It starts off as a joke. They’re both sitting together in something that could have been a sofa. There are no more sofas now. Just places to sit. Either everything’s a sofa or nothing is. They’ve been sleeping closer, now. They’re closer. After forgiveness, the friendship that was born back in the clinic has started to grow deeper. Ivy learns from him the same way he learns from her. Sometimes she bites her nails. She’s got nightmares too. She doesn’t drink too much and he certainly is one of a kind when love comes in the way. Who could have said it would be Logan? She tells him about Sloan. It takes her more to talk about Braxton. People has left. But they haven’t.Booze is wasted, such as laughter, as they’re joking sitting one next to the other, snuggling close so no one wakes up or finds them.Things teenagers are supposed to do. Even if he’s older, it doesn’t feel like. For a moment, Ivy wonders if he’d ever kissed a girl. He’s just nineteen. How many girls do you kiss before you turn nineteen? It’s been a lot since someone even kissed her and it makes her cheeks go red, to think about something so trivial. And it feels nice having a friend.So when Isaac jokes about it, about the fact that he could literally kiss her right now, --- she brings out another bottle she found and kept for them --- a little spark lights up the big room, where the breeze gets in by the cracks of the windows. And it’s clumsy and stupid. They try. He literally tries to kiss her and she tries not to laugh. Part of her has wondered how would it be, to kiss someone you enjoy so much. But it’s not like in the movies. It’s not even romantic. It feels like trying to kiss your neighbour, the one who’s lived in front of you for the past 13 years. And the excitement she once created, back in the days she thought about kissing him for real disappears. Even though it certainly does something.
“ Still gay? ” His lips part hers when she asks.Laughter fills the air. “ Still gay. ”Then it happens again. Runners. Clickers. Lord even know what it is this time. They part as easy as their lips did that one night. Her hair smells like running and survival. This time it’s easier to think about letting it all go. Everything’s burning again. Months pass. Forests, eating rabbits, animals she used to thing you had to take care of. Lose. And no one knows what age she is anymore or who survived so far.Who the fuck is Ivy Holloway or why does she even remember her name? People talk about a new haven. She doesn’t believe in civilization. She still has nightmares and she sleeps in the top of trees, closer to the sky. She remembers going back looking for people and having to run away. It’s Falling City everywhere. She laughs at her own jokes and slams a clickers head with her shoes. She can barely find water to drink. And wherever he is, he certainly misses water too, right? Though something tells her, all of them would do better on survival. One night she thinks it’s him bringing her some water. It’s a clicker that almost gets her killed.How many times do you die before you take your last breath? How many days can you take this any longer? She’s walking alone in the middle of the motorway. So when Isaac runs against the concrete with her two feet to stop her and shouts her name, the little spark of hope Sloan settled in her dying heart can’t compete with the moonlight until she turns around to see him.Then they look at each other. She’s skinnier, he’s too. It’s clumsy how they’re trying to prove to each other that they’re not an illusion. His arm tries to recognize her arm by touching it. They’re dancing face to face like animals.
They might be the only ones left alive. Then they grab each other, as if their bodies should collide before their minds can react, and they kiss each others faces the only way they know now: violently and recklessly. Every fucking freckle deserves a kiss.And it tastes like sand and dust, like walking a thousand miles to be back home. Then his lips, when they mistake their in their way to hold their faces close, front to front, barely caress hers by accident.Then it feels like being Ivy Holloway, the teen, again.
