This Is a Wasteland

*Vic’s POV*
It was like every single emotion I could possibly experience happening all at once. Before I could properly register it in my mind that this was something I wanted, Kellin was already pulling away.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me,” he said, his cheeks turning red.

“Why’d you stop?” I asked him, bewildered. I closed the space between us again and placed my hands on his shoulders as I slowly pressed my lips against his. It was amazing- like a surge of electricity as soon as we touched; like a cage of a thousand butterflies lying dormant in my chest had just been set free. I gripped his shoulders tighter as his arms made their way around my waist. I moved my lips against his, more than desperate for this kiss. The fact that he was kissing me back made it even better. The kiss started out nice and sweet, but it quickly turned into something far more intense. We hadn’t kissed each other in over a year, and it was like we were both waiting for this exact moment the entire time we were apart.

I moved my arms around his neck as his hands roamed over my back, squeezing and holding me. His lips parted and his tongue swept in, brushing against mine and sending another wave of electricity over me. This was perfect.

When I finally needed to come up for air, I pulled back, keeping my arms around his neck. He was breathing just as heavily as I was, and before I knew it, he was laughing, too.

“What’s so funny?” I asked him.

“I just can’t believe that just happened,” he said, through a wide grin. I smiled back, more than pleased with how the night was going.

“I missed you,” I sighed, kissing him again, just quicker this time. He nodded.

“I missed you too,” he told me. It was about then that I realized when we were standing so close that there was a bit of a height difference that I never noticed before.

“Hey, since when are you taller than me?” I teased playfully. He shrugged.

“I don’t know I guess I grew a couple of inches,” he chuckled. I rolled my eyes.

“But your voice is just as high as it’s always been.”

“Shut up,” he laughed, playfully hitting my shoulder. We both laughed again until we settled into another lull.

“What do we do now?” I asked quietly. He thought about it a minute, then suddenly started pulling me towards the bed. I went along with it and let him lead me onto it. I chuckled nervously. “This is moving a little fast don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t want to have sex, I just want you to hold me,” he said, in a small voice. He wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face against my shoulder as we laid there. I bit my lip and gently wrapped my arms around him, holding him against me. It was silent again, but this time it was comfortable. I finally felt like I was right back where I needed to be: in my own bed, holding onto my favorite person in the world.
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*Kellin’s POV*
The fact that Vic couldn’t spend the night bummed me out, but I had to let him go. He had a final exam in the morning and needed to spend the night on campus so he’d be ready. As much as I wanted him to stay and hold me, I wanted to see him do well. On top of that, I didn’t really want to rush back into things with him. Yeah, we’d made out and cuddled and everything, but we technically weren’t in a relationship again. It wouldn’t have felt right anyway, since he’d only just broken up with Jaime.

The next day was my first real day at work anyway. I was pretty nervous to go in, considering what had happened during my “interview”. I tried to reassure myself by saying that I probably wouldn’t see Mr. Sykes very often anyway. I was going to be a secretary in the lobby of the building, answering phone calls and making appointments. I didn’t even know what the company was for, but I guess I didn’t really have to.

When I got to the office, I went to the floor I needed to be on and was shown to my desk by this nice lady. There was an old computer and a phone and some office supplies- nothing really exciting, but hey. It was twenty an hour and it was my first job.

“Just dial my extension if you need anything,” the lady told me.

“Sure, thanks – what’s your name?” I wanted to know.

“You can just call me Lola,” she shrugged before walking away. She seemed nicer than Mr. Sykes at least. I sighed and turned back to my desk as the phone started ringing. A wave of panic surged through me as I realized I didn’t even know what to say when I answered. I gasped and grabbed the phone anyway.

“Hello?” I said, probably sounding incredibly stupid. Answering the phone was harder than it seemed. The person on the other line didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he didn’t say anything besides his name and the person he needed to make an appointment with. I checked the appointment schedule thing and saw when the requested guy was free, and relayed that to him. And then that was the end of the conversation.

