It had been a thousand days since I'd first kissed Jack.
I'd been keeping track of the number of days since I had my first kiss. It wasn't easy, but I'd done it. The reason? It was because Jack had asked me to the day after it happened so then when the thousand days had passed up, we would look back at it as a reminder of the fact that we could've died at fourteen.
If we did make it. And we did.
And it was all thanks to Mr. and Mrs. McKinley, Jack's parents, who are both geneticists. They figured if they surgically implanted parts of the Loculus of Healing it might by us some time.
And it did, even though we weren't expected to live past the age of sixteen, which is when we were expected to have our parts of the Loculus replaced.
But all four of us- Marco, Cass, Jack, and I- Marco made it to sixteen and a half and is still living, Cass would turn sixteen soon, Jack just had his sixteenth birthday, and mine was four months ago. And we were yet to have had our pieces replaced, with the exception of Marco, who was getting his replaced now.
"Jack!" I called out. He was sitting on a bench, watching the sun set. Three years ago, he was skinny with long mousey brown hair. Nowadays, he was still skinny, but his muscles were a bit more defined, and his mousey brown hair was cut short.
I sat down next to him. "A thousand days have passed since the kiss." I said, loudly enough for him to hear, but not for anyone else since we were the only ones who knew.
And it was going to stay that way as far as I was concerned.
"Already?" he looked at me.
"Yes." I said. "Already."
He looked away. "I'll keep track of the next thousand days that'll be coming."
"You want to continue keeping track of the days?" I raised my eyebrows.
"Yes." Jack looked at me again. He took my chin and kissed me. I moved away from him by about an inch.
I closed my eyes and kissed him.
I'd loved him for a thousand days, and I'll love him for a thousand more.