The Boy That Broke America

0.12

           

0.12

                  IT WAS SLOW. Not many things in Lane's life were but this. It was like a contradiction, confused and beautiful and addicting and captivating. There was something magnetic about this euphoric sense of safety and jeopardy and light.

And it was odd. It was odd and perplexing and the kind of shiveringly provocative that left Lane awake at four a.m., thinking. It was odd because Lane did not feel attracted to Ivor in anything other than a platonic way, but the slowness and beauty and addictiveness and magnetism of that kiss was something that could not be chalked down simply to the act of kissing.

Christmas seemed to come and go, as did New Year's Eve (and way too many bottles of champagne), and before she knew it, Lane had been thinking away for two weeks of her life.

It was three a.m. on the fifth of January, and Lane was saying her goodbyes to her mother and brothers at the New York Greyhound bus station. She and Ivor piled onto the bus with the rest of the drowsy-eyed passengers and waved from Lane's window as they pulled away from the curb, and towards Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Lane breathed a detectable sign of relief as the bus made its way along Warren Street, earning a raised eyebrow from Ivor.

"Ugh, it's too early in the morning for me to even be annoyed at your eyebrows." She sulked, covering her face with the hand not clutching her coffee.

"Agreed. The too-early part, that is. If you want to sleep, you can lay your legs across mine so you can lay back more." Ivor offered.

Lane smiled softly. "Thanks, babe, but the seats recline."

"Of course they do." Ivor muttered, "Nothing less than the best for New York's residing Queen, huh?"

"You know it." Lane yawned and stretched out, before finishing her coffee with a quick swig and placing the cup on the floor, reclining the seat, and preparing for a few hours of sleep.

·

Two hours later, Lane was gently shaken awake by Ivor, and she groggily sat up to see they had reached Philadelphia and their first stop. She stretched sleepily as the other passengers drudged past her and Ivor's seats.

"Did you sleep?" She asked, resting her head on the back of her seat.

"A little. I don't usually to sleep well when I travel anyway, so as to be expected." Ivor shrugged, mimicking her posture.

"No rest for the wicked." Lane smiled lazily.

"You know it." He laughed, loose as shoelaces.

They filed off the bus after the rest of the passengers and made their way to the bus station. There was a smattering of bleary eyed people in the station, most of which were on the same blissfully unaware, sleepy cloud that Lane and her fellow passengers, excluding Ivor, were drifting in on.

Lane and Ivor drifted through to the back of the station, where a row of seats sat unoccupied, and slumped into their respective chairs, limbs overlapping as their muscles slackened into the metal.

"I feel like I need more coffee, but if I have another, my fingers will be shaking for the next week." Lane sighed, resting her head against the wall behind her.

"Just get de-caff," Ivor said nonchalantly.

"Ah, but that defeats the entire purpose of the waking-me-up part of coffee. It's like, what good is a cocktail without the alcohol? I don't care about mocktails, that just takes all the fun out of it, and God knows we need more cock around, not less."