PODs (25 page)

“I’m sorry. People were out after curfew. The neighborhood had too much activity. I couldn’t get away.”

“Don’t apologize, Eva. I’m just glad you’re here now.”

He reached out to me. I pushed my hand through the gaps in the fence and cupped his cheek. He leaned down and gently slid his lips over mine. We kissed and touched as much as the fence would allow.

“What’s it like where you live?”

We sat cross-legged in the grass, our fingers threaded together. His thumb moved back and forth over the tops of my fingers. The metal of the fence was hard and bit into the side of my hand, but I barely felt it. Every nerve ending in my body focused on the feel of David’s thumb caressing my fingers.

“Not as cushy as where you live.” I heard the smile in his voice.

“You’ll be here soon. You’ll be living in the cushy house with me.”

“Eva…”

In the dim moonlight, I could see that his lips were pulled down and the skin between his brows wrinkled. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. From the look on his face I knew it wouldn’t be anything good.

“We’ll be in the same district. Did I tell you that? All the education personnel are located in district
E
,” I continued, turning my head so I didn’t have to look at him.

“Yes,” he whispered, “you mentioned it. Eva—”

“Even if we aren’t in the same district we can find ways to see each other. I mean, we’re in two totally different camps and still manage.”

“I won’t be allowed in the village.”

I shook my head. I felt the sting of tears behind my eyes and willed them not to fall. I knew what he was saying was true. Residents of the villages were banned from contact with outsiders.

“Yes, you will. This is just a misunderstanding. Once they realize you’re a POD survivor they’ll let you in. You’ll have to stay in quarantine, of course, but then—”

“I tried. I showed my ID at the gate today.”

“You were in the PODs! They have to let you in.”

“It isn’t dead. The virus. It…it didn’t die.”

“What are you talking about? It had to! The survivors were either too far away from the infected or immune to the virus. It didn’t have any hosts. George said it was just a theory that the virus wasn’t dead, not a fact.”

“It found a way to adapt, to mutate. It survived. I won’t be allowed into the compound.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m not—”

“No! You’re wrong, David. They’ll find a cure, put you in quarantine, something.”

He tugged my hair gently. I turned my head and faced him, our faces so close I could feel his warm breath. But as close as we were, we were that far away. The fence separated us, keeping us from truly being together, from being close.

He pressed his face to the fence. I scooted closer and pressed my face against the cold, unforgiving metal, barely noticing when it pinched and poked me. He kissed me through the opening. I pushed my hand through as far as I could, grabbing his shirtfront and pulling him closer, holding him to me.

He jerked his head away, banging his hand against the crisscrossed metal. “This damn fence!”

“I told you to bring metal cutters,” I said.

He laughed. “Yeah, they’re on my shopping list.”

The tension broken, we lapsed into a comfortable silence. Lying on our backs, watching the stars twinkle above us.

“Look, David, a shooting star.” I pointed in the black sky at the golden tail of the star streaking across the darkness.

“Yeah, I see. Make a wish.”

I didn’t say anything. We both knew what my wish was, and we both knew it wasn’t going to come true.

I walked down my driveway and made a right when I reached the sidewalk. My heart rate rose and my breathing increased, but it wasn’t from the exercise. David was waiting for me. My heart raced for him.

My street ended in a cul-de-sac. Beyond that was our meadow, at least a half-mile deep and as wide as the town. At the edge was the fence—the fence that kept David out and me in. The fence that kept us apart.

David wasn’t there when I got to the meeting place, and I panicked.
Maybe he was caught; maybe he was hurt; maybe
… I looked at my watch, just visible in the moonlight. Maybe I was fifteen minutes early. I sighed and sat down in the cool grass to wait. The rear of my jeans turned wet from the moist ground and I shivered from the cool autumn night.

I picked random blades of grass out of the ground and tossed them into the wind. I didn’t hear him walk up.

“Hey, beautiful,” he whispered.

I turned and smiled. “David.” I reached toward the fence. The cold steel crisscrossed my palm, catching the edges of the moonlight. I stuck my fingers as far as I could through the metal holes. David’s fingers intertwined with them.

“Sorry I’m late. Something happened… I mean, I was held up.” He shrugged one shoulder, like whatever had happened wasn’t important.

“What happened that made you late, David? And don’t say
nothing
. I can tell something is up.”

“It was nothing, really. I mean, nothing we don’t normally deal with. Another band of travelers tried to grab some of our supplies.”

“I don’t like you being out there.”

“Me neither, but it keeps me near you. Let’s not waste our time talking about my living arrangements,” he said with a smile.

“I brought you something.” I dug through my bag. There was too much crap in it. As soon as I moved some out of my way, more fell in its place. Spying the little blue bottle, I grabbed it before everything else could swallow it. “Here. Let me know when you run out. I’ll get you more.”

“What are they?” he asked, sticking his fingers through the fence holes to take the bottle.

“Vitamins. They’ll help…well, when your food supply… Just take them, okay?”

“I will,” he promised. He took the blue bottle and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

“I brought something else.”

“You don’t have to bring me things to make sure I come see you, Eva. I live to see you each night. It’s the only thing that gets me through my days.”

