Chapter 21: The Cold Fire of Heat and Passion

Moira stormed down the hall, her heart pounding in her chest. She couldn’t take it anymore. She’d had another dream about Jason, and talking with her parents the other night hadn’t helped her feel better at all.

Maybe they were right. Maybe it was her fault. Or maybe they were right about this just being a natural part of growing up.

Whatever it was, Moira didn’t really care. Jason was important to her, and she wasn’t going to let what they had fall apart without at least talking with him about it. It was just like fixing a machine, if you didn’t know what went wrong in the first place, you wouldn’t have any hope of repairing it.

So before she called it quits and deemed their friendship a lost cause, she was going to hear from him just what the problem was.

Her heart throbbed with pain and she forced it down. Whatever the reason was, she hoped she’d withstand it.

“Good morning, Jason! Good morning, Skye!” She called out.

Jason nearly jumped out of his shoes. He whirled around with a look on his face like Ai had just caught him stealing extra food. “Moira?!”

“Come now Jason,” Skye chided him. “You must greet her properly.”

She turned to Moira and gave her a polite smile. “Good morning, Moira. Is Andrew not with you today?”

“Nope, he’s not… he has to have a meeting with that counselor lady Doctor Sylvia about our grades. So I guess I’m all alone, and on a weekend, no less! Bummer…”

The two girls were smiling at each other like everything was fine. But in fact, Moira had planned this all out with Skye the other day, when Jason was at his own meeting with the doctor. She’d explained her concerns about how Jason was acting, and Skye agreed that he was treating her very rudely. So they’re worked out a plan to meet up “by coincidence” today to give Moira a chance to talk things out with her.

“Well, Jason and I were going to the oxygen farm, if you’d like to join us,” Skye suggested.

Jason visibly flinched at the offer, which made Moira’s chest ache. But she pushed on.

“Really? Why that would be great! Is that okay with you, Jason?” She searched his face for any sign of acceptance, but her hopes were dashed when he turned the other way.

“Do whatever you want,” he muttered.

She had to stay strong. Maybe this was just her brain doing something stupid again, but she felt in control. One way or another, she had to know.

No one said a word as the trio walked to the oxygen farm. Normally time seemed to fly by when she was with Jason, but right now felt like an eternity. Longer than the most boring class lectures, longer than the most tedious Sextennial Ceremony, longer than anything she could imagine.

She felt like she’d lived a lifetime by the time they arrived.

As they strolled through the makeshift forest, Moira’s heart sank. Nothing had changed since their last visit here, and yet for some reason everything seemed so different. The trees didn’t seem as green, the sun didn’t seem as bright, even the grass felt a little duller than she remembered. She let out a sigh and glanced at Jason.

He was sat down beneath a tree and took out his sketchbook, beginning to draw. His eyes were focused and his hand moved with mechanical precision, and yet for some reason he seemed so… empty. Like there was something missing. It was crushing to watch, and she couldn’t stand it another second. She turned to Skye and nodded.

“Well, if you’ll excuse me,” Skye said a little louder than necessary, shutting her book, “I need to use the lavatory to refresh myself.”

She turned and exited the room, leaving the two of them alone for the first time in forever.

Neither said a word. Moira wanted to, oh how she wanted to, but she couldn’t think of the words. Her brain was flooded with thoughts like always, but for some reason none of them managed to reach her lips.

“AH, FORGET IT!” She shouted, clapping her hands against her cheeks. The SMACK was so loud Jason flinched, his pencil scratching across the page and ruining his drawing.

“Moira, what-“

“Jason!” She stormed over to him, leering down at him. “We need to talk!”

He swallowed and went pale, quickly averting his eyes. “I, I don’t think-“

“We do,” she insisted. She crouched down next to him and her stern face turned gentle. Her eyes started to water. “It’s important.”

Jason winced. Seeing her look so sad made him want to throw up.

“M-Moira-“

“Do you hate me?” She demanded. It was a heavy question. “Hate” was a word they were taught only to use for the absolute worst things in the world.

“Of course not!” He sputtered, unable to believe she could ask something so crazy. “Hate you?! Never!”

“Then do you not like me anymore? Is that why you keep avoiding me? Why you don’t each lunch with me anymore? Why… why you won’t even look me in the eye?”

