I remember the exact moment when I knew I was in love with him.  I was tied down to a chair with IVs going into veins in both of my arms.   I was lightheaded and my muscles were so weak I could barely reach out my hand to touch him.  Using all my effort, I grabbed his pinky.  “Thank you,” I said.
         “I didn’t do it for you,” he said, pulling his hand away.  “It was the right thing to do, so I didn’t really have a choice.”
         I knew I was in love because he was wrong but I wanted him anyway.
***
         13 Hours Before: December 13, 2222
I had finally done it.  I had convinced him to come out with me, to be a part of this alternate life I was living.  Everything I had been planning for would finally happen.  We had just gone our separate ways from the dining hall where we had discussed meeting up after curfew.  I headed back to my room and sat in my hub, waiting for three hours to pass, when we would go.
I guess it all started when I started to feel claustrophobic in my hub.  I developed this feeling in my gut that there was more to life than floating through the air in a circular bubble seeing the world through a screen.  I didn’t want to hear things through ear buds and feel things through simulated senses.  I just had this hunch that something else was out there.
         My parents, my sister and my friends would never understand where I was coming from.  Everyone I knew could spend hours encased in the world of only his or her hub.  Granted, the hub had access to everything.  We could live-stream events from anywhere, watch videos from anytime in our past, order food, schedule events, do homework and chat with anyone we wished.  It was amazing how much the small keyboard along with the screen directly in front of our chair could do.  With all this, most people didn’t leave their hub for days at a time.  Food, human connection, showering, and even excreting waste could be done from inside the hub.
         Since I was a little kid I preferred being outside of my hub, and this feeling only got stronger as I grew up.  On my first day of kindergarten, when my teacher stunningly rejected my proposal to listen to the lesson outside of my hub and watch her really teach instead of watch on my screen, I knew the life I wanted would have to be kept a secret.
         From that point on, I lived the life outside of my hub totally on my own.  When it was socially required, I stayed in my hub for things like meals and school.  But when I had time on my own, while most others were wrapped up in a world entirely in their hub, I snuck out my window, parked my hub in the courtyard and explored.  At first, I did this every month or so.  I knew how dangerous it would be if someone were to find out.  After all, it was a federal crime to leave your hub without approval from your residence hall commissioner.  No one really knew what happened if you broke the law, but one legend said you have to sit in your hub for a month straight while the president continuously streams lessons you should learn from your experience.
         As daunting as these punishments were, the thrill of living outside of my hub continued to call my name.  Soon enough, I was sneaking out once every day.  I smelled real flowers for the first time.  I stared at the sun until my eyes couldn’t stay open anymore.  I felt a real breeze blow my hair out of my face.  I held a real chipmunk in my hands, stroking its soft fur that felt like nothing I had ever felt before..  Best of all, I ran on real ground.  I used my body to do something other than type.  I can’t describe the feeling running gave me.  It was freedom and exhilaration.  It was worth the pointed looks I got as people noticed that some of my leg fat was disappearing.  Not fitting in and conforming to this trend had never felt as good as the after-run high.  Sometimes, I didn’t even need the sleep inducing injection.  I worked my body hard enough on some days that I could fall asleep on my own, as unbelievable as that may sound.
         Anyway, I guess I’m going off on a bit of a tangent.  The point is, I knew people were missing out on awesome stuff that could not be found inside the hub.  I kept my secret to myself, partially because of fear of what could happen if I got caught, and partially because of my selfishness of wanting to keep something so great all to myself.  That is, until I met Cory.
***
Grade 10: April 23, 2222
         I was sitting in my hub watching the teacher on my screen talk about our history.  She was saying something about how at one point our ancestors reproduced through some sort of physical means without being able to pick the baby’s desired traits.  Yeah right.
I switched my screen to a live stream of the courtyard of our residence hall.  I figured anything could be more interesting than this.  And boy was I right.  That’s when I first saw him.  He was sitting on the ledge of the fountain.  His red hair I could just barely see through the gleam of his hub.  He was typing something vigorously.  He looked different from the others, more intense, more passionate.
Right after class, I flew my hub as fast as I could to the fountain.  He was still sitting there when I arrived, so I parked my hub directly in front of his.  He looked up and I heard the ding saying my face was on his screen and his face was on mine.
“Hi,” I said.  I hadn’t really planned what I was going to say when I finally did connect with him.
“Um, hi.”  He glanced at the bottom of his hub screen.  “Well dang,” he muttered under his breath.
“Excuse me?”
“Your face appeared on my screen before I had the chance to save the artwork I was making.  So yeah.  Thanks,” he said, sarcastically.
I felt my heart speed up in my chest.  Of course I ruined my first interaction with this wonderful boy.
“God.  Sorry.  How was I supposed to know?” I said, after a stunned pause.
“You just were.”
It’s safe to say our relationship didn’t start in the most romantic way.  And it kind of stayed like that.  Fighting, rolling of the eyes, loud sighs, words said under our breath.  I expected more kindness and was constantly disappointed.  Why did I put up with it?  I don’t know.  Love can do strange things to a person.
