8 Billion

"Amazing." I heard my boyfriend, Vic, say before I felt him sit behind me and wrap his legs around my waist. I was sitting cross-legged on the ground going through some of the pictures that I had taken over the course of the last few months. There was so much stuff to be done i probably shouldnt have been sitting here doing nothing, but I found procrastinating easier than unpacking or looking for a job or texting some of my friends to even let them know I was alive. None of that was as easy as looking at pictures of my travels and thinking about my time with Vic.

"Thanks, babe. I think I like this one the most." I said picking up a picture I had taken of a waterfall in Florida. We lived in Florida with Vic's friend Troy for a few weeks, before moving on to South Carolina with Jordan, then Illinois with Cam, then Massachusetts with Gabby, and now in our own place right in the heart of New York City.

"Well yeah, that's amazing, too, but I was talking about you. Us. Everything." He kissed my neck and I leaned back into him. He was right, we were amazing. Everything we'd been through was amazing. I don't know about me being amazing, but we definitely were.

"Yeah? Why do you say that?" I asked, liking the feeling of the conversation and the kisses he ws leaving on Me.

"Because you did it, Kels. You got out. You were stuck in Denning with the same 800 people and-"

"And then you came. And everything got better." I interrupted him. It was true and he knew it. Without him I would have never left. He tested the theory once and it ended with me in tears on the side of the road. I was a coward with big dreams before he came along and he changed it all. I have him to thank For everything good in my life.

"I don't know if everything got better..." He looked up at a picture of me and my parents, whom I haven't talked to since we left. They weren't too happy about the fact that I ran away from home, without graduating, and with a guy. They never wanted me to leave Denning, anyways. The fact that I did it prematurely without permission was just icing on the cake.

"Hey," I said, turning around and pressing our foreheads together. "Look at us. Look around, Vic. We're together. Against all odds, we're still here. In New York! We went from the smallest town in the country to one of the biggest in the world, and we're here together! I'm living my dream. We've traveled across the country with nothing more than ourselves and Mike. So my parents are mad at me, who cares! I don't. So you shouldn't either! I would not change a single thing about anything that's happened in the past few months. I'd like to think that you wouldn't either."

He didn't respond, instead he just kissed me. He layed on his back and pulled me down on top of him, both of us laughing and kissing the whole time. We were too caught up in each other to hear the front door of the apartment open or to hear Mike walk in and grab my Polaroid camera from the coffee table. It wasn't until we saw the flash that we stopped to look at Mike, both red in the face.

"Three months later and y'all are still just as sickening as always." He said, fanning the picture to help it develop. Once it was finished he held it out to the two of us, now sitting up. "And yet oddly adorable."

"Shut up, Mikey." Vic said standing. Mike walked over to the counter where he had Chinese Take-out waiting for us. Vic helped me up and we walked to the kitchen hand in hand. Vic put the picture on the fridge, making it the only decoration in the whole house.

"Ya feel that?" He asked, putting his arm around me.

"Feel what?" Mike asked, a mouth full of Orange chicken. Vic just looked at me, knowing that I already knew what he was going to say.

"Feels like home."