“I know. Here.” I picked up the shopping bag. “It’s not going to fit.”

“It’s okay…”

“I’ll put the things through one by one.”

I reached into the bag and pulled out the cans of tuna fish. They barely fit through the fence. I had to lean them each to the side and pound them through with the side of my fist until the fence gave way just a little. Next I tried to push the fresh apples and oranges through, but only the smallest would fit. Even those were hard; juice soaked my fingers from the oranges I’d shoved through the hole.

“It smells good,” David said.

“Eat it. It won’t keep; the skin is broken. Eat it while it’s still fresh.”

“I don’t want to eat in front of you.”

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud, David. I can get them whenever I want. When’s the last time you had a fresh orange?” He shrugged. “That’s what I thought. Eat it.”

I watched his long fingers pull the rind from the orange. He worked quickly, ripping it away. He didn’t bother eating the orange one slice at a time. He held it to his mouth and bit into it like an apple, moaning when the juice spurted in his mouth and ran down his chin. I smiled, watching him eat.

“Thank you, Eva.”

“No problem. I have a few more things. First, these cans.”

The cans of fruit were narrower than the tuna fish cans, so they slipped through easily, plopping on the ground next to David.

“I didn’t know if you had a can opener, so I got flip tops. I’ll bring a can opener next time. One last thing.” I took out the chocolates and pushed the small bags through the fence one at a time. David caught them as they fell. “Sweets for my sweet,” I told him with a smile.

“The guy’s supposed to bring the girl chocolate.”

“Yeah, and there’s something distinctively sexist about your comment. I’ll keep track of how much candy I bring you; when this is over and we’re together again, you can make it up to me. How’s that?”

“Deal.”

The bag emptied, I pushed it through the opening so David could use it to carry the supplies back to his camp.

“This is too much. How are you paying for this?”

“I’m not. Everything is free.”

“Free?”

I nodded. “All supplies are free until everyone gets established in their jobs and a banking system can be put in place. And no one thinks twice about how much someone takes. Everyone is stocking up before we have to start paying for things. People go to the grocery store every day and fill their carts full, so a few cans of fruit and tuna and some chocolates aren’t going to raise suspicion.”

“I just don’t want you risking anything for me. You need to stay there. If they ever caught you bringing me supplies—”

“But they haven’t. Do you need any clothes? Do you have warm socks? What about thermals? The nights are starting to get colder.”

“I’m good.”

“Okay, I’ll bring thermals tomorrow.”

He laughed. “You are so stubborn. I guess thermals would be nice. It’s cold at night. But I don’t want you risking anything. Understand? It’s important to me that you be careful when you get supplies for me. In fact, as much as I like them, I wish you wouldn’t bring anything. It’s too dangerous.”

“Let me worry about that. I love you and I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure you have everything you need until you’re with me.”

“Say that again.”

“I’m going to do whatever—”

“No, not that. What you said before that.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He held my hand through the fence. We talked for two hours, longer than we should’ve. But it was so hard to leave him. I thought it would get easier knowing I’d see him the next night, but it only got harder. I found myself staying longer and longer each night.

“I had a thought after you left last night.”

“What about?” I asked him.

“You said you’d keep track of the candy you brought me—”

“David, I was kidding!”

“No, that wasn’t what bothered me. It was when you said I could make it up to you.”

“And?”

“I wouldn’t have any idea what to get you. We really don’t know anything about each other, Eva. And this one hour a night deal isn’t cutting it—”

“Oh no,” I shook my head slowly, looking at him. “We know plenty about each other. All we did in the POD was talk.”

“The deal is, I’m not going to be allowed into the compound. You aren’t leaving it. I think we should cut our losses and move on,” he said.

Something twisted within me, strangling me from within. “Cut our losses?
Move on?
You left your camp, travelled with a bunch of nomads looking for me, risked your life, just to come here and tell me you want to move on? Why didn’t you tell me this before now? Huh? This isn’t about some freakin’ candy, David.”

“No, I’ve been thinking about it for the last week or so. The candy thing just made me more aware of how little we know about each other. We don’t even know if we could have a relationship outside the POD. Everything was different there. We lived in a vacuum. Literally and figuratively sealed off from the world.”

“It doesn’t matter where we were! We talked. That’s all we did was talk. We know each other, David. Probably better than some married couples. Our relationship worked there and it will work here.”

“Whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ears at night and you telling me your favorite day in school was pajama day doesn’t mean we know each other.”

“We shared more than that…” I stared at him.
Glared
would be a better word. My fists balled at my sides; my fingers curled so tightly they ached.

He shook his head. “It isn’t going to work, Eva. And my group—the people I’ve been traveling with—are heading out tomorrow. They want to see if they can find other survivors, their families. And I’m…I’m going with them.”

“Screw you, David,” I whispered.

I turned and walked away. He didn’t call out to me, even though I was praying he would realize what an ass he was being and tell me to come back. And I didn’t run back to him and beg him not to give up on us, even though my feet wanted to turn around a hundred times between the fence and my house. Instead, I stumbled through the meadow,
our
meadow, the toe of my sneakers catching on the underbrush and the rocks covering the ground, as hot salty tears ran down my cheeks.