She kissed him back almost instantly, his smile succeeding in widening hers. There was something beautiful in that, she thought, the fact that they both could smile like this when they were kissing. Or perhaps she was too much of a romantic at heart. Either way she knew one thing, and it was that he was still her favorite person to kiss. That was something she knew without a single doubt in her mind; there was no maybe in that thought at all. And it made her blush just a little bit as she pulled away, her smile softer now, her eyes opening slowly because she always closes them when they kiss. She didn’t quite know why, but she did know that every time she opened them and saw him there, she felt a rush of…she didn’t know what. It was this ridiculous combination of all kinds of feelings. Out of all of them, though, she did know that love was the most notable. It was the one that made her heart jump and her skin erupt in goosebumps and her smile just a little bit wider.
“I love you.” She blurted it out without thinking and bit down on her lip. Not because she was embarrassed, not because she didn’t mean it, but because when she said it, she didn’t even recognize her own voice. It was soft and warm and lilting and she didn’t really think that she could sound like that - though she shouldn’t have been surprised, he’s gotten her voice to hit some rather…different pitches before. Just the thought was enough to make her cheeks tint the lightest shade of pink, and she bit down on her lip a little harder. It was rather silly, she knew, but she couldn’t help it; it’d been a while since she’d been around him, and she swore it was like her body was making up for lost time.
“I love you, too,” he said. Anyone that knew him well enough knew that he would rarely initiate that. Sometimes, he wouldn’t even return it. But with her, it was pretty easy. It kind of… Just came out. So yeah, he still didn’t say it first most of the time, but did she mind that? He wondered if she did. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel it, really. He just never knew when it was appropriate to say. Maybe it was that he just assumed they knew, or that he didn’t know how to get the words out. How long did it take him to even say he loved Corinne? And even then, he said so fast, he wasn’t certain as to how she could have understood him. “You know that, right?” He found the need to ask her, in case she really didn’t know, or something. He didn’t know what he was doing with himself anymore at this point. He bit the inside of his lip and felt embarrassed, which he rarely felt.
He missed her through all this time, really. It seemed like forever to him, which said pretty much nothing considering how utterly impatient he was all the time. But it didn’t matter. He missed her. That was the whole point. Now, she was here, and he wished he wouldn’t worry so much about every single detail. God knew he was never really like that. At least not until recently. It was weird. He kissed her again, knowing that he would stop thinking about it. “I missed you. Like crazy. Let’s not do that again, okay?” He didn’t want to be apart from her. That, again, was strange for him.
A giggle escaped her lips again, and she wondered just how come it was so easy for him to make her laugh. Sure, she laughed at lots of things, but with him, he didn’t even have to try and she was bursting into giggles. It was either the fact that he was just that funny, or she just adored the way he reacted when she laughed. She had a feeling it was the latter, the way he smiled at her when she laughed that gave her absolute butterflies. Butterflies, goosebumps, chills, sparks…all those little cliches that she had only ever read about or seen, they all happened with her thanks to him. It was rather terrifying, but incredibly thrilling and beautiful at the same time. Being scared was normal, she knew, because at any minute he could be gone. And love…love was holding on as tight as possible to what mattered most because they could disappear in the blink of an eye. That was why she wasn’t going anywhere.
“So are yours,” she said softly, smiling at him, adding, “All of you is warm, really,” and she brought his hand up to her mouth, kissing his knuckles softly. What he said next made her laugh softly, and she shook her head at him, ruffling his hair with the hand he isn’t holding. Being around him made everything so easy, it was such a gift. She couldn’t help the way she smiled and the way she somehow always found herself leaning closer to him. It was like magnets: he moved, she moved with him, without even realizing she was doing it. Her giggle was muffled by her lips being pressed in a line by her teeth until she let go, bringing her free hand up to muffle them. “It does sound like a cheap anime. But it’s okay, because it’s also kinda true,” she told him with a shrug, smiling still.
“I guess.” He smiled down at her. Sometimes he thought he could watch her all day, memorize every single part of her. Where each freckle went, what the exact color of her eyes was. He was starting to get a little more obsessed with the color of her eyes. Why, he didn’t know. He kissed her cheek softly. “Maybe I should make cheap animes for a career. Sounds about right. The Japanese buy anything colorful. I heard, anyway.” He ruffled her hair, only because she did it to him, really. Somehow, she still managed to look beautiful with her hair out of place. It made his stomach flutter. He felt so freaking dizzy around her. It was getting a little ridiculous, but who cares? Not like anyone would know. He found himself counting her freckles at one point, too, if that wasn’t enough. Counting could possibly be his only nervous tick. Not really tick, but the thing he did when he wasn’t paying attention.
He grabbed her free hand to take it away from her mouth and kissed her, feeling his own smile widen. Goodness, was his face going to fall off anytime soon? But he just loved being around her so much. He loved her, her hair, every little thing about her. That feeling was both weird and scary at the same time. He was not used to being this. And for a moment, it made the cycling a bit stupid, because why would he want his old life back, the one that put him into so much trouble when maybe, just maybe, she was part of the new one he had now? He wasn’t sure how much he’d trade. He still smoked joints of course, and riled up a few people here and there but stopped getting into the amount of trouble he used to get into. Maybe it was just the rush he missed, he didn’t know. Maybe he had more of an adrenaline addiction than anything else. Corinne was safe, though. But she still managed to drive him a bit nuts.
