Cover Your Tracks [HS][2014 VERSION]

63. Kiss Me

"I've been feeling everything from hate to love, from love to lust, from lust to truth; I guess that's how I know you. So I hold you close to help you give it up . . ."

It's no secret that I'd always dreamed of leaving my old life and starting anew. Uncountable nights were spent imagining what would be in store, what the new chapter would hold once I dared to flip the page. Daydreaming of a different life was easy.

Living it was hard.

It was not until I was stumbling across a vacant tarmac with a swollen ankle and bags thrown carelessly across my back that my choice finally started to weigh heavily on my shoulders. It was in that moment that I realized that the weight of my backpack at school paled in comparison to the luggage that nearly broke me down now. All of my belongings were there—packed up and tearing away at what little strength I had left.

Our new home was dim-lit and more vacant than the first, a row of rooms positioned on the poor side of a town that I knew not the name of. Roads, towns—they meant little to me now. My only concern involved taking care of my injury and keeping pace with the boy whom I traveled so determinedly with.

He carries the majority of our belongings across the dark lot. The plastic bags that had held my attention over the past few days hang from his arms like plastic waterfalls, rustling in the wind that blows our hair so viciously around our heads. Mine, grown to the point of ending just between my shoulder blades, covers my eyes and blocks my view as I follow him across the large expanse of asphalt.

"Nearly there," he encourages half-heartedly, the freezing temperatures tearing away at his once lively resolve. His complexion is flushed with a soft shade of pink around his nose and eyes. The sight has me rushing to catch up with his long legs, pressing my body into his side so as to provide a bit of warmth and shield him from the harsh wind.

It was the least I could do, for he'd given me his coat to take shelter in the moment we stepped out of the car.

The attempt is feeble, my body not enough to warm his the way that I want to. The structure of a man I'd learned to lean on trembles before me and I worry that he'll soon crumble and collapse. We were wearing unbearably thin and I only prayed that we would soon find warmth and shelter to last us through the frigid night.

The last ounce of hope I have is diminished at the sight of the sign hanging within the apartment's lobby. Powered by a cord that runs down the window and across the carpeted floor, the neon sign flickers behind a thin pane of glass that traps heat inside the building in which we so desperately wish to take refuge. The transitions are slow and weak, a reflection of the two cold bodies staring at their own mirrored image in the foggy glass.

The language that leaves Harry's mouth is full of color, a vast contrast to the black and white image before me. The glass, dark with the night, and the two people that stand morosely just beyond its walls. White, thick smoke billows out from his mouth and rises until it dissolves in the air. He then stands beside me, a distraught look commandeering his frozen features.

Looking to me, his eyes are pleading.

"We can go back to the car. . ." His head spins around the parking lot as if a fire will appear, inviting us to draw closer and absorb its warmth. Green, electric eyes frantic and desperate. There's uncertainty and embarrassment in ushering me back to the car.

The door nearest to us is opened for me. I don't waste any time in climbing back inside of the vehicle and tucking my legs away as the door is shut behind me, trapping me inside the otherwise unoccupied, spacious vehicle. Harry rushes to the back and opens the trunk. The back seats are folded down before he climbs inside, all panting breath and shaking limbs and curly, damp mop of hair falling in his eyes.