Behind the Clouds

Chapter 18

After about twenty minutes of s’more’s and sticky marshmallows, we head to the tent to watch the stars. As we walked hand in hand, however, he stopped me. “Wait a second,” he said. He grabbed a small remote control out of his pocket and pressed a button. Suddenly, the inside of the tent lit up with flickering, orange lights coming from the inside. I even heard some music inside; the acoustic version of Latch by Sam Smith was playing. I stood there with my eyes wide open and watched as he took down the layers and opened the tent to reveal dozens of lit, electric candles. They sat along the edges of the pool except the front so there was room to walk. I didn’t know how I never noticed these.

I walked in slowly and saw how beautiful it really looked. Even though it was ridiculous seeing a pool full of pillows in a tent filled with electric candles, I could say that it was one of the most amazing and beautiful things anyone has ever done for me. I laid down on the pillows and looked up at the sky watching the stars. Then I felt him lay down next to me and when he did I turned to look at him. “Why me?” I asked softly.

He turned his head as well. “Because you deserve it,” he answered.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” I thought back to the last four years of my life. It was obviously not my “Golden Age,” but did I really deserve all of this?

What did I do for this?

“I can see you thinking. Stop it,” he said. He reads me too well. “You know you deserve this. Don’t doubt it for a second.”

Stop Ellie. Where’s your strength? Stop second guessing yourself.

I took a deep breath and looked back at him. “I won’t.” We smiled and held each other’s hands as we looked back up at the starlit sky. Then I saw the full moon finally become brighter as the sun finally descended.

“Look,” Jericho said pointing up at the moon. “The sun died to let the moon breathe. Remember the story?”

“Yeah.” Remember it? I replay it in my head every night before bed. I never mentioned it before, but that’s how I’ve been getting through the night. It’s been my safety blanket in case a nightmare decides to disturb me.

He turned to look at me again. “Guess that means you must love me so much that you would die to let me breathe.” I turned to look at him in confusion. I noticed that I never said I...the three words to him. We’ve never said them to each other. 

You have to say something. Come on just talk!

“Guess that means you must love me so much that you would die to let me breathe. Come four or five in the morning that is.” There we were again with the mimicking. One after the other we followed, but if he said it...if I said it...the real question would be if we said them back.

“Maybe I do,” he said.

“What?” I whispered. Is he really gonna say it? He sat propped up on his forearm and reached his free arm to grab something from his back pocket. I sat up along with him.

“Look, I know it’s only been two weeks, give or take, but these have been the best two weeks I’ve ever spent with anybody.” He used two fingers to brush my eyelids down. I felt him move closer and brush my hair away from my neck. Then I felt the coolness of metal hit my chest. “You can open now.” I looked down to see a sterling silver chain necklace with a charm of the moon connected the sun. The two were touching even though it put them in danger, but they did it to be closer.

“It’s so beautiful.” I felt the tears well up again. I was holding them back so hard that I felt the tension in my temples. 

“I love you,” he said. My eyes shifted from the charm to him in disbelief. He said it. Then I felt the heat explode in my heart and all I felt was pure happiness.

“I love you too,” I said before he grabbed my face and began kissing me like I did before. The song changed to Kurt Hugo Schneider’s Zedd medley. Of course he would find a way to use EDM in this. My favorite music along with someone who made me feel alive created this sort of amazing sense of calm inside me. He had me wrapped in his arms and caressed me so gently. Our legs were still entangled, but had gradually gotten tighter as the heat of the moment grew. Before I knew what I was doing, I moved away for a second, pulled him up with me, and grabbed the bottom of his white T-shirt. We both worked together to get it to come off and once he threw the shirt he surprisingly pulled my tank top off as well.

I just ripped off his shirt...and he ripped off mine...holy crap.

Both of us still stared at each other stunned at what just happened, and I didn’t know what was about to happen. The anxiety that had been dormant for a little while slowly started growing, and I thought I was gonna have a panic attack.

There’s only one way to stop it. Just do.

I let go. I hooked my arms around his neck and starting kissing him again. This time more sweetly. Before the anxiety could grow anymore, he grabbed my waist, and we got closer than ever...with no shirts to be a barrier between us. In seconds, the anxiety disappeared and all I felt was bliss and comfort. The comfort of being in the arms of someone who cared and loved me as much as I did for them. As the intensity was beginning to grow, he began tugging on my bottom lip with his teeth and the intensity had almost reached its limit when I opened my mouth a little wider. As time went on, we gripped each other tighter, the pace became faster, and the pressure between us was almost becoming painful. But it was the good kind of pain. The pain you would go through for the one you loved.

By accident, I let a small moan come through my lips and his pace slowed down. He pulled away slowly, and just when I thought he was trying to stop us, he placed small, soft kisses down my neck and left a trail of kisses down towards my stomach. With my arms still around his neck and eyes closed taking in the sense of euphoria from the kisses, I pulled him down so he was on top of me. He never wavered once I landed back on the pillows, but then he made his way back up my torso and to my lips once again.

Eventually, we were on our sides again getting out of breath from what felt like hours of kissing. We were tired, but we didn’t wanna stop. Instead, we just slowed down a bit taking short pauses in between each kiss and softly chuckling at the moment. His hands moved down towards my thigh and pulled my leg up closer between us, but then he stopped for a minute.

“What’s this?” He whispers to me. I looked down to see that he rubbed over the scar on my thigh.

“It’s just a scar from when I was younger. I tripped and cut myself along a piece of metal,” I whispered back. Then he slowly lifted my leg up higher, leaned in towards my thigh, and kissed the scar. And the heat just made everything feel even better than it already felt.

“So, you wanna rate this? Rate our LA run, buying the car, and this,” he said softly.

“You really want me to?” I chuckled. He nodded. “Well...I’m gonna make buying the car the last one because even though it was sweet, I didn’t do much. The LA run is gonna be next because that was the first time I really had fun in a while. Plus, I got to show you around Disneyland.” I chuckled at the memory of riding all of the thrill rides and all the laughing and smiling we did together. That was the best. “But obviously this,” I gave him a small peck, “Is gonna be first. It’s always gonna be first.” He started kissing me again, and we were laughing in the midst of it. Then the song changed to Turning Page by Sleeping at Last. “Was that the answer you wanted to hear?”

“It was perfect.” We both smiled at each other and placed one last kiss on each other’s lips. Then he gave one long kiss on my shoulder. I remembered that a kiss on the shoulder was on the photo my friends and I discussed a while back. It meant “you’re perfect.” If that photo was actually credible then all of those kisses were all I could’ve asked for. The first kiss on the hand he gave me, the kiss on the forehead, the cheek, and the many kisses he planted on my neck, lips, and that sweet one on my shoulder. Every little message that came with each kiss made me feel whole. I had never felt so complete.