Later that night, over another bland dinner, the two of them started on the extensive DVD collection there at the bunker. After all, boredom-inspired insanity could also be a very real danger in the apocalypse.

Aura had barely taken three bites of her meal before setting it aside, and Adan had just leaned forward to set his aside after finishing with it. That was when he caught her gaze on him out of the corner of his eyes. He smiled over at her, which of course caused her to quickly look down at having been caught staring at him yet again.

“Yes?” he coaxed.

She took a breath to find a response. “You really are an amazing actor.”

Adan gave her an unsure smile, glanced at the nearly forgotten TV screen and replied, “I have like three lines in this or something. But thank you” he added.

“I wasn’t talking about that” she stated, tilting her head toward the screen as she tried to keep her eyes on him without looking directly into his.

“Elaborate” he said as he didn’t have nearly as much trouble trying to hold eye contact with her.

“We’re going into our second night here. You know, since everyone we know and love was wiped out of existence and we had to start spending every second hoping like hell that this bunker is as hidden as it’s supposed to be. Oh, and after you found out... other things” she managed. “And you’re completely fine. Or at least completely convincing at seeming fine.”

Adan started to speak, then stopped and changed his planned response before it left his lips. “And which part of any of that should I address first?”

“I’m a complete wreck. And you’re just... fine” she repeated. “Even after...” she just let her voice trail off as she looked away again.

“After I ‘found out?’” he offered. “As stated earlier, I found out years ago, so we can wipe that off the list of the current traumas I’m supposed to be suffering right now, can’t we?”

She just let out a sound of disbelief. “Well I’m really not fine about that in any way. So let’s just go back to the other stuff you seem fine with. I mean, you’ve lost everything and everyone, and yet?”

“Not everyone” he stated softly.

Swallowing hard again, she made herself move past that comment. “And everyone else? You’re OK with losing them?”

“Of course I’m not, but...” he was then the one who let his sentence die before it reached its end.

“But what?” she pressed, desperate to figure out whatever his secret way of attaining zen in the middle of tragedy and loss truly was. She needed to unlock that secret just to keep herself from shattering into a million pieces every moment.

He was quiet for a long moment, as though thinking deeply about his response. “I guess I just learned how to lose people a long time ago.”

She looked back at him in confusion. Adan was now the one with his eyes cast down, as if actor Adan had suddenly at long last been replaced with human Adan, and she was finally seeing his inner workings for the first time.

“What does that even mean?”

“The reason me and my parents first moved to our hometown. Back when I was only three. It was my first memory; his funeral” he spoke softly.

“Your brother?” Aura whispered back. It had been years since he ever even spoke of his brother at all, and they had been so young and he had moved past the subject so quickly, that the fact that it had even happened had long since been relegated to the recesses of Aura’s muddled brain. Though hearing Adan now, it was obvious that it had never left his mind, even if he never spoke about it.

“I didn’t even understand what was happening. I was surrounded by strangers, and everyone was crying, and... And there was my big brother. Only six years old and there in the middle of this strange room. Laying in a big box surrounded by flowers, and looking like he was sleeping. And all I knew was that he was never going to wake up, and I never would see him again. That’s all I could comprehend at that age.

“I guess I just spent the rest of my life just waiting to see everyone else I cared about in one of those boxes. It was what I just expected from that point on” he shook his head as he pushed down emotions. “Three years old and just waiting for everyone around me to start dropping dead at any moment. And you thought your brain was a scary place?”

“So you’ve spent your whole life mentally prepared to lose everyone in it?”

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“And now you get why I chose to spend that life pretending to be other people. I’m as dark as you girl. I’m just a hell of a lot better at hiding it” he told her with a somber smile.

Aura was taken aback by everything he had just admitted. Though it somehow made perfect sense, even if she had never imagined him to even come close to matching her darkness. He always had, deep down inside. And that was likely the very reason the two had been so drawn together for their entire lives.

“Now what was that other thing I was supposed to not be fine with?” he asked her a moment later, as always, injecting humor into the conversation despite everything he had just shared with her seconds earlier.

“You really wanna talk about that again?”

“Got something better to do?” he teased.

She scoffed and allowed him to goad her into the new subject, despite how terrifying it still was for her. “I just have a really, really hard time believing that...” again, she had trouble finishing her sentence.

“Believing what?”

“Come on, Adan. The way I feel about you is way, way different than the way you feel about me. And now here we are, with only each other, for who knows how long. How are you not flipping the hell out?”

