I was 12 when I fell in love with Ellie, 13 when I knew it. By 14, I had confessed to her that I liked her. To my surprise, she liked me back and soon we started dating.
We were young and in love. We were convinced we'd be together forever. That once we graduated, we'd go off and get married and have a family and live one of those fairy tale endings; happily ever after and whatnot. We were so naïve.
One night, Ellie's parents had gone off to a party or something and told her they wouldn't be home till the next morning. They also told her not to have any friends over. Which is why she called me and, being the hopeless romantic I am, I insisted on climbing through the window to her bedroom.
We were lying in her bed in the dark and the silence. I was staring up at the ceiling as Ellie was curled into my side, her head on my chest, our legs tangled together. The clock on her nightstand read 1:00am, but I didn't feel tired. Neither did she. So, we just lied there.
"What do you think your parents are gonna say if they catch us tomorrow?" I finally asked.
"Well, imagine in the future, if we have a daughter and we go out for the night telling her not to have friends over and when we come home, we find her in her bed naked with her boyfriend. How would you react?" asked Ellie.
"I'd probably kill the bastard."
"That's whats gonna happen to you."
"Comforting."
Ellie chuckled. I smiled and kissed her head.
"I wonder if we should be thinking that far ahead," Ellie commented. "We're only 16. Should we really be thinking about marriage and kids when we're not even out of high school?"
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Well, my parents have been telling me recently that young love doesn't last forever and I shouldn't be thinking about the future so much because there's a 90% chance it's not gonna happen."
I hated Ellie's parents sometimes. Yeah sure, they were nice people, but they loved raining on Ellie's parade. They did it constantly. The first time I met them, I swore they compared her to her older sister at least 10 times, telling her she should be more like her sister and why weren't her grades as high as her sister's and why didn't she act like her sister. It pissed me off! Ellie was amazing in her own way. She wasn't her sister.
"Your parents were high school sweethearts," I pointed out. "Weren't they our age when they got together?"
"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure the only reason they're still together is because of me. Jess told me they used to fight a lot before I was born and when mom found out she was pregnant with me, they tried to settle things for me. They still fight and all, but they do it when they think I'm not listening."
I tightened my arm around Ellie, holding her as close as she could possibly get.
"I'm gonna take you away from this one day," I promised her. "After we graduate, I'm gonna take you far away from this. And we ARE gonna get married and we ARE gonna have a family."
Ellie looked up at me. "I know we are."
Then, there was silence again. It was just us and our thoughts.
"Did you hear about that experiment they're doing to stop global warming?" Ellie finally asked.
I don't remember much after that. I remember blacking out and waking up on the cold, iron floor of a moving train, along with other people who were in the same predicament I was. No idea where they were or how they got there. Suddenly, a thought came into my mind.
Ellie.
I shot up, ignoring the dizziness I was feeling, and looked around. I looked through the dozens of unfamiliar faces for the one that I knew all too well.
"Ellie?" I called. "Ellie, where are you?"
"Excuse me," someone said. I turned to see a man standing behind me. "Can I help you with something?"
"Yeah, where am I? Or better yet, where's my girlfriend?" I demanded.
"Your girlfriend? The girl you were with when we saved you?"
"SAVED me? From what, exactly?"
"The experiment. It didn't work correctly. Instead of saving the planet from global warming, it froze the planet completely. We managed to save a hand full of people and made this train to keep us safe until we somehow figure out how to fix this...if we can fix this."
"That's all fine and dandy, but where is my girlfriend?!" I demanded. The man gave me a look of pity.
"I'm sorry, son. We didn't get to her in time."
I felt my world fall apart. How could they not get to her in time?! How could they save me and not her?!
I wanted to hit something, or someone, but I didn't. Instead, I felt myself sink to the ground where I had been laying a few seconds before. There was a lump in my throat where the tears were threatening to fall. For the first time in so long, I didn't have her by my side to comfort me, to tell me things were gonna get better.
Years later, I was part of the tailers. We were sort of like the poor and the poverty of the train, which had been dubbed "Snowpiercer". The tailers loved to plan riots to try and take over the front. Everyone had their reasons. Because they were sick of being treated like crap, wanting more power.
Me? My reason was because they couldn't save the love of my life.