She giggled when she realized that he was spacing out, giving his hand a squeeze and pecking his cheek. It wasn’t a particularly bold move, as far as things go, but for her it was more daring than she’d been in a while. Of course, she had him to thank for that - he tended to make her bolder, do things she wouldn’t normally do. But she liked that, honestly; he was a catalyst in her being better. He made her a better version of herself, or, well, he made her want to be better. And she couldn’t ever thank him enough for that, not that she planned to; she was so sure he didn’t even have any idea of the things he did for her, of how much he really, truly meant. He knew she loved him, of course he did, but she didn’t think he knew that he was, in the end, her best medicine.
Her bottom lip caught in her teeth again and she reached up, brushing his hair back, more to feel it running through her fingers than anything. Her hand came to cup his cheek and she brushed her thumb across his cheekbone, seeing his freckles and grinning. Sometimes she forgot they were there. “Hey, space cadet, mind coming back to earth for me?” she giggled, squeezing his hand again, leaning up and brushing her nose against his, looking in his eyes. She swore she could see different shades of brown, but maybe it was just her imagination getting away from her. Her heart was jumping up and down in her chest because he was smiling and maybe she was exaggerating, but it was like her own personal little sun when he did.
Her peck made him snap out of his little fantasy. “Sorry. Just got a little carried away.” He laughed and it didn’t occur to him how often he truly smiled until that moment. It was a little sad, but maybe it was just who he was. A person with only a few smiles to spare. That was okay, right? He squeezed her hand back and kissed it. His stomach did that crazy flip thing again, like he was in middle school or something. Goodness, he was getting older now, too old for feeling like a little kid looking at the pretty girl with the summer dress. But there was this air about Corinne that made him feel as if it was fine to be that kid again. That kid that if he really thought about it, he never truly was. He could never remember innocently falling for a girl in a pretty dress. He kissed an ashtray instead. Not to be taken literally, of course.
“Your hands are warm, did you know?” The sentence came out of nowhere. He held her hand in his and counted her fingers over and over, kissing each of them. “We’re that couple that just sits around and does nothing. My God, we’re so boring.” Obviously, he was joking. He was in a weird mood lately, and those type of jokes came with it. It was a bubbly feeling, that’s the only way he could describe it. And he wondered if, for the first time, everything was okay. Completely okay. And she was around, and he was around and it just made things so much better. “It’s okay, though. Love kills boredom, right? Or does that sound too much like cheap anime?”
I’m really going to miss high school. It was totally the best experience of my life aside from the poopy stuff and all. But there’s always the glory days to reflect upon because really, I don’t think it’s gonna get any easier from here out.
I won’t, honestly. Maybe just the thought of it, but not really high school. It won’t get easier, but I truly hope that does were not supposed to be the best years of my life. That would suck.
logjameson replied to your post: It’s freezing in my house.
That’s an issue.A rather colossal one, actually. And I’m too lazy to go get myself a coat.
I would get a coat for you since you’re too lazy, but I’m too lazy so we’ve come full circle.
Her arms wrapped around his neck easily, like they had a million times before, like she hadn’t ever been apart from him at all. Sure, absence and distance made some things forgotten, but then, oftentimes, the body remembered things better than the brain did. For example, her body melted into his so fluidly, without a single conscious thought, and she wasn’t entirely sure just how it happened until it had. And her fingers ran through his hair and she wondered how she could ever forget what that felt like, or how it felt to kiss him. The sparks never went away, and she honestly didn’t think they ever would. Just like the way her heart always skipped a beat when he so much as touched her - hell, when he smiled at her, her heart jumped into her throat. Those kind of things never went away. She was sure of it.
Being flung over his shoulder should not have surprised her as much as it did. But she let out a scream of surprise anyway, and it faded into giggles after a moment. He was careful in laying her down and part of that kind of bothered her, because he was always the one who treated her like she wasn’t some breakable little doll. She shrugged the thought away, though, when he kissed her again, instead focusing on the way his fingers twined with hers and how well they fit, and what his mouth tasted like when they kissed, and the fact that not seeing each other for so long hadn’t changed a single thing in the way he made her smile. “I really don’t care. I’ve just missed you so much, all I want is to be around you,” she admitted, biting down on her bottom lip, bashful. There was already a blush on her cheeks.
“Lucky me, then,” he smiled and kissed her nose, sticking his tongue out at her when he saw she was blushing. It was cute, who could blame him for melting a bit when he knew he had that effect on her? Not that he’d ever outwardly let her know she’d have the same effect. It was mostly internal for him. Butterflies rushing around from place to place and the occasional and cheesy warm feeling. If he was more easily embarrassed, too, he’d be a mess around. Not that he already wasn’t. She’d probably seen him in more ways than most people would have. That whole thought was both scary and wonderful at the same time. She still decided to stay, so maybe it wasn’t so terrifying after all. It was his brain doing all the cycling it did again, at this time of year. It was always this time of year. He’d get over it, really.
He racked his brain for something, but ended up getting distracted by simply looking at her, and forgot about it. Ironically, she made that plausible half the time. She just had that effect on him. He twirled a strand of her hair in his finger and bit his lip. For some reason he adopted that habit from somewhere. Maybe he spent too much time thinking about her to realize it. He wondered if she knew she was the reason his teachers kept calling him out for daydreaming in class, or simply not paying attention. He wondered if she knew she was the reason he could sit still for a long amount of time, just by the thought of her. She probably didn’t, and he wouldn’t tell her.
Don’t worry. It gets worse.Thanks for the encouragement.
It’s my duty.
And I hear you. I’ve been juggling lots of end of the year stuff as well as finals, so I see where you’re coming from. There’s always some sort of silver lining though, I like to think.
I honestly wouldn’t give a thought to it in any other situation. I’m just happy I’m almost done with High School and never have to be in that building again. That might be the silver lining.