He was looking her in the eye right now, and weakening. He wanted to tell her how wrong she was, how it was just the opposite, but he couldn’t do it. If he said anything now, with her right here and no one else around, then it would all come bursting out.

Jason couldn’t let that happen. It would be real then.

“Did I do something?” She pleaded. “Something to upset you, or make you uncomfortable? Is it because the doctor made us hold hands?”

Tears began to roll down her cheeks, and he couldn’t do it anymore.

“No!” He blurted out. “I like you!”

His words caught her off-guard. “R-Really?”

Jason nodded frantically, trying to recompose himself. He clamped his mouth shut lest his real feelings come bursting out again. He thought about Skye, about her polite smile, about how nice and respectful she was. He needed these feelings to be for her, not the girl in front of him.

“If you like me, then why are you avoiding me all of a sudden?” Moira asked. She leaned in out of curiosity, bringing her face even closer to his. Bringing her lips even closer to his…

He began to shake, his mouth opening against his will.

Don’t say it! You can’t say it! Not that!

“It’s…”

She can’t know! Even if it hurts her, you can’t tell her!

“It’s because…”

Stop it! Stop right now! There’s still time, you have to-

“It’s because I want to kiss you, okay?!”

The oxygen farm was silent. The only sound was Jason’s panting with exhaustion, finally revealing what he’d tried to hide for so long. He slumped against the tree, defeated.

Moira stared at him with wide eyes, her mouth making an “O” in shock. She looked at Jason like he’d said he wanted to sprout wings and fly through the Bunker’s halls.

After an eternity even longer than the walk to the oxygen farm, she finally found her voice.

“You… want to kiss me?”

Jason sighed. Why bother denying it at this point? It was all over anyway. “Yes,” he admitted. “It’s all I can think about recently.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why! But I keep thinking about it! You and me, holding hands, kissing, I keep seeing it, even in my dreams I keep seeing it!” What was the matter with him?! Why did he have to have these horrible thoughts? Why couldn’t he be in love with Skye, like he was supposed to be?! Why did he have to have all these feelings for…

For…

He raised his head and met Moira’s eyes once more, staring into those deep pools of green brighter than every leaf in the oxygen farm.

There was only one “why” he could think of. He felt this way because it was Moira. If there was another reason he couldn’t guess it.

“So… you… want to kiss me…” Moira said, averting her eyes. Her face reddened.

“I know, it’s disgusting,” Jason muttered, wishing he could curl up into a little ball and shrink away to nothing. “Having these sort of thoughts about someone besides your Partner, it’s just… it’s sick! It’s wrong.”

The doctor had told him that wasn’t true, but he still felt that way. No, he knew that was the case, because Ai said so.

“That’s why you’ve been avoiding me recently?” Moira gently asked. “Because you want to kiss me?”

Jason wiped his eyes. “If I…” his voice cracked. “I like spending time with you, Moira. When I see you for the first time in the day, it’s like my morning becomes perfect. Seeing you smile, it makes me… I can’t describe it, but it’s like…”

“Like a warmth in your chest?” She whispered. “Like just seeing the other person is enough to put you in a good mood, for no reason at all?”

He nodded, shocked that she’d described it so perfectly. “Yeah… how’d you know?”

“I… I don’t really know myself,” Moira winced, clutching her chest. “But I know that’s how I feel when I’m with you. I like that feeling so much, it felt so natural I didn’t even think about it, but these past few weeks… when you weren’t there, it was like…”

“Like something was slowly stabbing your heart?” Jason murmured, staring into her watery green eyes.

She nodded.

“It’s wrong,” Jason shook his head. “I can’t believe I could feel like this… it’s so wrong…”

“It is,” Moira nodded solemnly. “It’s so confusing… when I’m with Andrew, I don’t feel any different, he’s like everybody else. But with you… it feels so good, even holding your hand. And Ai says that’s supposed to feel awful…”

She laughed bitterly.

“I guess I’m really messed up, huh? They don’t make a pill to fix this, I bet.”

“…Too…”

“Hmm?” She barely heard him.

“…It felt good for me, too,” Jason whispered again. “Holding your hand.”

Moira gasped. “B-But…”

“But it shouldn’t, right? It should feel uncomfortable and painful to hold hands with someone who isn’t your Partner!” Jason cried. “I know that, but… but I can’t stop thinking about it! That night, I kept holding your hand even in my dreams, and then… then we weren’t just holding hands, we were kissing, and…”

“…Kissing…” Moira mumbled.