Well, this was going so smoothly. I found myself actually enjoying the quiet atmosphere and the short-and-sweet phone calls. I didn’t have much else to do, so I found myself doodling random things on a blank notepad. I noticed a couple of people coming and going, but other than that there didn’t seem to be many people working in that office.

Before I knew it, the day was over and I was on my way out. I made my way to the front door after closing down my desk. I gasped when I saw that Mr. Sykes was on his way out as well. I didn’t want to see him, so I hung back in hopes that he would just keep going and wouldn’t notice me.

Unfortunately I wasn’t that lucky, because he was quickly turning around, his eyes locking on me. His mouth curled into a creepy grin.

“Oh, there’s my newest employee,” he said, cheerfully, holding the door open for me. I muttered a shy hello and made my way past him, only to feel his hand quickly smacking against my butt as I did so. I jumped and turned back to him, shocked. He just chuckled and gave me a quick wink. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Quinn.”

I nodded awkwardly and hurried away, making my way to the closest bus stop. I was so flustered it took me a minute to realize that I had gotten on the wrong one.

‘Crap.’ I thought to myself, quickly scanning over the map that was on the side. When I figured out where the bus was going, I heaved a sigh of relief. The bus was actually going by Vic’s school. I figured maybe I would just finish the route and see if Vic could give me a ride back to his parents’. I smiled to myself as I sat back down in one of the bus seats. I was really happy that Vic and I were on good terms again. We weren’t in a relationship for very long, but I still thought about him almost every day that we couldn’t see each other. It wasn’t either person’s fault that we had to break up- and I knew that he wasn’t that far away. I had been planning on leaving home to go find him when I turned eighteen for almost that entire time.

No matter what happened, I knew that what Vic and I had together was special. I always had fun with him, and he had brought out a whole new side of me that I didn’t even know was there. I felt like I was my best self when I was with him.

Once I arrived on campus, I found my way to Vic’s building and went up the stairs. I racked my brain for the room number, and when I remembered it I made a beeline for the door. I knocked quickly on it, wondering how excited he would be to see me so unexpectedly.

But when the door swung open, the guy that answered wasn’t Vic. It was Jaime.

“What are you doing here?” he said, sounding disgusted. I furrowed my eyebrows together, confused. I thought Vic broke up with him! Why was he in his room if they were broken up?

“I took the wrong bus after work and it brought me here, so I was going to ask if Vic could give me a ride-“

“That’s cute,” he snickered. “But Vic’s not here right now. He’s in the bathroom down the hall taking a shower or something. But I don’t think you should be here when he gets back.”

“Why not?” I wanted to know. Who was he to dictate what Vic could and couldn’t do? Jaime just laughed.

“Why, do you think he still likes you or something? Do you know how much you fucked him up? He doesn’t talk about it, but no one wants to be friends with him here because everyone thinks he’s some sick fuck.”

“W-why do they think that?” I asked quietly, trying my best not to falter and his hand.

“Because of that dumb sexual predator thing. They think he’s this creep when he’s not. He’s just a nice guy that got screwed over,” he explained.

“That’s not my fault! At least I never physically abused him!” I snapped, referring to his bullying days in high school. “You purposely made his life miserable.”

“We’ve gotten past that,” he mumbled.

“Did he ever tell you we wrote a song about you?” I said, just trying to look for a way to get back at him. I wasn’t about to get cornered here. I wasn’t about to let Jaime think that he was better for Vic than I was. Jaime looked confused though.

“What?”

“Yeah, we wrote a song- actually he wrote more than one, but we wrote a song together that was fueled by how much he hated you,” I spat. He still looked confused. “And he still has it. He’s kept the original copy this entire time- he probably never even liked you-“

And then I felt his hand colliding with my face before I saw it coming. I stumbled backwards, looking up at him as I lightly touched my face. He looked pissed. I mean, I didn’t mean for him to hit me, but I was secretly glad that I made him angry.

He was about to have another go at me when we were both distracted by a shirtless, wet-haired Vic jogging towards us from down the hall.

“What the hell is going on over here?”