When We're Older- The Maze Runner (Newt)

should've brought mae

YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING WTF NUMBER ONE IN FANDOM I LOVE YOU

As we drove, and I wrote in my tattered leather covered journal, I tried my best to not look out of the window at the world flying by.

My heart was heavy, but the only thing that I could do was shove all of those feelings deep inside the jar so that the only way they could come out was in word vomit form. My journal has seen more of me, and of this long, uninvited journey than anyone else. Even Mae. Some of the things that I haven't told her, only two people know. And one of them is dead. Killed by a Griever trying to save the love of my life so that I possibly wouldn't have to face any more pain than I have already in my short two and a half years of life.

Truth is, I think about the one's that we've lost all the time. The little twelve year old boy who sacrificed himself for the good of the people who had no idea where they were going. I still remember thinking that I was going to lose Mae. When Minho pulled her back and threw the spear right at Gally's chest, he not only saved her life, but he saved mine again as well. I still don't think she knows it was him—her head hit the ground pretty hard. I don't think she really cared who saved her either. The girl was only focused on the draining life of one of her best friends. After all, the last thing that boy did was give her and Tommy something to remember him by. He smiled as he faced his death.

I think that was finally when we realized that this was all real. When a twelve year old got murdered in front of us. Although we had seen a few deaths before then—Ben, Alby, Clint, Jeff—the realization that we were finally out, and we were going to face the world for the first time we can remember really set in.

I remembered that video. Ava Paige faking her own suicide. I remember how I didn't look away.

The reality of all of it seemed like one giant, fat, bloody joke to me.

Trapping kids in a Maze, then waiting for them to find a way to escape day after day. Maybe that's the reason Thomas was sent to us in the Box. Because we were taking too long and not making any progress. The things that changed in those three or four days made me question my sanity. Not just the fact that Ben had gotten stung during the day, or that three people survived a night in the Maze, bringing back another unconscious one, and the fact that another girl showed up. But it was also my buggin' feelings.

My whole life, we had been doing things by a routine. Including when Mae got here. After we got used to the fact that she was the only girl in the Maze, we continued to go about our days like normal. Sometimes it felt like she'd always been there.

But when things started to change, things between us did as well.

The moment I realized I had feelings for her was when the stone doors closed, separating us from each other for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime. We did everything together. Work, eat, our rooms were right next to each other... She had become the part of me I never knew I had been missing.

When I thought I lost her, I lost a part of myself that night as well.

Even though things ended up working out—she came back alive and unharmed, and we eventually got together, I still slap myself in the face for not growing a pair and telling her that I liked her in a friend way sooner. We could've had so much more time to just be with each other rather then running away from something different every five minutes and hoping that one of us didn't die.