The Vortex: Prophesies

Chapter Fourteen

Somehow, we have been granted a reprieve from the rain mid-December, which I can't say I remember the last time we have had something like that, it has made everyone's moods lift knowing that the dreary nature of our everyday life won't be a forever thing.

When you are stuck in something for too long, it can begin to feel like that is the only thing that will ever happen, around you, and that your life though it may change will be clouded by that one unmoving fact.

Ours would have been the way the sky represented the climate, and although things in the grand scheme of things have only continued to decline around us, the sun has shone every day for the past two weeks. Like a little bubble manufactured just for us, because there are dark clouds rolling in and I don't think it will be bright by Christmas.

On the inside or on the outside.

Percy loves the sun almost as much as Liylah does and that is a tough mark to meet, but it is because of that, that I finally caved and agreed to his proposal of a picnic date, it wasn't because I didn't find the whole thing adorable; because I do.

It was because being outside where everyone can see, on a date that will most likely involve kissing is something that creates goosebumps all over my arms in a way I don't enjoy. I don't like having people stare at me on the best of days, even less when I am stuck out in the open with my boyfriend.

Then I suppose that is the exact reason I should want to do that, and it is because he is my boyfriend that I agreed. Making compromises is a part of it, his was that we would go and have breakfast down beneath the tree... is this weird... that Lizzie said she had her first kiss under.

To be clear the only reason I chose that tree is because she wouldn't stop talking about how secluded it was, and how she didn't have to worry about anyone seeing them together. I hate that she thinks about that kind of thing.

She hasn't told Jai or Percy yet, I think even if it isn't rational for our friend group, I know why she has that fear, I know a lot of people do and what irritates me is that it is far more understood now than before.

I guess that is just what progression as a species is... even if it is slow and we are constantly taking steps back in other areas.

The thing neither Percy, nor I, really thought about before embarking on this early morning journey is how cold it would be. Regardless of the fact the sun will soon be coming out from beneath the clouds, sun doesn't equal warmth and at the end of the day we are still in the middle of winter.

Percy doesn't seem to mind the weather in the slightest, I think he is mostly excited about the fact we are finally going on what would be classed as our first date. I suppose we did skip quite a few steps, there was no casual stage, it went from a kiss in my backyard to a relationship.

It sounds as though I wasn't entirely on board, but I don't mean for it to, the truth is he makes my heart soar and butterflies erupt in my stomach, my cheeks are permanently flushed around him. A constant excitement that I am scared will fall away and give way to the undisputable fact that before him I had no desire for a relationship... maybe that would have changed if it didn't feel like the world was about to explode.

Percy is definitely one of those people that can view the world, even in its darkest moments as a glass-half-full kind of situation. When we all sat down for dinner, talking in whispers about the declaration he never stopped saying that in the end we would all be okay.

I hate it as much as I adore it; I think.

"At least it isn't snowing yet" I muse, smiling over at me, as I tug the blanket, he wrapped around my shoulders tighter. A small flame hovering in front of us and peeking out from the glass I had confined it too before we left this morning, why lug around candles when this is an option.