Jason’s eyes shot to her lips again. They hadn’t learned anything about that yet, it was incredibly wrong to want something like this. But he did.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I’m sorry I ignored you for so long, Moira, I’m so, so sorry. I just… I wanted my feelings to go away, and I thought… if I spent all my time with Skye and didn’t hang out with you, then maybe… maybe I would start feeling that way about her, instead, then you and I… we could go back to just being friends.”

“It… that’s okay, I forgive you!” She quickly assured him. She wasn’t even thinking about that anymore.

“But it didn’t work… I still… I still want to kiss you, even more now.”

Another curtain of silence fell over the two. Moira fidgeted awkwardly.

“…So why don’t we?”

It took a moment for Jason to piece together what she’d just said.

“What? Why don’t we… what?”

Moira gulped. “Kiss. Why don’t we kiss? Just once.”

He couldn’t believe what she was saying. “Moira! We can’t! That’s wrong! Ai says we’re not allowed to kiss anyone who isn’t our Partner, and even then-“

“I know! I know! But… but look, think about it this way! If you want to kiss me, obviously that’s wrong, right? Like Ai says, kissing someone who isn’t your Partner is incredibly uncomfortable and painful, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” he nodded.

“So if we just, you know, do it, then it’s going to feel awful, right?” Moira theorized. “And then you won’t want to do it anymore, right? Because it would feel terrible. That’s just science.”

What was going on right now? Jason’s gaze was affixed to her lips, trying to understand what she was saying.

“You… want me to kiss you?”

Her face was scarlet, and when he met her gaze she glanced away. “It… It’s just to see, right? So we know it feels awful. Then the feelings will go away, and we can be friends again, right?”

Jason’s heart was pounding in his chest. She was really suggesting it. She really was. He felt the desire welling up inside of him, stronger than anything he’d ever felt before. Even though it was so wrong, even though they both knew it, she… she was going to let him anyway.

He didn’t even realize they had already closed the distance between each other until her lips were pressed up against his.

It was amazing. She tasted indescribable, a soft warmness that overpowered everything around him, filling him with nothing but heat and hunger. He could only describe her taste as Moira, and he wanted more, he wanted to drown in this feeling for as long as he could, ignoring every thought of Skye, or Ai, or the rules. Her tongue pressed against his, every stroke wiping another unnecessary thought until all he felt was her and all she felt was him, the two of them wrapped together tightly in a world without room to let anyone else in.

As soon as it began it was over and they practically had to tear away from one another in order to breathe. Panting, their eyes met, and they were astounded by the sight in front of them.

A boy. A girl. Coming down from the high of their kiss, that was all they could make the flushed faces before their eyes, and somehow, the rest didn’t matter.

“That… that was…” Jason couldn’t describe it if he tried.

“Perfect.” She knew his heart better than he did now. And as the word hung above them they knew it was the only appropriate epithet.

But as they calmed down and their senses returned to clarity, they were lost about what to do now.

“I-I thought… I thought it was supposed to be awful,” Jason gasped. “Horrible.”

Moira shook her head. “But it wasn’t. It was… perfect.”

They shared a laugh, knowing no other way to describe the giddiness they felt.

But they both knew it could never happen again.

“It’s still wrong. Even though it felt so amazing.” Even as the words left his lips he knew they were a lie, but he still couldn’t escape them.

Moira nodded glumly in agreement. Then her face brightened.

“Maybe… it was a mistake,” she murmured.

“A… mistake?”

“That’s right… Ai always says that kissing someone else feels awful… so we must have just… done it wrong, that’s all. It must have been a freak mistake.” He could see the hunger and desperation in his eyes, a reflection of the desire welling up in him.

“That’s true,” he admitted.

“So maybe… we should do it again. Just… just to make sure. And that way we’ll really know that it’s wrong, right?”

They stared at each other, letting the absurdity of her suggestion sink in. But neither one of them cared. They threw themselves into each other again, burning desperately to consume as much of their partner as they could, gasping and panting and clutching for every second of eternity they could grasp, until they were forced apart once again.

Jason and Moira stared at each other, basking in the heat of the other’s gaze.

They didn’t even bother with an excuse as they embraced for a third time.