Anyhow, where was I?  Oh yeah…sneaking out on a daily basis.  So once Cory and I became a thing (how it happened doesn’t really matter.  It wasn’t that special, but the fact that it was him made it special), I guess I got comfortable enough to share my secret with him.  He wasn’t really that into it.  The danger outweighed the fun in his mind.  But I teased him about his manhood, so eventually he felt he had to do it to prove himself to me.  Lord, if he had known what was to come would he have changed his mind.
***
10 Hours Earlier, December 13, 2222
         The lights out message had been played on everyone’s hub screen an hour ago.  Do you know that feeling when you’ve planned for something and wanted it so badly for so long that when it actually comes you don’t really want it anymore?  That’s what I was experiencing.  I was nervous and terrified.  This was going to be the first time I’d ever spent time with someone outside of the hub.  Sure, I had talked and held my chipmunk friend many times, but I knew that it would be different with Cory.  And if my plan went as I hoped it would, it would stay different, as good or bad as that would end up being.
         After all the begging, though, I knew I couldn’t back out.  So I did what I had been doing every night.  I backed my hub through my window and flew it as quietly as I could down to the edge of the residence hall courtyard.  He was waiting there, staring at his screen.  The fluorescent light of it illuminated his blue eyes and I was reminded why I was putting myself through this anxiety.  Looking into those blue eyes for real would be worth it.
         I chatted him as I parked my hub.  “park ur hub behind the tree and turn it off. meet on the other side of the fence.”
         He walked towards me.  It was the first time I’d ever seen him walk.  Our flying dates didn’t compare to this.  He was tall, probably about a foot taller than me, and he walked with slightly outturned feet.  Like a waddling bird.
         He smirked as he reached my side.  “Your feet are tiny.”
         “Wow, that’s what I’ve always dreamed you’d say to me the first time you saw me outside of my hub.” I rolled my eyes.
         “Sorry babe.  You’re so much more beautiful than I ever imagined you would be.”  He grabbed my hand.  I gasped.  Flesh felt so strange.  So wonderfully human: warm, soft and alive.
         I led him through the trees.  A small path of worn down branches sticking to the ground had been formed from my exploring.  We ducked beneath the leaves.  We smelled the pine and the grass.  We walked together.
***
7 Hours Earlier, December 13, 2222
         Without the hub, we had no access to the time, but we knew we had been walking for a while.  This was farther than I had ever gone before, but I didn’t want to scare him, so I kept that fact to myself and kept trudging along.
         “So what do you think of everything so far?” I asked Cory.
         His eyes shot around, seeming to try to take everything in all at once.  “It’s so different.  I’m not used to seeing the real moon and feeling your real hair brush against my shoulder.  It’s just,” he paused, “different.”
         “But it’s so much more than different.  It’s amazing,” I said, running up ahead of him, spinning around.  “There’s so much to see, so much to do.”
         “There’s a lot of stuff to do on the hub.”
         “I don’t know.  I don’t know how much longer I can take it in there.”
         He looked over at me skeptically.  “What is that supposed to mean?”
         Don’t let him in too far, I told myself, over and over.  But he was looking at me with those eyes.
         “Just that, man, I don’t know.  That sometimes I don’t see how I can survive one more second in that Damn hub in that damn world in that damn society.  Out here, I feel so much freer.  And I feel like I’m living for myself, not having a screen live for me.”
         “Flora.  Stop.  You sound crazy.  This is just a temporary way to have fun.  You aren’t making any irrational decisions because of a bad habit.”
         He didn’t understand.  Why did I think he would?  Maybe he would later, after more exploring.  We continued walking.
***
5 Hours Earlier, December 13, 2222
         After more walking in silence and an encounter with my chipmunk friend, we decided to take a break.  I found a rock that was covered in moss that we could hang out on, overlooking a small stream.  The trickling of the water was all I could hear.  What a peaceful sound.
         Cory walked over to the rock and laid down next to me.  We looked up at the stars together.  We did so much that night for the first time together.  I felt his breath on my neck.  And then all of the sudden he was holding me.  My head was on his shoulder.  His arm was around my waist.  Everywhere he touched me I felt lightning burst through my skin.  Why were we deprived of this?  What could be so wrong about physical touch?
         “I wish we could stay here forever,” I whispered.
         “We should probably head back soon,” he said.
         “I didn’t mean physically here.  I mean, like, with you.  I want to be with you like this all the time.”
         Silence followed.  I wondered why he couldn’t say stuff like that back.  I looked up at his face.  His freckles, scattered across his face, called my heart to stop the resentment and return to wanting him again.
         “Let’s start heading back.  We want to be back in our hubs before wake up call,” he said, standing up.
         I wanted to stay a little longer, but I knew he was right.  And besides, if I wanted my plan to work out, I was going to have to bring it up soon.  So I got up and followed his lead, something I was getting way to used to doing.
***
3 Hours Earlier, December 13, 2222
         It started to feel like an eternity of walking.  Cory was starting to struggle since exercising wasn’t a part of our community’s routine, so despite the chill in the air, sweat was dripping down his neck.  From the way my foot-step made path was beginning to come into view, I knew we were probably about an hour or two away from home…if I could even call it that.  This was beginning to feel more like home than the crappy residence hall I was forced to reside in.
