"Aiden? Do you really love me?" Kylie asked.

"I do." I answered without hesitation, thinking as though I was stating the obvious. "Why even ask that?"

Kylie suddenly stopped, letting the swift breeze flow through her dark hair. "I'm tired of hiding. Everything is getting in our way, and I'm afraid that one of these days, something will stop us from ever seeing each other again." Kylie took both of my hands and stood on the tips of her toes, putting her at eye level with me. "So, I was thinking..."

"We'l--"

"I was thinking about it all day, after we went home." Kylie spoke softly. "Let's run away as far as we can from this place, this hell hole. Depending on where we go, we can get married in a year, and it'll just be the both of us...we can disappear and start over - we can be anyone and anything. Let's vanish and see where this wind takes us."

She was right. We could go to any place and blend in like two normal people, and we could start fresh. Nothing she had spoken of had sounded wrong. It was as simple as packing our bags in the darkness of the night and leaving, running wherever we may - wherever fate would place us. I had been so blinded by my love of Kylie that I hadn't seen the many flaws in her logic. It was so flawed, yet it had seemed so brilliant in my young teenaged mind.

"You're right. We can leave this place, and never have anything to do with it again..." I trailed off, still slightly shaken from the suddenness of the topic she had decided to bring up. "Kylie, I'm going to go wherever you go. If you run, I run. If you decide to stay here, I'll stay. But the one thing I won't do is leave you alone."

Her face began to gleam like the Northern Lights, shining bright with the excitement of hearing those few words - words she had so badly wanted to hear. It was then that she threw herself into my chest. Kylie's heavy breathing, the lifting and falling of her chest, they were connected with mine in the deepest sense, in the deepest possible way. I knew then, without doubt, that I had made the right choices on that night.

"But we have somewhere to go first, don't we?" Kylie inquired with a sly smile.

--

It only felt as though it were mere moments before we had reached our destination - the home of Kylie's older sister. We had barged in as if it had been our own home and ran straight for a bedroom that wasn't ours. With a shut door and the bright lights on, Kylie and I stood before each other with mixed emotions. Nervousness, excitement, happiness, and everything in between filled the bedroom with an odd, opulent atmosphere.

"Sh...Should I go first?" I asked, clueless as to the proper procedure.

Kylie shook her head softly and took a step closer to me before looking at her clothes. "I want you to take them off."

Shakily, I nodded my acceptance. My hands, trembling with nervousness, reached outward towards the top buttons of her shirt. One by one, button by button, they came undone. As I finished the final button, she let her shirt fall to the clean, beige carpet that had rested beneath us. I exhaled the nerves and continued downwards.

My hands traced the inner curve of her flat stomach and followed the bend of her waist, until they met the band of her leggings. Momentarily, I paused with the scent of lilies overtaking my nostrils. I exhaled quietly, and in one fell swoop, her leggings had met her ankles. Kylie stepped out of them and sat onto the bed that rested behind her, now wearing only a single pair of violet silk panties. Her body, her skin, and even the fragrance that poured off of her were all perfect in my eyes.

I wouldn't have changed anything at that moment - not me, not Kylie, nothing at all.

"You have one more to go." Kylie, albeit shyly, managed to pull out a smile from behind her blatant nervousness.

My dear stranger, you must understand that I can't go into detail from here. It's not that I don't want to tell you, it's just that I'm not sure if you are of age to hear this. As such, I may be quite vague about this situation. I apologize, but I truly think this is more tasteful.

"Take it off." Kylie urged me.

Throwing any caution I had left to the wind, I took off my shirt and followed Kylie to the bed. She fell back, legs splayed, allowing me to hover over her small, defenseless body. With all of my weight on my knees, my fingers caught the smooth fabric that was stretched around her waist. Down they went, as quick as an imploding building.

Clothes were shed and we soon found ourselves under the cover, exploring uncharted territory. Pain, excitement, lust - a little of everything had been felt between us. Love, however, had been the one thing we felt all through the night, just until the wee hours of the morning. We hadn't once left that seemingly magical bed, and continued to fall into a deep, fulfilled slumber.

---

It must have been early in the afternoon, as the sun had been blasting through the window, uncaring of my grogginess. That wasn't what had woken me, however. It was the sound of loud whispering that had done the job. The loud whispering soon turned into whispers, and then further turned into quiet yelling. Though quiet, it was intense; and quite obviously an argument of some sort. Who was Kylie arguing with?

My question, with posthaste, was answered by an opened door. Instead of Kylie, I was greeted by another woman. Clad in a loose black tank top and skin-tight jeans, this woman was Kylie's eighteen year old sister, Maggie - the owner of the home we had broken into.

"Hey, Romeo." Maggie nearly snarled. "Juliet out here already fessed up to everything."

Maggie further stepped into the room, kicking the door shut behind her. It was naught but mere seconds, but at that moment, those mere seconds felt like an eternity and a half. While she didn't look angry, she also didn't look supportive, either. I couldn't read her at all, nor did she have any indication of letting me leave. There was, indeed, a metaphorical gun pointed at my head.

"Yes, I sponged everything out of her. The sex, and even your plans to elope." Maggie brushed her bangs out of her face and gave a sigh. "I don't agree with my parents, nor do I want them in my life, but the only things those 'plans' will achieve is a bunch of policemen on your ass accusing you of kidnapping."

"I don't care. I'm going to follow Kylie, whether she decides to leave or not." I barely manged to squawk out a confident sounding reply. However, I wasn't going to budge, ever. My decision, my choice had been final. It was immovable.

"Shit, the lost puppy actually has a pair of balls! Well, excuse the fuck out of me." Maggie sarcastically smiled. "Listen, if I knew that either my or your parents wouldn't come breaking my door down looking for you, I'd let you two stay here. But both you and I know that isn't going to happen. So, what then? If I'm not taking you two in, what are you going to do? Run away aimlessly with no plans, money, or even a car? Use your head, Cyrus."

Pulling my shirt over my head, I looked back up at Maggie. "I'll do whatever it takes to make Kylie happy, at any cost. Even if that cost is my life."

"No, no, no. You aren't getting it." Maggie shook her head. "If you're going to run, then do it right. Get money, and make sure you both have a plan. Don't run around like damn chickens with your heads cut off."

Maggie turned and stepped up to the crystal-clear glass of the window. There was a mixed expression that rested on her face - one of sadness, thrown in a boiling pot with thought and even some anger. Her crystal-like blue eyes slightly shivered, reflecting the afternoon light. Young and old, they thought the same, it appeared.

"I'm actually a little jealous of Kylie. It looks like she roped in a rare species of men." Maggie gave a saddened giggle. "Genuine people like you don't exist anymore - you're a rare breed that is quickly getting stomped out by people's own self-preservation and gratification. None of my friends or any ex would jump in front of a bullet for me, not at the cost of their own life. Friendship, boyfriends and girlfriends, love...they are all just meaningless words that give a shallow symbol of hope to a hopeless human species."

Maggie turned around and stared me down, eye to eye. "That's all they are, what you're saying, what you claim to feel about Kylie - everything. They are just meaningless words. Actions, your actions are the only thing that can prove the meaning, the hope behind your words."

Maggie's eyelids fluttered as she stared downwards. Her intensity, her words were able to melt a metaphorical through me. I felt the truth in them. These were words that I would later live by as though they were The Ten Commandments.

"Make sure you do that for Kylie, otherwise I'll kill you with my bare hands."