There was a definite strain on my breathing now. I was well aware of the dangerous amount of carbon dioxide floating around in our air now. I knew that Adam was kind of, too, but didn't want to show me that he was freaking out. Because, God knows, if he displayed some sign that we may die, then he'd be suuuuuuuch a hypocrite.
I could hear the gentle wheeze of his inhaling. There was a building pressure in my head. I couldn't see him. It was getting very, very stuffy in here. One fart would kill us both. So I'd previously warned him that if he did - fart, I mean - I would never partially do any of his assignments for Chemistry again.
That shut his ass up pretty quickly.
But, you know, it's not like we're going to GET OUT of here. So it doesn't matter, what I say.
However, I had to try. You know. Because he'd already accused me of being a pessimist. 'You do that essay?' I asked him, thinking he'd be all cheerful that I was finally thinking of something that didn't involve dying in a small enclosed room - now I was thinking of dying from getting murdered by a teacher who was chasing up late homework. Spiffing.
I could almost feel his frown of confusion on my forehead. 'What?
'That essay,' I said. 'The one for World Civ.'
'Oh, right,' he said, with a definite trace of bitterness in his voice, 'I forgot that you've memorized the whole semester's homework assignments. So silly of me.'
I paused in my next sentence, hurt.
'Not all of us are as nerdy as you, you know. Some of us have lives,' he informed me.
'At least I don't have a crush Suze,' I snapped at him corrosively.
He gave a hollow laugh. 'I sure hope not,' he said. 'I mean, nothing against lesos, but you and Suze? Ouch. Then again, we guys find lesbians unbelievably hot. Girly kissing, and the ever possibility of a threesome,' he trailed off, his voice sounding rich and gluggy.
I stammered out a reply of revulsion, when he cried, 'You DO have a crush on Suze? I KNEW IT! I knew that there was some code behind that "the square root of 144 is 12, Suze, calculated by pi and then you have . . . a number . . . fascinating, isn't it?" Means "meet me in the ladies' in five, topless," right?' he said with mock suspicion.
'Shut up,' I snapped, with a hideous blush that he could, thankfully, not see. I shifter a little to the left, so I was away from the foot that was still perched beside my butt.
'Hell no,' he shot, 'That would give you opportunity to talk, Spider-Webb. And my ears can only take so much.'
'We all know how you just loooove to hear yourself speak.' I glared into the darkness.
My face was getting hotter. CeeCee . . . don't think about it . . . just keep talking . . . keep arguing . . .
. . . No one's going to find you . . .
'Yes, I do rather enjoy my dulcet tones,' he said brightly. 'Like opera. Only, not.'
'We're going to die,' I muttered, shaking again. Not from cold. It was not even CLOSE to cold. I was freaking out. Against my lap, my hand was trembling. I guess I was really hungry, too. No food, all day. 'And you're STILL joking.'
'Aaah,' he mused, 'The great niece of the famous Aunt Prudence has predicted our deaths. See? This psychic thing runs in your freakin' family.'
Freak-Y family, get it right, loser.
'Give the Aunt Pru thing a rest!' I snapped.
'Never!' he chuckled, like we were having a picnic or something. His tone was NOT panicking. It was making me angry, how he could just PRETEND THIS WASN'T HAPPENING. 'Well, I guess this contradicts her predictions of my becoming an astronaut. How's for that, ex-Cleopatra?'
He coughed.
'Well, dead people don't make very good astronauts,' I mumbled to him. Maybe they do. I'll ask Suze that one.
'No,' he sniffed in disdain, 'they don't.'
No one's going to find us . . .
. . . We're going to die in here.
'Oh God,' I whimpered, leaning back heavily against the door, 'Adam, the air's almost gone . . . we're going to d - '
'God, SHUT UP!' he shouted in exasperation. 'Have you NOT seen Monty Python? "Always look on the bright side of life, doo do, do doo do doo dah dooooo - " '
'I hate you,' I hissed.