         Time was of the essence.  I reminded myself that a life here would be everything I wanted.  I reached down into my shoe and pulled out the small box I had been keeping for this very moment.
         “Flora…what is that?”
         I took a deep breath.  I pulled out one of the sticks and scratched it against the side of the box as I’d seen demonstrated on the instructions written on the back.  I screamed.  It was like nothing I’d ever seen before.  A crackling noise erupted from the small stick and a light burst from it.  Cory backed away from me, fear in his eyes.
         “Flora!  What the hell are you doing?”
         The light was travelling down the stick and coming towards my fingers.  All I could think about was how it felt the same way as when he touched me, or looked at me, or spoke my name.  I blew it out.
         “I think it’s called a match.  That’s what it says on the back of the box.”
         “Why do you have those?  You’re freaking me out.”
         “I found them here when exploring.”  I pulled off my shoe, emptying out my collection: papers with text bound together (a story of some sort), a knife, nuts, along with some other items that I’m sure Cory had never seen before.
         “Why are you doing this?  We have everything we need with our hubs,” he said, bending down to gather the stuff and put it back in my shoe.  “Can you just stop all of this so we can go back?”
         I grabbed his hands.  A shock went through the veins in my hands all the way up my arms.  “Look at me.”
         He looked.
         My heartbeat sped up.  “Do you trust me?”
         A pause.  “Um, yeah.”
         “Then listen to me.”  I took a deep breath and went on.  “I’ve found remains of a civilization that lived out here.  I know it’s possible and I know deep down that it’s better.  Out here, we are free.  We aren’t trapped behind a screen, following rules we are unsure are even morally right.  ‘Go to bed at this time. Watch this now. Eat later with these people. Don’t leave your hub. Stay put.’  How much can we take until we all become one thing stuck in one place?  We can’t be different back home.  We can’t be you and me; we have to be Flora and Cory.  Do you understand?”
         “I mean, I guess.  But what is wrong with being Flora and Cory?  Why do you constantly need to push the limits and break the cycle?”
         “You see, that’s just it.  I’m not doing that.  I want to return to what our ancestors once were.  I don’t want to be confined anymore.”
         “Okay, whatever.  That’s cool.  You have fun with that.  Let’s just go back and talk about this later,” Cory said, turning around, starting to walk away.
         “Wait.  No.  That’s not what I want.  I don’t want to talk about this later.”
         He turned around, his expression confused and annoyed.  “God, Flora.  What in God’s name do you want?”
         “Cory. Please.  Please stay here with me.  We can make a life for ourselves out here.  I want to show you that we don’t need the hub to survive.  I have enough here for us.  And we won’t be confined in our hubs.  We can do this.”  I reached out and grabbed his face and our lips were touching.  It was like five matches in one touch.
         He pulled away, gasping.  “How did you know how to do that?”
         I smiled, pointing towards the pages with words.  “I read about it in here.  I guess people used to do it before hubs existed.  It’s called kissing.”
         “Woah,” he muttered.
         “So, what do you say?” I asked, with hopeful eyes and my heart about to explode.
         “Flora…as much as I like you,” he said, looking away, “this life isn’t for me.  There is still so much back home I need to do.  I need the hub.”
         Everything was moving in slow motion.  I was so sure he would say yes.  Now, there wasn’t anything else I could do.  I sank to the ground, my heart dropping to my stomach.
         He turned around and started to head back once again.  Water accumulated in my eyes and dripped down my face.  Does that happen when you are sad or something?  I wasn’t just sad: I was humiliated, crumpled and broken.
         I hadn’t imagined living here without him.  I hadn’t imagined living anywhere without him.  How can one part of your life be spent with someone constantly and then out of nowhere you’re expected to live completely without him?  One thing was repeating in my mind, over and over again.  It was all I could think, all I could breath.
         He needs the hub.  I need him.
         I could no longer hear his footsteps.  How could he just walk away from me like that?  I’m a broken glass bottle, blood oozing from my heart.  How do I find him when he is gone?  I grabbed the matches.
“Make me feel him again,” I begged them.  After striking the stick against the box, I dropped it on my thigh.  Ouch.  I repeated the process, dropping it on my stomach, my forearm and my hand.  I screamed.  My clothes were covered in the flames.  I faintly heard footsteps coming towards me. 
“Flora?” Then, darkness.
***
Now
I remember the exact moment when I knew I was in love with him.
He turned away from my hospital bed and walked out. 
I knew I was in love because he was wrong but I wanted him anyway.
The doctors told me he ran with me back here to the hospital.  I would have burned to death if it wasn’t for him. 
“I didn’t do it for you.  It was the right thing to do, so I didn’t really have a choice.”  His words replay again and again in my head.  How can it be possible for love to be one sided?  How can I feel the flames and he feel nothing at all?
As I’m lying here in the hospital, I’m thinking about the life I have before me.  I’m choosing to live.  I have to live to prove him wrong.  I have to live to get out of this place.  I have to live to show all of them that I have a life planned that exceeds anything they could ever dream of.
         But most of all, I have to live to get him back.