“Flipping out how exactly?” he asked, as though it was the most common question in the world.

“Come on” she began again. “Every second aren’t you just gonna be thinking that I... that I want... something from you?”

“Want what thing exactly?” he continued, keeping a straight face through every word he spoke, infuriatingly.

“You’re actually amused by this, aren’t you?” she exclaimed, his playful tone not getting by her any longer.

“Amused how exactly?” he asked with a smirk.

“Oh, shut the fuck up!” she exclaimed as she moved across the couch to smack his arm with one of the pillows in frustration rather than an intent to actually cause any real pain.

“OK, it’s kind of amusing” he finally admitted with a small chuckle.

“That’s just mean, Adan” she bit back with a pout that made it hard for him not to keep smiling.

“No, I mean, it’s amusing that this is what you’ve been so terrified of me finding out. Something I’ve already known for years. And you somehow got it in your head that if I did find out I would suddenly go from being your best friend to being just another asshole high school guy? It’s a pretty silly fear that loving someone will make them suddenly hate you for it. It’s kind of self defeating, really. If someone loves you, then they should be one of your favorite people on the planet, shouldn’t they?”

“You hurt my brain” she whimpered softly. She then tried to compose herself once more. “And it’s not silly. It happens every fucking day. Person A falls for Person B. Person B only wants to be friends. Person B’s solution is to avoid Person A for the rest of their natural lives. It happens every fucking day, Adan. You know that.”

“Guess I’m just not your typical Person B” he shrugged helplessly.

“But seriously, you know that every time I look at you, I...” she just shook her head.

“You what?” he asked coyly.

“And every time you look at me, you don’t...” she sniffled and turned away again.

“You always got A’s in English. Never thought you’d have such a problem finishing sentences” he teased.

“Are you actually enjoying this, Adan?” she accused.

“What am I supposedly enjoying again?” he asked as he moved a hand up to brush some hair from where his expression remained coy.

“Knowing that you’re sitting here talking to someone who would do anything in the world for just one fraction of affection from you” she sniffled again.

His smile finally started to falter then. He took a breath and spoke, “where did you get all these ideas that I would be like that? Yes, I’m amused that you were so scared of me finding out something I already knew. It is kind of ridiculous that you’d be so afraid of me, Adan. The guy I’ve always been. But you sound like you think I’m just laughing at you for liking me at all, like that. What convinced you that I’m that kind of guy? Honestly?”

“Because you said that you knew. That you always knew.” That was when she got to her feet and rushed from the room once more.

It didn’t take long for Adan to make himself follow her. He did study human behavior and had a feeling that not going after her was not the reaction she was truly hoping for from him. So he followed. He then found her laying face down in one of the bedrooms, her face buried in the pillow.

He sighed as he stepped into the room behind her, taking a moment to decide what he could possibly say that would lessen her obvious upset any at all. “So, you’re not happy that I coaxed you into admitting your feelings, finally?”

“You’re observant” she mumbled into the pillow.

“But you’re also not happy that I didn’t do it as soon as I knew you had them?” he offered his first attempt at an analysis.

She then growled into the pillow in frustration before finally pushing herself up to a sitting position and centering an angry look on him. “You wanna know what I’m really mad about?”

“Yes please?” he responded, though his tone was much less convincing that time.

“Because you’re still doing this! You’re still acting like everything is still OK between us! And it can’t be!” she exclaimed angrily.

“So... You’re mad that I’m not being the jerk you were terrified I’d become?” he offered her another perplexed look.

“Please, Adan. I know you can’t possibly be comfortable around me anymore. Not now. And you’re still pretending you are. You’re still fucking acting!”

“So... you want me to love you and hate you?” he shook his head at her again. “I’ll have to work on that one, I guess.”

Her only response was another frustrated growl as she looked away. Adan let out a frustrated sigh of his own then before taking a step toward the bed.

“Seriously, Aura, I’ve gotta know. What made you so convinced that I would never possibly feel the same way about you? Where did you get that secret knowledge that you’re so damn sure of?

“I mean every argument you’ve made about why you’re so upset right now starts with ‘I know what you think, I know what you feel.’ When exactly did you acquire this knowledge of exactly how or what I honestly think or feel about you?”

With a shaky breath she gave him an answer. “You’ve always just known how I feel about you, haven’t you? So maybe I just know how you really feel about me too.”

“Or maybe I’m just a better student of human behavior than you are too.”