He went quiet, shocked. 'What?' he asked after a moment, astounded. As if he hadn't heard correctly, or something. I was about to reconfirm, when he continued. 'You hate me, CeeCee?'
'Y - '
'Not as much as I hate you, you freak,' he growled, hit foot, once again, moving so it was half digging into my butt. As if, he needed to know I was still there. I felt his knee bump against mine.
Freak.
. . . Freeeeeeeeeeeeak.
Adam hated me.
Adam was going to die hating me.
. . . My best friend.
It made me get cold and prickly all over, for some reason.
. . . I didn't mean it . . . I don't hate you . . . I could never hate you . . .
'Shut up,' I warned. 'You're using up all the oxygen, moron.'
'S'pose I am. Doesn't matter though, right?' Then imitating me, he started squealing, 'Well, we're gonna die anyway, what's the difference? We have to accept it, Adam! Oh, Adam, stop converting the oxygen needlessly into carbon dioxide, Adam! Adam!'
'Well the longer we live, the more chance some one will find us. It's not rocket science,' I bashed my knee against his nastily. He released an almost inaudible "oooh!"
He mentioned tetchily, 'Rocket science is supposed to be my thing, though. Remember? Potential astronaut here?'
I coughed, having not drawn in enough oxygen in my most recent breath. My eyelids were drooping. A horrible weight was coming down on my body.
'God,' Adam whispered, 'I wish Suze were here . . . '
An unexpected, white-hot wave of jealousy splashed across my skin. 'I'd bet you'd wanna spend your last freakin' moments making out with her,' I accused.
He chuckled. 'My plans exactly.'
'Typical,' I spat.
'That way, the oxygen would be shared. And there would be less need for it, and I'd last longer,' he joked.
Ever the joker.
He didn't STOP joking, damn it.
'Can you NOT be immature, for ONE SECOND?!' I shrilled at him, my voice going high and thin.
'Do you EVER stop criticizing me!?' he demanded hotly. 'Jesus Christ! It's like having an embodiment of my conscience!'
I said not a word.
He stood up. I knew, because of the brusque sound of his movement, and that his foot was withdrawn from it's place against my bum.
'I'm outta here,' Adam snarled.
'Oh yeah, sure Poptart. You plan to get out, how?' I drawled sarcastically.
He then proceeded to bash against the door, recklessly.
'Adam! No!' I stood up quickly, fumbling around wildly for his shoulder to stop him.
But he just ran at the door again.
And again.
And it didn't move an inch.
I grabbed his shoulder more forcibly. 'Adam, don't! You're going to hurt yourself, you suicidal freak. Just like when you think too hard. Now STOP IT!'
He did. I noticed that he was breathing heavily. Leaning back against the wall, he slid down it, a defeated man.
I joined him on the floor. We sat side by side, in silence. Two best friends. Stuck. Angry. Destined to die.
Oh, it's a Kodak moment.
His voice now sounded slightly shaky. 'So, Miss Science Fair, any calculations on how long we've got before we kick the bucket?'
My face felt very pale. I didn't answer straight away.
'I wonder why they call it kick the bucket . . . I mean, when you die, it's not as if there's always a bucket handy to give it a good kick. Neat stress reliever. Bad figure of speech.'
Adam's hand came to mine, and electricity sizzled up my hand. He squeezed it a little, probably unaware that he was doing so. 'I mean, at least "pushing up daisies" makes sense, huh? When you're in your grave, and there's soil above you, flowers might grow. Knowing me and what I eat, I'll probably push up weeds. Or just to annoy Suze, poison oak - '
'Not long,' I whispered at him.
'Huh?' he asked, and drew in a very heavy breath. Like his lungs were searching every particle of air for oxygen, rather than the ridiculous amounts of carbon dioxide that hung around us.
'You asked how long have we got,' I replied, sounding way calmer than I felt. 'And I answered you. Not long. Not long at all, Adam. The air isn't just running out anymore.'
