Maximum Ride Fan Fiction ❯ After Armageddon ❯ Chapter Ten: A Different Kind of Love - Day 2 ( Chapter 10 )

 

After Armageddon

 

 

Chapter Ten: A Different Kind of Love - Day Two

 

 

Liela

 

I could not seem to stop crying.

Neither could Charlie from the looks of it. He kept opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water Only Aaron seemed able to comprehend what was going on with any sense.

“Huh.” He said like one of us had just told him that he had a bug in his hair. Then he stood up and put both of his hands in his jeans pockets. “How's that possible?” He asked calmly cocking his head to one side like he would for any other question. “I thought that those chips were the things that made the barcodes appear.”

Charlie nodded dumbly, still in too much shock to try and figure out how this was possible. We had been careful to avoid chips at all costs because usually they led to stuff like this.

“Well,” Aaron said picking up his backpack. “Let's go then.”

“Go?” Charlie finally forced himself to speak.

Aaron snorted. “Oh come on Charlie. You don't want me to die, at least I hope you don't, and I certainly don't want to die, at least not this way, so let's go see Mom. She'll probably know what's going on at least.”

“And if she doesn't?” I squeaked.

Aaron smiled. It seemed weaker than usual. “Than I'll get her to make me that peanut butter pie that she made for your birthday last year. Oh my gosh that thing was awesome.”

Charlie and I just stared at him in shock.

“Peanut butter pie?” I heard Charlie ask in disbelief. “That's it? You're going to eat Peanut butter pie and just let that thing kill you?” His anger suddenly overpowered his shock.

Aaron smiled his usual goofy smile. “Well it is peanut butter.”

Charlie threw up his hands in exasperation while I sat frozen off to the side. I still was not sure if it was reassuring that even death could not change Aaron's quirky self and his love of peanut butter.

Aaron started jumping up and down like a little kid. “Well come on then let's go.”

I saw Charlie grab his backpack and somehow managed to force myself to unfold and grabbed my own. I was still crying I was sure but otherwise my face had stiffened into something unreadable and emotionless.

“Aren't you going to change?” I heard Charlie ask Aaron.

The dork just shook his head. “Nope, I want to walk. Actually I want to run. Let's run, yeah? Run, run, run.”

“It'll be faster if we fly.” Charlie told him probably wondering how badly he wanted to run.

“Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunr unrunrunrunrunrunrunrunru-“

“Okay I get the point, you want to run!” He yelled. With a yelp of joy Aaron was gone. Charlie shook his head in some mixture of frustration and disbelief. “Come on Liela.” He told me and was about to run after Aaron when he finally noticed that I had not moved after him.

“Liela?”

Charlie's voice brought me out of the numbness that had been slowly creeping through my body. It was all too much. How could Aaron be so…normal? If we did not find a way to stop the barcode and whatever was causing it, then he was going to die. It was too much to bear and still act normal.

“Liela?” Charlie asked again in a softer voice. “Are you coming?”

I somehow convinced myself to move. I think I must have nodded or said something, but I am not quite sure. I was more concerned with Aaron's impending doom than answering Charlie.

I think I heard Charlie sigh and then he walked close enough that I could see his shoes in front of mine. I did not bother to look up from the ground, which is why I was so surprised when he hugged me. The plain weirdness of it all brought me out of my stupor even more than when he was just talking to me.

“He's going to be alright.” He reassured me, speaking into my hair. “We'll make sure of that won't we?”

“Yes.” I chocked out. Apparently speaking had something to do with crying because I started crying again as soon as I answered. Surprisingly Charlie did not let go like I thought he would. Maybe it was just the paranoia again, but I hugged Charlie back so he could not back up even if he did want to. But he did not leave and I'm not sure how long we stood there.

But I do remember that I had soaked his shirt and Aaron had come back, which convinced me to let go.

I do not know what I thought he was going to say, but all Aaron did was smile mischievously at us. “Charlie,” He said trying to sound angry and not doing it very well. “What are you doing with my girlfriend?” I nearly cracked again when he called me his girlfriend. I still was not so sure that I would be able to be his girlfriend in a few days.

“I'm not doing anything to your girlfriend.” Charlie told Aaron refusing to be fazed by his teasing. Embarrassment was one thing, but letting him see it embarrassed was another. “I'm just hugging my friend because, for some reason that I don't quite understand, she seems to think that you're going to die.”

Aaron laughed like he was supposed to. “Well of course I'm going to die.” I squeaked and I think I started shaking. “But not anytime soon so what's she crying for?”

Charlie shrugged. “I don't know. She's your girlfriend, shouldn't you understand her?”

“The girl part of that throws the whole understanding thing out of whack.” I managed to say with a weak smile as I wiped my eyes. “You should know that by now.” I still did not feel that confident that Aaron would be okay, but I sure was not going to let him and Charlie worry about me. Not if it meant that it kept them from doing what was necessary to save Aaron.

