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Her bags are packed, in the back of her truck (old, loud muffler, a little rough for wear with chipping green paint but hers and reliable). And it’s weird because she knows it should be packed for college because that’s been the plan. Now it’s not.
Alex has tried, really really tried. She came home from that island, tired and years older with none of the passage of time that should have happened. It’s still her body, barely eighteen. Her hair is shorter now, brown and blue streaked, but that’s about the only difference. She came home from that island, and she tried to go back to normal.
To Michael never having died and him still with Clarissa and with Ren making eyes at Nona and to Jonas being - Jonas. Friend, not-brother.
It’s all very confusing because it’s not like they can tell anybody, and she’s really the only person who remembers the cycles in full spectrum detail.
Long story short, she’s not adjusting as well as she wishes she could.
So she needs to go. Anywhere, everywhere, away.
“Not even going to say goodbye, huh?”
Jonas is leaning on the other side of her truck, unlit cigarette hanging in his mouth.
She doesn’t mean to jump, but he’s quiet and unexpected and here. So she does, just the barest little startle and jerk of her body. “The hell, Jonas. I was going to send a text.”
He frowns, the flame of his lighter glowing across his face. “Seriously, Alex?”
Jonas still wears that stupid hat of his, little tufts of dark hair poking out from beneath the beanie, even though it’s summer and hot and she can see the beads of sweat that dot along his jawline. Is it weird to be so invested in that line?
Yeah, yeah it is. Get it together, Alex.
It takes her another second to notice the strap that hangs on his shoulder, black and stark against his gray shirt. It looks like it belongs to a bag.
“Yeah, seriously. I didn’t want us to get all mushy and whatnot. I know you’d miss me,” she teases. A wink accompanies it, and she delights in the upturn of his mouth that tugs his cigarette with it.
“We won’t get mushy.” The strap does belong to a bag, which he slings off his shoulder and into the bed of the truck. It bounces a little with the weight and toss. “Because I’m going.”
There’s a disconnect. She can’t put together the picture these dots are making. She stares from him full-to-bursting duffel bag to him to the bag to her truck, brow furrowing and meeting in the middle until she sees a haze of fuzzy in her eyes.
“You’re going where?” Alex asks.
“With you.” There’s an unspoken ‘idiot’ in his tone, and she accepts it with easy grace. Obviously he means with her, because he’s packed a bag and here when she’s ready to take off, the early morning sunlight bouncing off of everything with a reflective surface.
She’s not going to say it now, because it will make her experience more emotions than she’s ready to handle this early in the morning, but she’s grateful. Ecstatic. Plenty of people tried to talk her out of this idea, but nobody has offered to go. Asked her why she needed to leave. Wanted to be with her. And it’s not like she resents anyone for it, because they have their own lives and paths and didn’t go through what she did.
But Jonas was there. He saw. He remembers more than the others, and there’s comfort in that. She grins and runs her fingers through her hair. “No smoking in the truck.”
He takes one last long drag before flicking his cancer stick that tastes like chewing pine needles and mint. She’ll never forget the taste of that.
“Where are we going?”
Alex shrugs. “East. Or south. I don’t know. We can flip a coin.” Because there’s no plan, she doesn’t plan these things. Come on now.
The look he gives her is half resigned and half amused.
They both get into the truck.
The radio is missing, a nice little cave in the dash. He doesn’t say anything about it.
--
They’re hanging out in a state park, two days into the trip going nowhere. Alex needs to stretch her legs and Jonas needs a smoke break and they’re both starving. So they’re eating McDonald’s and sitting on a picnic table. Their knees touch, rest against each other.
“We should probably sleep in an actual bed,” Jonas suggests around a mouthful of fries.
“Do we have actual bed money?”
She planned for just her, and it wasn’t very good planning to begin with. His blank look says that he has no idea.
“How do I let myself get talked into these things with you?” he asks.
She throws a pickle at him, watches it stick to his cheek, and laughs. “You did this to yourself.”
He peels the pickle off and eats it. “I didn’t want to miss you.”
Her heart hammers in her chest, cheeks heating. It’s nothing. She doesn’t want to look into it.
“I know we all don’t talk about it,” Jonas continues, “but I still have nightmares about the island. I remember you being - gone. I remember different versions of us, Alex.”