'Oh?' Adam asked weakly.
I blinked. 'It's almost gone.'
I didn't voice it. There was no need to voice something like that.
Another hour at the most.
Adam was dead still for a moment, but then chose to see the funny side. I could not BELIEVE that he'd managed to find one. He let go of my hand carelessly, and was all, 'That is if starvation doesn't hit me first.' He chuckled with forced humour.
'It won't,' I said softly.
He ignored that. 'How long would I survive without food?' he mused dramatically, 'Without water? Without X-Box?!'
'Surviving without X-Box? A hell of a long time.'
'Hey,' he snapped, overly-sensitive for some reason, 'Don't diss the X-Box. It is my liiiiiife.'
'Don't I know it,' I rolled my eyes.
'No,' he said suddenly, apparently turning to face me. Darkness choked us - or maybe that was lack of air - but yeah, I couldn't see him. Though the movement from beside me indicated his movement. 'No, shut up, okay? Just because you're going to be some major archaeologist or whatever, doesn't mean you can take the piss out of me.'
I smiled wryly. Something quite masochistic, actually. 'I'm not going to be some major archeologist, Adam. I'm going to die.'
He was silent. From fury, it seemed.
'What?' I asked pointedly. 'I am, after all.'
'Shut UP,' he stressed, 'Seriously! I'm . . . I'm starting to believe it.'
'Welcome to the real world,' I said, 'So glad you could join us after sixteen years, McTavish.'
'SHUT UP!'
He stood up in a fusion of panic, anger, and denial. 'How can you be like this, Cee?! HOW? How can you be so certain they we're gonna die! We MIGHT make it, okay? Think about that?!'
'How?' I cocked my head to the side. My breath was making an unattractive wheezing sound now, and my hands were still trembling. I bit my lip, ignoring what was physically happening to me.
'Adam,' I explained coolly, 'It's Friday night, you loser. There is no one in the school. No one. No one would hear us. No one knows we're here. This air is NOT going to last us more than an hour, okay? . . . Two hours if we are extremely lucky,' I lied. Of course it wouldn't last that long. But I'd heard his gasp, as much as he'd tried to hide it.
'And by God,' I added, 'We are sure running out of sanity.'
'Hear hear!' he agreed. 'SO SHUT YOUR MOUTH!'
I stood up furiously, putting the fact that my body wanted to collapse, out of my mind. 'Just because you're living in some la-la land where everything is fine, doesn't mean it actually exists,' I spat at him. 'I'm sorry if la-la land is malfunctioning at the moment, and you're actually
REALIZING what a critical situation we're in. Because Adam? Like it or not, we are not getting out of here alive. It is not possible. So stop joking. All you ever do is joke. You are mentally retarded, when it comes to things that are serious, in life.'
'And just because you're fascinated by compound shit of the periodic freakin' table, doesn't mean that's all to life!' he retorted hotly.
'What?' I snapped, 'What does THAT have anything to do with?!'
'Oh come on,' he yelled, in a voice that was now not only filling the closet, but consuming it, like a choking heat. 'You have to have fun, CeeCee! You have to actually live! My world exists because I make it! I like how I am, and I like the fact that I can make people laugh! This is ME. Like it or not, this is ME, Cee! So SHUT THE HELL UP!'
I fell deadly silent.
My shaking got that little bit worse, and I didn't blame it on the air shortage.
'I am mature,' I said back at him, in a deadly calmness, 'Something that you will never be. I work hard. I enjoy what I do. I like things to be explained. I like your jokes, Adam. But not now. You don't have a serious side. You NEED one. Btu you'll NEVER have one, because you're ADAM!'
I was on a ragey roll.
'AND HE CAN'T BE ANYTHING BUT A JOKER!'
'What's with you?!' he demanded, and I heard a muffled shuffling sound, like he was all for bashing the door down again, as opposed to listening to me.
