After four months, Ada thought she was getting pretty good with a drop kick. She felt so despite Bruce  yelling at her that she'll never get it.

Everyone was so wound up and edgy, especially Steve. She thought about how much she used to love him. So much that it hurt. So much that it felt better to let him go than to live with having less than all of him to herself. When he slept with Jane that night, she had actually felt relieved. He was already building walls between them, pulling away from her, showing annoyance with her.
She was in agony thinking she was losing him, but she wasn't really losing him. He wanted to experiment-- see what was on the other side of the fence. She knew he still loved her. At one point in her life, what Steve did wouldn't even have bothered her. But then again, it's easy not to be possessive if you don't feel true love. She could have forgiven him--taken him back--but she felt so much better in heartbreak than in love, she decided not to .

Now she had Chako. Steve showed her what real love is. Chako showed her that you can find it twice.

She still loved Steve, just like Jane still loved him. It's hard not to love Steve once you know the man inside the clown. He was so genuine and guileless--not in the childish way of the Iowees, but in a manly way, the way of a true man of honor--a knight in shining armor. He felt things so deeply, and was so shameless in acting on his principals, even when he got on his soapbox, or said something to hurt your feelings, it never made you mad, because you knew he was real, it was never about winning arguments, or oneupmanship with Steve. It was always about his heart. What he had inside.

Seeing him so committed to preparing himself to actually fight, and maybe die to free the Natives on that Island only reinforced to everyone that all those fits of anger, all the rants, the almost embarrassing loyalty to Damian, everything that he has said and done over the years was really Steve. He was a very unique man, and all the women who loved him, Jane, Michelle, herself were enamored of him.

She was glad that Damian and Steve were so determined to liberate those people. And she was happy to have a role in it.
She just wished she felt better about their odds of success. They can train forever, and all become as good a fighter as Bruce, but eleven Bruces against fifty Bruces still adds up to defeat.
She knew the men were working on a strategy to even the odds some, but she couldn't stop herself from adding up the numbers and believing they were going to die on that Island.

Sometimes she thought about Sheba; saw pictures in her mind of the big cat tearing through that compound in a fury. It was the one thing that shone light on the darkness of her fear.