Once in a lifetime.

⚠️25

March

"Juliet, don't do that." Her smile is devouring her face. "Pumpkin I'm serious, If you throw that, it means war." She starts giggling and it's contagious. "Put the water balloon down." I try to talk her out of it, but I see it in her eyes. She's going to throw it, and she's not going to miss. Juliet chucks the water balloon at my face and I don't have to see to know she's running away from me.

It only takes me a second to recover and I'm chasing after her. She wines through the house taking the long way to the stairs. I take them two at a time, I could catch her if I wanted to and I think we both know that.

She is shrieking and screaming my name as she desperately tried to get to my room before me. She slammed the door in my face, her laughing turning into wheezing, I force my way in telling her that it's on like Donkey Kong and I warned her.

She backs away from the door, in one move I grab her and pick her up tossing her onto my bed, I climb on top of her and pin her down. Our laughter gets softer as our thoughts wander away from the water balloon fight, I look down at her.

"What?" She asks, and I can't help but grin at her, I shake my head trying to form coherent sentences, so I can explain what is going on in my head. I think it's then that I fully realize that it doesn't matter what we've gone through, or what this woman puts me through, I will always be desperate to be a part of her life.

But like always, my world comes crashing down when her phone buzzes. She doesn't move, but I climb off of her, forcing the words I had just found into the back of my mind.

"It's probably Cayden." She sits up.

"Okay?" I place my hands under my thighs so I don't grab her phone and chuck it out of my window. Why can't he just back off? She is mine, she's always been meant to be mine. She sits up and sits with me on the ends of the bed. "Do you want me to get it?"

No, I think. "Do you wanna get it?"

She looks at me blinking. "I'm confused."

I look away shaking my head again. "I know, I'm sorry." I run my fingers through my hair. "I'm going to go back down to everyone so you can text him back." I start to walk to the door but she grabs me.

"Did I do something wrong?" I can hear the worry and confusion in her voice. God, I hate this! I hate that he makes me act this way. I take a deep breath and turn back around to her.

"No love, you didn't." I grab both of her hands and bring them to my face. "He just makes me jealous."

She looks at me baffled. "Why?"

I lick my lower lip and smile. "If I asked, would you tell me if he kissed you?" Her face drops and I instantly know the answer, I pull away a bit and use my thumb to scratch my chin. "He makes me jealous because I knew when he invited you to that wedding he would kiss you. I knew he'd kiss you and dance with you and try to woo you, I worried that he would even try and sleep with you."

I see the panic wash over her "We didn't,"

I nod "I know that," I put my hand on her cheek to try and comfort her. "I mean, I know that now." I let out a forced laugh. "I was just really scared that when you came back he would have you convince you to need to choose him."

I was searching her face, I'm not sure what I was looking for, maybe a sign that she was still all mine? That in the end, she would choose me and that I wouldn't have to worry every second that she could leave me. My eyes traveled all over her face, but I ended up with nothing.

"Jules, I love you." I talked slowly, knowing that this may be the only time I have her full and undivided attention. "I want to marry you, so bad, I'm so tired of being apart from you, And" I signed. "Look I know I've made mistakes, I know that I've messed up, and I know I'm not always as smart as I should be. I know that I talk before thinking and then try and make up for the crappy things I've said, I'm not saying I'm perfect, We met when we were babies and we didn't know what we were getting into, and you can say we did but honestly we didn't. We talked about wanting to be together forever but we didn't know what that meant. We didn't know what life would throw us into and how long forever really is, How much we would change, and grow, and even though we did some of that apart I believe now that we're ready to continue to grow together."