Not Right (Past)
She's thirteen. It's her first kiss so she knows it's special. They're on a mission and it looks like they're going to die. Her heart is hammering in her throat. They're hurtling towards the sun in a doomed ship. He's holding her arms tightly and it's slightly uncomfortable. His saliva is weird and slimy and his tongue feels awkward poking around her mouth. Is she doing this right? She can't be doing this right.
"If we'd had more time, Kitty-Cat, I would have done everything with you," He tells her.
"We have time now," she says. "We're not dead yet."
He thinks about it, eyes roaming over her body. She wishes her boobs would grow. "Not yet." He could be talking about them dying. Or not. Because he turns away. He is eighteen but he seems terribly ancient and burdened in that moment.
They survive and go on another mission and another. Close calls happen time and again.
After a particularly tense mission one night, he opens her bedroom door.
"We survived," he says.
"For now."
He sits on the bed and it sinks under his weight. He pulls her onto his lap. She feels him twitching under her butt and her stomach drops. She focuses on kissing. Still slimy but it's romantic if she imagines herself as a character in a movie. They went to the movies together a while ago and she had pictured what it would be like to kiss him. His hands push her sweater up and crawl underneath her bra. He lifts her up a bit and kisses along her neck. They're barely moving but he's panting like they're running laps. Or like he's a dog. Kitty wishes she had a pet dog.
He grins and pulls away just as her body is starting to light up. "You'll just have to survive a little longer," he says. And he leaves her alone. He shuts the door behind him. She shivers.
It's strange because, as boring as that whole exchange was while it was happening, she wishes he would come back and finish it. She'd been scared but it wasn't so bad, after all that really. She's still herself. Just more grown up.
"I'm old enough to risk my life every other week," she tells him not too long after that. "That's old enough to make my own choices. I know what I want."
She knows what he wants too. She isn't going to lose him. She knows he loves her. He just needs to stop thinking of her as a little girl. There's an easy answer to that. She will show him exactly how grown up she is.
"Just a little longer, Kitty-Cat. Soon," He whispers the promise against her skin. His breath is warm. "I want to do this right."
She knows, somehow, that what they are waiting for is her fourteenth birthday. It is in a few weeks. In just a few weeks, she will be fourteen, and she will finally be ready.
"Alright," she laughs. It echoes in her own skull. "Soon."