The day was finally here. I was so nervous and excited all at once that I couldn’t believe it was real up until today. We were on our way to getting into the city and assimilating ourselves to that lifestyle. We all had powers we could easily hide and Seth had spent the last six months in the city of Fairview that bordered the wall closest to where we lived in exile securing our future. He had gotten himself a job as a waiter in a restaurant and he used the money Liam saved up from his jobs to get an apartment for us to all live in. Since Seth had been gone for six months, Liam and I were on our own inside the wall. We were preparing to be smuggled in the way Seth had been six months ago. A lot could go wrong, but I really hoped I got to see Seth again. I missed him terribly and we never planned on it taking this long to get all the affairs in order to accomplish this.

Liam had been a great provider, but it was also torture being with him alone. The sexual tension between us when we were alone was getting harder to resist the longer this stuff had dragged out. We had kept the fact that our relationship had become romantic from Seth and he still didn’t know. It was just really convenient that he wasn’t around anymore so we didn’t have to hide our relationship anymore. We made out on every surface in our house. It was getting harder and harder to stop with just kissing every time we did it. Liam was always a perfect gentleman and didn’t want us to go further until I was ready. The problem was that I feel pretty damn ready and couldn’t convince him of that. He had it in his mind that I was still a fragile girl when in reality a lot of my friends that were girls lost their virginity already. And they did it with boys that weren’t their boyfriends most of the time. I could tell I was wearing Liam down and now his excuse was that we didn’t have any protection which was a very valid excuse. It just really sucked.

Liam and I were waiting for our contact to get through the wall. Jeff, from the Contractors, had found a weak point in the security of the wall where he could pay off military people to look the other way and was charging people money to smuggle them through. Since Liam and Jeff were friends we got a two for one special. We were carrying only the essentials of what we needed over there. Seth had already picked up clothing for us which I was really excited to try on brand new clean clothing and new makeup.

“I’m sure Seth will be happy to see I kept you alive,” Liam said grabbing my hand as we waited at the location Jeff told us to be in.

“He knows I’m alive. It’s going to be hard to not touch you so casually from now on,” I sighed reaching out to wrap my arm around his waist. He smiled down at me and kissed me. I hoped we could find protection once we got over to our new life. I feel like we’d have access to everything as long as we could pay for it. No more stealing or looting places for survival anymore.

Jeff showed up and led us through the process of what we were supposed to do. He gave us fake documents certifying we were people without powers as determined by the official federal test that everyone was required to take. He instructed us that once we were through the wall that we needed to blend in with the crowd of people entering the border city before attempting to go in. Then we go to the verification desk and they should give us a ticket to the train that takes us to the city of Fairview. I was excited and overwhelmed. I wondered what it would be like over there and if was like the stories I’d heard.

Everything was going fine until we got to the verification desk. We had to go up one at a time and there were five people working at the desk. Liam went up first and then the employee next to Liam’s called me up. He smiled at me when I handed him the paper I had. I was getting an awful feeling from him and he gave me a once over staring at my breasts a little too long for my liking. I felt objectified, but I tried to ignore the feeling because I didn’t want any trouble getting the train ticket.

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing in these dangerous areas?” He asked me.

“I was visiting family. They have powers so I can’t have them visit me,”I stated, rehearsing the script that Jeff told me to say.

“People with powers are not human. Best you stay away from here from now on. Now off you go,” he sneered. He gave me back my paper and handed me a train ticket. As I turned around to leave I felt him cop a feel of my butt. I discreetly smacked his hand away and kept walking. Liam saw what had happened and was about to do something, but I already had him by the arm and was pulling him away. There was no way I was going to let this risk our chance of getting on that train.

“I’ll kill that son of a bitch,” Liam muttered to himself as he paced back and forth at the train platform. One thing I had learned over the past year of having Liam as my boyfriend was that he was quite possessive of me. He really cared if I got hurt or if I was threatened and he also hated when other guys hit on me. Now what just happened was flat out sexual harassment, but he reacted in the same way which was understandable. I felt weird after that experience, but I pushed passed that feeling. I noticed it happening to a few other young women around the station. The military men were harassing them without a second thought.

“It’s going to be okay, Liam. Just let it go so we can see Seth again,” I told him trying to calm him down. “I can send you some calm feelings if you let your guard down.”

“I can’t believe they are allowed to treat women like that. They are supposed to protect the citizens not harass them,” Liam spat out. He was right, but that didn’t mean he could do anything about it. The train arrived and I felt hope return to me. This was our chance to get out of this lifestyle once and for all. We just had to make sure no one found out about our powers.

A couple hours later we were at the city station and Liam and I were looking for the meeting spot that Seth told us. There was a flower shop on the northwest corner of the train station. Liam held my hand so we wouldn’t lose each other in the crowd. I could tell we already stood out from the people around us from our clothing and demeanors. Everyone here looked carefree and didn’t have the worry lines that people inside the wall had. I saw teenage girls laughing about something they were looking at on a cell phone and sighed. Could I be like them one day?

Seth came into my view and happiness filled me. He looked so different than when he left us six months ago. His brown hair was cut well and styled. He grew out his stubble just enough to give him a cool, older look. He was wearing clean clothes and looked like he had gained weight in a healthy way from having a proper diet. I pushed passed Liam and ran up to Seth. He was holding flowers in his hand and barely had time to react to me when I crashed into him and gave him a big hug. His body was bigger and more solid than I remembered.

“I missed you so much,” I told him squeezing him tightly and then leaned up to kiss his cheek as we parted.

“I missed you too. I’m so happy you are here,” he smiled down at me and then handed me the flowers. It had been forever since I had seen fresh flowers and I smelled them. Seth and Liam gave each other a quick hug and Seth thanked Liam for watching over me. “I hope she didn’t cause you too much grief.”

“She causes me nothing but grief,” Liam laughed and then winked at me. We definitely had a big secret and now that I saw Seth again I was worried how we were going to hide it after not having to for so long. I figured I would eventually tell Seth, but I was also nervous as to how he’d react to that.

“Let’s get you home and cleaned up before someone reports weird looking people here,” Seth stated and I was happy to hear that. We’d finally be able to shower with not expired soap and I could probably actually use real shampoo and conditioner on my hair. Maybe I could even get a proper haircut. My hair had been growing since I was eight years old and I had cut it a couple of times over the years just because it got obnoxiously long sometimes. They were never great haircuts, but necessary to keep my hair manageable without access to products like people in the city had.

The city was huge and built really tall. With all the land that the meteor took up the cities were built up to accommodate the influx of people. There were lots of sounds and lights flashing. Seth was pointing out places that we would go to in the future and explaining how things worked here. I was starting to vaguely remember how life was before the meteor, but I was quite overwhelmed with all the things going on around us.

We got to our apartment that was in a high-rise building. Seth got a two bedroom with the intention of giving me my own room. It was a very bare apartment with only the essential furniture. The living room didn’t have anything in it and there was a small dining table with 4 chairs. In my room there was a real bed with the sheets already on it. I set my pack down and started to rummage through the closet that had clothes in it already.

“I wasn’t sure what you’d like to wear so I just got some basics. We can go shopping soon to get you more stuff,” Seth smiled at me. I was overwhelmed with happiness and tears spilled from my eyes. Relief filled me and Seth hugged me tightly probably feeling my gratitude. “This is the life you should’ve had this whole time.”