'I dunno,' I freaked sarcastically, 'Impending death does inspire some insanity, doesn't it?'
'And INSULTING ME is helping?!' Adam laughed in anger.
'Sure,' I bit.
'Well, I can insult you too,' he said simply. 'It takes TWO to frigging TANGO, CeeCee!'
'GROW UP!' I shrieked at him, giving him a hard shove against the door.
'NO. I like the way I am. Being immature is fun, and it keeps you from aging before your time. Like YOU. You're too old, CeeCee. You not like the other teenagers at this school, getting drunk and having fun and living LIFE, you're trapped behind your twelve inch thick Chem. books and Lit. homework.'
My eyes widened.
He went on. 'You're like one of the grown ups. You're too mature, Cee. You've wasted all your teen years where you're allowed to be crazy. And you're gonna have one HELL of a mid-life crisis because you didn't get to do all the stuff you should have when you were sixteen.'
Stiffly, I demanded, 'Have you ever thought that I maybe, oh, I dunno, LIKE the way I am, too?'
'What? How CAN you? The stress would SUCK. Yeah, you're smart. That helps. But is that all you want to do? Be a "book-girl" all your life? Okay, I get the journalist thing. But do you have to act so PERFECT?!?! It bums people out!'
Adam sounded like he'd just punched his fist against the wall, or something.
I'd . . . I'd never seen him like this. Well, seeing was a strong word.
But, you know, he'd never been like this. And I'd known him for a LONG time.
Then again, it's not every day that CeeCee Webb and Adam McTavish land themselves in death-situations.
Such a pity.
I shrugged numbly. 'I'm not going to have a midlife crisis,' was all I said.
'YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE A MIDLIFE CRISIS BECAUSE WE ARE GETTING OUT OF HERE!' he roared.
I jumped in alarm, leaning back from him.
There was passion in his voice, riddled right up there with fear, and determination.
He was being so stupid about this.
All the yelling was making the oxygen get rarer. I swayed slightly, but held the panels in the closet for support. If he got too annoying, I could always spray him in the eyes with detergent or something. My eyes flickered for a moment, and I held my chest.
Don't think about it . . .
'We're not getting out of here,' I murmured almost inaudibly to him. There was no way.
When he spoke again, I heard something in there that had been absent before.
He was begging me to believe him, now.
'CeeCee . . . God, have some faith, okay? I know it's hard to think that out there, there might be something other than your lovely, fat textbooks who know all about the world and why everything is the way it is . . . but try to think. Have faith in this thing that you can't see.'
Air?
'Hell, maybe there is a God. Maybe it's Buhdda or soemthing, I don't care. You always curse about God, and yet you don't believe in him,' he said.
. . . He was right.
How often did I say "God"?
I said it a lot.
And yet . . . yeah, I didn't believe in the Holy Guy.
'It's not that you don't believe in him,' Adam went on quietly. 'You don't want to. But you do.'
I processed this.
Could he be . . . right?
I didn't reply. He took at opportunity to move right in front of me, and place his large hands on my shoulders. They were Adam hands. Not Paul Slater hands.
This was Fuscle Dude. Not the New Guy.
I guess this was how it was meant to be.
Me and him.
'CeeCee, trust me . . . ' he said in the most solemn voice I'd heard him use. It brushed across my skin like warm peacock feathers.
His hands got a little tighter, so I'd stop freaking out. 'I promise you . . . we're going to get out.'
I didn't believe him, of course. But when he said that . . . I so desperately wanted to. And not just because I wanted to live. But because he'd said it with such sincerity, that I didn't dare believe that it couldn't be true.
I breathed in a half-breath, one that did not supply me.
'I promise,' he whispered to me, his face lurking inches before mine.
There were the gentlest reflections in his hair, of seemingly inexistent light.
My heart started pounding a little faster, and I got a little hotter, despite the chilly stuffiness of the room. My forehead was glazed with a cold sweat, and my hands were clammy, and I could feel Adam's breath on my forehead. Air, something that everyone took for granted, until it was almost gone, right?