We had to save him.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and a good part of the evening running as fast as we could towards Mom's house. Yes, I mean we actually ran. I thought it was stupid considering that if we flew we would have already been there. But Aaron, being his strange little self, wanted to run. I don't know maybe it had something to do with his rabbit DNA, but all he wanted to do was run. It was a little insane, not to mention strange, but hey, we were getting there.

“If we runtomorrow,” Aaron nodded his head eagerly, looking like a little kid, “than we should get to Mom's a little before noon.” Charlie told him and me as we sat around a fire that was even smaller than yesterdays.

“Cool.” Aaron said standing up.

“Where are you going?” I asked still worried, but hiding it a little better than before.

“The same place you are if you don't mind.” He said holding out his hand to help me up. I took his hand, a little confused as he pulled me off between the rocks and boulders that surrounded us.

“Where are we going?” I asked a few moments later once I had lost sight of the fire's glow behind us.

Aaron smiled back at me as he gently pulled me towards his unknown destination. “You'll see.”

I just sighed and followed him. I was not in any mood for his games, but so far I had never been able to stop him, even when things were going well.

Suddenly Aaron stopped and turned to face me. “Okay,” He said beyond happy, “close your eyes.”

“What?” I asked wanting him to stop with the suspense. “Aaron please stop this weir-”

“Oh please Liela?” He begged.

With a sigh I closed my eyes.

“Make sure to watch your step.” He laughed as he spoke. He knew he was funny.

I however did not want to laugh. “Aaron.” I whined trying to get him to understand that I was not in a good mood.

He laughed again. “Okay, okay.”

Our feet made soft scraping noises as we walked over what I assumed was stone. For one stone was all around us the last time I saw and for two it was not anything else like grass or gravel. I noticed a quieter burble also, different from the scraping that our feet made when we walked.

“Okay,” Aaron said. “You can open your eyes now.”

It was an oasis. An amazingly pretty oasis, especially considering that it was surrounded by nothing but clay colored rock. The grass was close to green and there quite a few cactuses in bloom. The burbling sound was coming from a small swiftly flowing stream that collected into a pool on the other side of the grass.

“Wow,” I muttered forgetting for an instant that this might be the last time we went on what we jokingly called a date. “When did you find this place?” I asked taking the oasis in. It was the first thing I had seen that was even close to green in who knew how long.

“When I was looking for firewood.” He said pulling me down to sit next to him on the sparse grass. He put an arm around my back and I leaned my head against his shoulder.

Much sooner than I thought he would, Aaron let go and pushed me into a sitting position so he could look at me. “Two things.” He said. I nodded and waited for him to go on.

“First.” He said leaning close. “I'm going to kiss you.”

I wanted to laugh. If things did not change he was going to die and yet he was still acting like his incredibly dorky self.

As soon as he said that he literally swooped down and kissed me. I will spare you the details seeing as some of you might be too young to know (I'm looking at you Marie). That and it is not any of your gorram business so deal with it.

Ultimately Aaron backed away. He did not look up at me at first, which was strange in itself, but then again this whole freaking situation was strange. He still did not really look at me as he scooted over to sit next to me. He wrapped an arm around me, only it was not like sweetheart thing. It was more like a friendly one armed hug.

“What's the second thing?” I asked feeling the difference between how Aaron was holding me now and how it felt before, like yesterday for example.

Aaron sighed and I knew it had to be bad because Aaron never sighed. Not without a good reason anyway, like the world was ending or someone had eaten his share of the peanut butter pie. (Apparently this still classified as a catastrophe in his book even with the very real possibility of his death.)

“Liela,” He said calmly and dramatically, further telling me that something was bothering him. “I think - Oh right my list.” He suddenly said reaching into his pocket and pulling out a wrinkled old piece of paper. He unfolded it, careful not to let me see what was written on it. “Okay ready?”

I nodded unsure but positive that I could handle almost anything after yesterday's extreme hard ball.

“Right so, `We need to talk.'” He started off obviously reading from the paper. “'It's not your fault. It's me.' `I've lied.' `Do you remember when I said everything is all right?'”

I was beginning to get a nasty suspicion. “You've never said that everything would be alright.”

He looked at me but continued reading from the paper. “'You're like a brother/sister to me.' `I think we would be better off friends.'”

I honestly could not believe it. “Aaron,” I said making him look up. “Just spit it out.”

He sighed again and put the paper down. “I'm breaking up with you.” He said quite calmly actually looking up at me for the first time since kissing me.

I could not help it: I laughed. I think I shocked him, but I could not stop laughing anyway. “Y-your own p-p-potential death doesn't fa-faze you b-but you try to b-break u-up with me and y-you get a-all dr-dra-dramatic.” I rocked back and forth trying to get a hold of myself. When I started laughing so hard I could not breath Aaron started telling me to breathe. I think he must have thought I was going hysterical.

