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The world has ended, but jerk-offs still have a leg up.
‘Are you OK?’ he asks. Absolutely not. ‘Yeah.’
‘My single mother raised me alone for sixteen years. Then, when the world was burning down around us, she taught me how to administer your medication, dress your wounds and wrap your leg. Then, for a good thirty pages of the notebook she wrote all this in, she was sick and dying. And not once did she make the sounds you made yesterday.’
What happened was bad. But that doesn’t make you a bad person.’
I like listening to him.
Andrew takes the explosion as a moment to whisper into my ear. ‘Hear that? They got lady marines in these parts.’ I snort and whisper back, ‘I hate you.’ ‘You love me.’
Andrew is probably awake, too. He’s probably lying there, listening to the same sounds I am and thinking about me. I would like him to be thinking about me. It makes me feel a little less strange if he thinks about me, too.
With Andrew it doesn’t feel temporary. If someone put a gun to my head and said ‘Imagine your future without him’, I don’t think it would be possible.
Cara looks up from the road atlas at me. ‘Do you want to learn about your new friend or do you want to keep talking?’ Jamie snorts. ‘I wouldn’t give him the option.’
‘You love him.’
‘I don’t flirt shamelessly.’ ‘No. But when he tells movies, you watch him, and if he stands up and gets too close to the fire, you watch his feet and move your arms towards him. And she used to do something similar that you do. When Andrew’s telling a story about you both, you tense up a bit because you don’t know if it’s going to be embarrassing or sweet. But either way you have the same smile on your face at the end of it.’
Andrew’s the only person who’s been with me this whole time. I’ve been wishing for someone to talk to about this, but it’s been him all along. He’s the only one who’s left.
But protecting Andrew is something I would do in a heartbeat. I would do anything for him.
I’m not going to die like this. We aren’t going to die with a shitty goodbye kiss where I couldn’t run my fingers through his hair or feel his hands against mine.
Andrew smiles, attempting to help me through it. Are you trying to tell me you love me?’ ‘Thank you, yes. I am. I love you.’ I’m crying now. And I will always love you.’
We’re facing the end and it’s not OK but it is. It’s all OK. The world ended and there’s nothing left but shit. And him. Us.
‘You can use my shirt to wipe your snot,’ he says. ‘If we’re going to die, I’d rather you not kiss me one final time and confess your love to me with snot flying out of your nose.’ I take him up on his offer and rub my face against his shoulder. He laughs. ‘This is why I love you,’ I say. ‘Exactly this. I was so scared before you got here.’ I don’t clarify, but I mean the cabin. I was lost without him and I would have died, I know that now. I never would have been able to survive another year alone in that cabin. ‘You make me feel safe. Like the world hasn’t ended and there’s nothing left.
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‘Hey,’ I say as he stands again. He looks down, determined, on edge. ‘Kiss me.’
‘I love you.’ ‘Stop saying it like I’m dying.’ ‘You have a hole in your stomach.’ ‘It’s only a flesh wound.’
Everything in the world’s gone to shit but he’s still here.
Why did we even come all this way? It started out as me trying to do the right thing, but for what? So I could feel better about killing two people who also tried to kill me? Ask me if I feel better.
It’s karma, but Jamie doesn’t deserve it. Karma has the wrong person. Jamie did nothing but love me and save me and I can’t save him.