And suddenly, I felt like crying. I really did.
But I didn't. Cry, I mean. I just felt that tears were sure to burst out of me, all of a sudden.
'No one knows we're here,' I repeated uselessly.
'We'll get out, Cee,' he smiled. Well, it sounded like he smiled. A breathless smile. His tone declared "breathless smile." 'I don't want Suze here,' he added randomly. 'Or even Mary-Kate and Ashley.'
I swallowed, suddenly.
'What?' I croaked.
He chuckled oh-so-softly. 'I want you here. I always want you.'
I noticed that the "here" on the end of that sentence was missing.
For a reason, I soon found out.
Yes, that comprehension was made when Adam McTavish leaned forward a little, meeting my lips with a beautiful gentleness.
Slowly.
There was shock, first. Then came confusion. Then numbness. Then a brilliant flood of extreme happiness. Then that was tainted by my fear.
But . . . oh my God, at last . . .
With a mournful despair, I deepened the kiss ever so slightly. Adam's hands slid down my shoulders, one at my back and the other in my hair. My own hands were on his arms. He gently backed me against the door.
I couldn't believe how incredible this felt. After so long, all I'd wanted was Adam. Then Paul came along and confused me. I didn't know HOW I could have ever forgotten Adam. Because he was all I could ever want. This was my dream.
And it was better than anything I'd ever imagined.
Reality faded away for a few sacred moments, as he was kissing me. We weren't stuck in a closet, dying.
Adam was kissing me, and I was loving it.
My heart wanted to burst, it was so grateful. It pounded hard in my ribcage, and my blood pumped hotly around my body. My head swam in dizziness, but once again, that was stubbornly ignored.
His lips were so gentle. Like he didn't have that much energy.
That's when I remembered.
He didn't.
He stopped kissing me, and leant his forehead against mine. 'Inspire a little faith?' he asked weakly.
I started giggling helplessly, and I had no idea why. Hysteria, I guess.
The air was so low now, it was scary. Like an oppressive gas hung over us.
'I'm scared,' I giggled.
'Shhhh,' he shushed, 'Don't be.'
It was almost impossible to breathe. Adam gently pulled me into him, and hugged me tightly. His arms were wrapped around my back, and I buried my face in his chest, trying to stop giggling. I was shaking so badly now, I felt like a vibrating back massager or something. His hand grabbed some of my hair affectionately.
I felt like I was his.
And it felt beautiful.
That was when Adam leant against the door in exhaustion. Still hugging me, he slid down it, and we ended up in a kind of mess on the floor. We were both shaking, and were making a hell of a lot of noise in our efforts to continue breathing.
He hugged me into him more tightly, and I rested the side of my face near his neck. I was unaware that my fist had clamped a bunch of his shirt. As if he was going to be pulled away from me, and that was all I could do to keep him here.
It was so dark . . .
That was it. We weren't going to live through this.
I had so many things I wanted to say. Wanted to do.
I guess I wouldn't get to now.
Something distracted me slightly. Out of the corner of my eyes. It was like a flash of blue, and a rush of cold.
But I guess I was hallucinating, by then.
Or maybe that was what dying felt like.
My shivering got worse. There seemed to be a blockage in my airway.
Wow . . . I can't believe Adam lied.
He said we'd get out of here.
Hey, wait. Maybe he didn't.
He didn't exactly specify whether we'd still have heartbeats when we got out. So whatever.
The definite slump of Adam's body told me he'd lost consciousness. I started sobbing weakly, as a gag seemed to be stuffed in my mouth. I couldn't – I couldn't breathe. At all. I coughed hard, but that made it worse. It was like drowning, only worse. I squeezed the fistful of Adam's shirt hard, straining to find a little bit more oxygen – keep me going that little bit more –
My eyes fell closed.
Wow . . . it sucked, to die.
