it's you, it's always been you

chapter 144

The day marked their five year anniversary since the first time Sam kissed Deena.

The stormy, dark night Sam didn't listen to the fear of what her mom would say, and gave into the yearning of finally kissing Deena.

For the first year, they had been on and off as a couple through the trials and tribulations they faced.

Sam beating cancer.

Sam's mom using all her energy into controlling Sam's life and attempting to force Deena away from Sam.

The bullet that was meant for Deena, but Sam took without hesitation.

Both Deena's and Sam's pain caused by their parents. Deena losing her mom at such a young age, and Sam's parents never treating her the way every child deserves.

How vulnerable it makes you to love someone. You love them without thinking of the risks. How the other could selfishly break your heart, and throw away all the love you have for them. It's terrifying and exciting all at once.

They both felt the love between them with every kiss and every touch.

A love that has lived and survived inside of them.

The love that was ingrained into the fiber of their being.

They both felt it; it was there the moment they first met, even as young as they were.

Their love was indescribable. It was beyond the two mere decades they have both been alive.

The love was more powerful, more profound than these years they've known each other.

As if it was born three hundreds years ago.

Lovers that lived before, but were torn apart.

Lovers that sacrificed themselves for the other.

Lovers that always found their way back to each other.

It was everlasting and destined for these two girls from Shadyside, Ohio. A small gloomy town filled with bad luck, or no luck at all. A town where no one thought something so ethereal would exist.

Samantha Hannah Fraser and Deena Sarah Johnson.

If the poets were right and true love exists, it's between them and every love poem has been written for them.

The suffering and tragedy they faced just in the first year was enough to last multiple lifetimes.

But as Sam and Deena moved on from Shadyside, and to the tiny New York City apartment they've dreamed of, the world didn't seem as terrifying and they proved nothing could tear them apart.

Neither of them cared how cheap or tiny the apartment was, what mattered was that it was theirs. It was the next step for their life together and they couldn't be happier.

Deena planned this day down to the last detail. From the one third less fat cream cheese on Sam's favorite bagel for breakfast to her planning how it would end with them next to the other and looking up at the stars.

Their apartment was on the top floor, a detail Sam request of her dad who helped them find the apartment.

The first night, Sam found a way to get to the roof through a broken employee only door and she was ecstatic and excited like a child on Christmas to show Deena. And the first night Sam found a stray orange kitten that she named, Ziggy.

"Okay, so far, you took the subway for thirty minutes to get my favorite bagels at six am. Then we went to the restaurant we had our first date at in NYC. Then we went to that alley we love that's behind the bakery where it smells like cinnamon at 4pm everyday. Now we just finished looking at Starry Night in the Museum of Modern Art. What other adventures do you have planned for today?"