Her mouth twists, and the heated good feelings of a second ago sour over in her stomach. She doesn’t want to eat anymore. It’s not that she doesn’t want to talk about Edwards Island, but she doesn’t even know what to say. How many times did she sacrifice herself and die, or did she ever actually die, and did Michael ever actually die and did Clarissa ever really disappear. How does she talk about those things without sounding crazy? How does she talk about the fear that gripped every time the ghosts tried to take Jonas, when she would turn around and he’d be gone? Possessed?
“It’s not like I’m disappearing forever,” she finally manages to say. Her voice is a little strangled, words stuck in her throat. “I’m just like, you know. Running away.”
“From all of us?”
Alex grabs his hand, fingers curling around his and presses her nails into his palm. He startles and looks at her, his hand reflexively holding hers in return. “Not you.”
--
“Oh good, there are two beds,” Alex says with a happy sigh, flopping down onto the motel bed.
Jonas wrinkles his nose at her. He’s already checking his mattress, pulling up the corners of the sheets to check the lining. She folds her hands behind her head and watches as he does the same for her bed, nudging her leg with the toe of his shoe.
“This isn’t exactly the Ritz,” he tells her.
She agreed to the motel to get away from the conversation that had grown too serious, too uncertain. Something happened. There’s a quiet that stretches between them, a pain born of traumatic bullshit.
“You wanted a bed. You got a bed.” She sits up again, hands clasped between her knees. “Thank you so very much, Alex, for my bed and my road trip and you. Oh, why thank you, Jonas. I do what I can.”
He rolls his eyes at her. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m going to shower.”
She watches him walk into their cramped, badly tiled bathroom. He kicks the door closed behind him. She smiles and lays back down.
Sometimes, when she falls asleep and wakes up again, she thinks that there’s a shift in time and space. That she hasn’t actually fallen asleep. That she is in a loop again. That’s what this shuddering feels like when she opens her eyes again, in an unfamiliar room, quiet seeping in around her. It’s her. And it’s Jonas. It’s always her and it’s always Jonas.
But Jonas is usually more… dressed. There’s a towel draped around his waist. His back to her, skin still wet from the shower. Right. He took a shower. They got a room. They’re not on the island. They’re a couple of states away from home.
Safe.
He still thinks she must be sleeping because he isn’t in a rush to put clothes on or yell at her for looking or any of the number of things that Jonas could do. So she takes her time, remains still. His shoulders are stiff, as if even the shower couldn’t melt away his anxiety. His hair sticks out at odd, wet angles. He’s got nice legs. Is that a weird thing to notice about a guy? Is that the kind of compliments they like?
Oh, nice thighs, your calves are really shapely.
She’s about to say something, groan from her own embarrassment, when he turns and there is chest. Nice chest. Broad. Soft belly, a vague outline of what could be if he hit the gym on a regular basis and didn’t eat shitty fast food on a cross country trip. The dip of his hips, lines forming into a really really nice ‘V’.
“Hey.”
That is, without a doubt, Jonas’s voice. Talking to her.
And she has to drag her gaze up to his face, see the reddening of his skin that settles rosy in his cheeks. Her face is on fire.
“Hey. You’re in a towel.” Yeah, let’s just go ahead and bring that up.
“You’re a pervert,” he accuses, grabbing a bundle of clothes and rushing back into the bathroom.
It’s so ridiculous - so true - that she can’t help but throw her head back and laugh. It’s loud and echoing and tugs at her gut. It leaves her breathless.
“Are you afraid, Jonas?”
“Yeah, because I’m stuck in a room with a pervert. If I had known, well. I’d have still come, but we would have had a talk about privacy.”
She slips off the bed and pads her way over to the bathroom door, so that when he opens it, she’s right there. It’s mostly to just make him feel more uncomfortable. It’s funny. Without him, this trip would have been nothing but her and depression and being stuck in her own head. With him?
He stares down at her, clothed now, but no less red. A smile plays on his lips. “And personal space. These are kindergarten lessons.”
“Are you saying I’m a five year old?”
“I’m saying five year olds learn this.”
Alex realizes that she actually has no idea what to say, which isn’t normally like her. She’s always got something up her sleeve, but right now? Right now, it’s not coming to her. He doesn’t break his gaze anymore than she does. One of his hands grips the doorway, as if he’s holding on.
She should move. Why isn’t she moving? It’s like her legs are frozen.
“I need a smoke,” Jonas finally tells her, his eyes roaming her face, searching, waiting. For what?