Eventually I calmed down enough to really make sense of what was going on.

“How long have you been planning this?” I asked wrapping my arms around my drawn up knees.

Aaron waggled his head back and forth in his sign of `I-don't-really-remember-let-me-think-about-it'. “Oh, about two seconds.”

“Impulse decision. Very you.” I told him. “Why'd you kiss me than?”

“Just to be sure that I was right.”

I waited. “About…?”

Aaron sighed again. Wow, three times in about as many minutes, it was a new record. “Because I don't think we were cut out to be boyfriend girlfriend. I actually agree with those last two from the list.”

“You mean the friends and sibling ones? And what list?” Where in the world had he gotten a list?

Aaron nodded. “Yeah I do. And before you ask this has nothing to do with the barcode.”

“How can this have nothing to do with the barcode if you decided to do this two seconds ago?” I asked starting to get annoyed like most girls do when guys dump them, only I suspect it was for different reasons.

“Because I don't think you really love me.”

“Wha-?”

He held out a hand stopping me. “You care. I know you care, but I don't think you actually love me. Not like, Cal and Taylor do or your parents did. It's just a different kind of love.”

“The kind that deserves a corny breakup speech apparently.” I said starting to sulk, but not really because Aaron had dumped me. I think somewhere I had known this was coming, I just did not want to ruin something because I thought I may or may not like my boyfriend more as my best friend.

We were quiet for a moment. “So,” I hesitated wondering if the standard I-hate-you feelings applied to mutant bird/rabbit teens. Really I did not hate Aaron, although I was a little bummed. “Where did you get the list?”

That got Aaron to smile. “Will gave it too me the last time we were at Mom's house. It's a list of breakup lines, here it says, `Sometimes it's hard for us to start a conversation with our partner, especially if it is about a break up. However, many choose to use the same lines as all the others. So, we've gathered all our favorite break up lines and made a top 10 list.' The last three are pretty good.” He said as he handed me the list.

I looked at them and snorted. “'Do you really want to know why I go out to dinner with my assistant?' Yeah that's a great conversation starter. Oh my- `Have you always been so boring?' That's not hateful at all is it?”

“The last one is my favorite.” Aaron said trying to breathe normally.

I read it to myself first and laughed. “'Give me back my keys.' That's supposed to be a conversation starter? I mean, the `I don't love you anymore.' works better than that, as harsh as it is.” We laughed a little more as we helped each other up.

“Hey,” I said as we began to make our way back to `camp'. “Why didn't you use the `I don't love you anymore'?”

“Well it was like I said,” He told me as he jumped down from a large boulder and waited for me. “In a way you do care about me,”

“But it's more like how Charlie cares about Cal.” I said understanding a little more. “Okay then.”

“You know what else is funny?” Aaron asked.

I snorted. “What?”

“I had to point out your own feelings to you, and you're supposed to be the super sensitive girl.”

I choked out a laugh. “Yeah, you just proved all those dating movies wrong didn't you?”

That was the only part Charlie heard of the whole conversation above. He looked up as Aaron and I came between the small gap in the rocks we had disappeared through about half an hour before. Aaron was smiling like he usually was and I was grimacing about Aaron's joke.

“Have fun?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah, best break up date I've ever been on.” Aaron told him as I plopped down on a rock nearby.

“Is that why Liela looks like she's going to hit you with a frying pan?”

“Nah.” Aaron said.

“He took a potshot at my super sensitive girlyness.” I told him.

Charlie looked at Aaron like he was out of his mind.

(I'm sorry I have to interrupt here. I was thinking that Aaron was out of his mind. Even I knew better than to make fun of a girl for acting like, well, not a girl. True my experience with girls was closer to zero than any other number, but Cal, being my older sister and a unique kind of tomboy, took it upon herself to kick my butt whenever I made fun of her when we were younger. Whenever she was thinking of beating me up she always got this look on her face. It was not too long before I learned to recognize that face and use it to measure how much longer I could push her buttons without getting hurt.

And right then, the look on Liela's face told me that Aaron had about ten minutes before she hit him.

“At least I didn't mention her cooking huh?” He told me with a sly smile.

Okay, maybe five minutes.

“You might want to stop-.” I tried to warn him.

“While I'm ahead?

“No, it's more like stop or you'll only be a head.”

Still, he did not listen.)

This is why I whacked him over the head with my backpack five minutes later.

After that I sulked over to my blanket and dragged it over my head. I refused to come out even for the candy bars that we had picked up in the last town we had been in. Aaron tried to apologize a little longer, but after I took the leftover soup from the night before and smothered it into his hair, he left me alone and crawled to his own corner to try and sleep, leaving Charlie to take first watch of the night.