When The World Falls.

The Taste of Sprite

"So Olive, you're not going to kill me, right?" He asked.I laughed and said back,

"No. I will not kill you, but I can ask the same for you. Are you going to kill me?"

"No, not unless you give me a good reason to." He started laughing but that joke made me serious. Realising I was safe, I relaxed into the car's seat. I looked at my surroundings. The car, the forest we were in, the road ahead, Jordan.

"We have to make an agreement." I finally said after ten minutes of driving.

"What would you like to agree on?" I saw his feet shuffle and he started playing with his hands. I hadn't looked at him since he told me about the dog. I was too nervous, I don't even know why.

"If I take you with us to that city...uh New Dyst, your not going to sleep in the same area as us, you will pull your own weight, you won't get us killed and your going to help me with Cassiopeiae." I didn't let my voice quaver like it wanted to, I made sure I sounded sturdy and put together, even though I wanted to cry.

"Cassiopeiae?"

"My baby." I confirmed.

"Oh, she's yours? When did you have her?" He asked, I could try he was trying to be nice about it. I'm never having a child. I can't.

"Oh, she isn't actually mine. My friend Amir died, this thing is hers." I motioned to a sleeping baby in the backseat of the car.

"Okay." He gave a sigh and continued. "Are we going to stop for the night, it looks dark out already?" I looked up at the sky, he was right, we needed to pull over at some point soon.

"I'll drive till I can't anymore, you can go to sleep now if you want." I suggested.

"No, it's alright. Plus I would like to get to know you better. I mean were going to be traveling for the next couple of days anyways." He turned to me and smiled, turned to face him too and saw his smile was genuine. Not the fake one you see in people you're getting to know. I smiled back, then regretted it. Fuck, I can't get attached to someone. Not now, not ever. It's the damn apocalypse, he's going to die and leave me in the dust either way.

*

"Let me get this straight?" He said laughing. "You got so drunk that you texted your Ex Boyfriend's new girlfriend and asked her out? And she said yes?"

"I may have flirted with his mom over Tinder as well." I said. I looked over to him and we both started laughing. I had pulled over about half an hour ago, it was now eleven- seventeen at night and we have been talking since nine. We had been swapping stories about what happened at first, trying to connect things together. At some point we realized how useless it was, we were going to get nothing done. So we talked about life before, who we were as a person, who we wanted to be, what we were going into as our major. We had been talking for a while and I knew a great deal of him, but he didn't know a great big deal of me.

"So, your bisexual?" He asked nicely.

"Have known since the sixth grade, her name was Lila. She was very pretty and I wanted to kiss her. But I didn't know what that feeling meant until someone called me gay after we held hands in the hallway. She looked at me confused and let go of my hand. She asked me if I was. I asked her what that meant. She told me it means I like girls and not guys. I told her that I liked guys, I thought they were cute, I had a crush. But she didn't believe me. She never spoke to me again." He looked down, then looked back up again.

"I'm glad you told me, thank you.'' Nobody has ever spoken to me that way, they either said that's awesome or said I was just confused. He was the first person that said thanks. Who really meant it when they said that it was cool.