Out There Pt 1

He just kissed me.

Damn it!

How many months have I been trying to avoid this exact situation? And yet here I am, getting kissed by the man of my dreams.

What a nightmare.

I breathe out slowly, trying to keep the red from creeping into my cheeks. Heaven knows I like him kissing me; I always have. But I can’t let him know. “Hey. I don't think we should…”

“Don’t think,” he says. He kisses me again.

Double damn it. My knees go weak and all I want is to melt into his arms and let him carry me through that door. Let him carry me out there. But I can't.

"Donny...." I barely have time to say his name before his lips are on mine again. How am I going to make this stop? All I want right now is for him to kiss me, but no. No.

NO!

I push him harder and take a step back to put some physical distance between us. “Don’t do this.”

"We can’t keep pretending for the rest of our lives."

"Pretending what?" I try to sound innocent. I fiddle with the heart-shaped locket around my neck.

"That we don’t mean anything to each other."

I shake my head. “You don’t…” I want to say, you don’t mean anything to me. But the words stick in my throat. I can't say them.

I lie every day, but I can't lie that. He means so much to me. He means everything to me. That’s why I can never go out there with him.

Oh, why did this have to happen again? I look him in the face. “You don’t want to do this and you know it."

"It’s just a kiss," Donny says, taking a step toward me.

I take two steps back.

"It’s not just a kiss." It's the end of your life. I can’t say that to him, of course. He wouldn’t believe me. He wouldn’t understand. He would just think I was talking about out there. That’s not what I mean.

Donny crosses his arms over his chest and shifts his weight to one foot, frowning at me for a long time. “So that’s it? You’re going to stay here?”

"What other choice do I have?"

He comes in slowly, making a million tiny moves, so I can't find a definitive point when I should step away from him. Before I know it, he’s caught me up in his arms again. I’m right where I want to be. It’s getting harder to resist every time we end up here. He rests his forehead on my temple and whispers in my ear, “Run away with me.”

His hot breath on my neck sends flames down my skin and makes it harder for me to say no. “Run away? Donny. Nothing is out there.” I try to make it clear to him, but I know he won’t hear me.

Donny sighs. "People used to survive. Live off the land. You know, eat the berries, catch the fish, whatever."

"Some of those berries are poisonous." I make up an excuse. It doesn’t even matter about the berries; he’ll never get a chance to try them. "You don’t know which ones are good and which are bad."

"I guess if I puke after eating them, I’ll know."

"Or die."

He exhales long and deep. He doesn't say it, but I know what he's thinking. He’s said it plenty of times before. What’s worse? Living here or dying there?

I can't keep doing this to him. Maybe next time I’ll avoid him altogether. It’ll be easier if I just don’t let him get close to me. It’ll be easier if we never end up here, sharing our first and last kiss right by the door to out there.

But we always end up here. No matter how hard I try to resist him, we always find each other, and we always end here.

Donny presses his lips against my neck and the heat surges up in me like it's done with every last kiss we’ve shared. “Please. Just go with me.”

A tear slips from my eye and tumbles down his neck. I say it again, but it comes out a whisper. There’s no strength in me left to convince him. “There’s nothing out there, Donny. Believe me.”

His voice is hardly audible. “There’s nothing for us here.”

I step back again and bump into the wall behind me. I'm running out of options. He doesn’t know how badly I want to go with him but I can’t. For both of us, I can’t do that. I try to look and sound firm. “I’m not leaving.”

Donny takes his first step away from me, anger on his beautiful face. “Well I’m not staying.”

My heart skips, an ache spreads through it. Some part of my mind is screaming, don't lose him! Not like last time! But I refuse to listen. I bite my lower lip to keep back the tears. "Fine."

"You know I’ll leave."

"I know you will." You always do.

He stares at me several seconds, almost like he wants to drag me out with him. He can't make me leave, I know that. But I can't make him stay. I've tried many times.

"I thought you cared about me."

I swallow hard and look down. “I did,” I say, stressing how past tense that is now. From the moment we started this relationship again I was asking him to stay. He's the one who didn't listen. Why does he always want to go out there as soon as he meets me?

Donny finally realizes I won't change my mind. He nods. “You be good in here, okay?”

All I can do is force a weak goodbye. This is the last I'll see of Donny.

At least, this version of him.

He walks out the door. An siren sounds and a recording tells Donny that holograms are not allowed to leave the game floor.

He spins to look at me for the last few seconds of his awareness. “Holograms?” he demands. His feet and hands are already disappearing. The look of betrayal on his face breaks my heart. “You knew!”

"You wouldn’t listen. You wouldn’t stay. I’ve tried before, Donny. If I tell you, it destroys you. I’ve come to terms with what I am. You can’t face the truth.”

A tear slips down my cheek as his chest becomes opaque and I can see his heart beating behind it.

“When you decide to go, I have to let you go; there’s nothing else I can do."

"Both of us are… like this?" he asks.

I nod and a sob escapes my lips.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, just before his face disappears.

I knew he would leave the moment he kissed me. He only ever kisses me here, at the edge of out there. I know he loves me, but he sees what it’s like in here, and he wants to build something better for us somewhere else. The problem is, there is nowhere else. It doesn’t exist, not for us. Only for the people that use us.

Each time Donny leaves, some part of me wants to go with him, but then both of us would be wiped. I carry too many memories to let that happen. I remember him. I remember the thousands of lives we’ve had together. I remember everything.

Maybe sometimes that’s why I want to go so badly. I should just let us both fade. It must be nice. He wakes up not remembering any of this. Any of the heartache.

The thought makes me shiver. I can't forget the hundreds of syms we've run together. I grab my heart-shaped locket and take a moment to save his file on my hard drive before the game resets. This Donny was one of the best. I really do wish he had stayed.

Damn it.

If only he hadn't kissed me.

***

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