“Oh. Yeah. I guess I should shower.” It’s like she’s moving through molasses, but she manages to get out of his way.
He wraps a lock of her hair around his finger and tugs gently. “Good idea. I didn’t want to say it since you were driving, but you’re getting kind of stale.”
She punches him in the arm.
--
What is she doing? What is she doing?
Not sleeping. Not because of nightmares or fear, but Jonas. He’s snoring lightly, blankets tangled around his legs, not a care in the world. Not at all worried about her perverted, lecherous thoughts. Because she’s thinking about kissing him. Wants to kiss him. Wishes she had continued that conversation where he was afraid of her leaving without him.
Underneath the lusting, there’s something deep. It’s a trench that had been dug during their misadventures, a length of tunnels that lead to a place of light and warmth and need. She thinks she loves him. She’s never loved anyone romantically before, so she can’t say for sure. Maybe she’s just never had any time to think about it, but she’s sure it happened that night. Those loops.
He sleeps, lost to the world.
She thinks, lost in her thoughts.
--
They end up in the mountains somewhere. They’re large, looming, purple and gray and white, and Alex has never seen anything quite as breathtaking as this. Her hands are on her hips, worn red jacket zipped up. It’s summer, but it’s a little chilly here.
“Up for a hike?” she asks Jonas.
“You and me in nature, what could possibly happen?” Sarcasm drips from his mouth, and she rolls her eyes.
“Don’t be a baby.”
They try to see as much as they can on their trip. All the cheap, free thrills of the country and what it has to offer them. And now she wants to hike trails and enjoy fresh air and stretch her legs. Her thighs are cramped, her back stiff.
He follows her up a trail. After a while, he huffs a little harder than normal, and she wants to poke fun at his smoking habit, how his lungs are going to wheeze right out of his chest, but she comes up on a stream.
The water is clear and burbling. Following down the line of it, where it goes, there’s a lake. Well, maybe not a lake. A small pond seems more accurate. There’s always something, isn’t there. Always a body of water.
She remembers the sub and walking on the bottom of the ocean and watching, always watching, always running.
His hand is gentle on her shoulder. “We’re not there,” he whispers in her ear. His voice is soft, soothing.
“I know.”
“Let’s sit. I’m tired of walking.”
He plops down at the edge of the stream, shoes just barely in the water.
“Seriously?” she asks him. “We were all over Edwards Island with no issue.”
“Adrenaline,” he says, waving it off. “Come over here and relax.”
She does, maybe because she needs a break too, maybe because she likes being near Jonas. Likes when they get to have these moments together. When it’s over, she’s going to miss this closeness, this themness.
He reaches for her wrist when she gets close enough and tugs.
“Hey! I’m getting there,” Alex protests.
But he doesn’t let her go as she begins to fold her legs. He tugs again until she loses her footing and ends up in his lap instead, butt landing hard on his thigh.
“I imagined that going way more smoothly,” he groaned, hands on her hips as he shifts her so that she’s in the middle of his legs, nestled perfectly back against him.
Her brain has, effectively, short circuited. “Uh.” It’s all she can manage to say, and she’s pretty sure that it’s not even actually a word. It’s a noise, a grunt of confusion.
“You’re really stupid sometimes, Alex.” Jonas wraps his arms around her now. She tilts her head back so that it’s resting on his shoulder and she can look up at him. His gaze is on the water.
Well. “That’s rude.” But, yeah.
He’s warm against her body, and for the first time in so long, she feels safe. She feels like nothing hideous can touch her again, ruin her again, take her again.
“I am too,” Jonas continues. “I wanted to tell you, but I thought you just - we were siblings, weren’t we? At some point, we were brother and sister. It was easy to stay that way.”
Her lips graze across his jaw, his neck. It’s impulse. How many times on this trip has she thought about kissing him? His grip on her tightens.
“Not in this timeline. Not this us,” she tells him.
When he finally kisses her, it’s not a bright sunburst, not full of passion and heat. It’s awkward, their angles wrong, and it’s soft, quiet. He captures her mouth, and she inhales the taste of him, all mint and smoke. It’s not passion because it’s a promise.
Not this timeline.
Not this us.
This time, Jonas and Alex can wrap themselves up in each other so neither can disappear again.
And maybe, when Alex turns and straddles his waist, hands in his hair as he holds her hips, it’s a promise that this is theirs and nobody else’s to change.