Little Annotations | Tristan Dugray

chapter thirty three

"Hey, Grumpy." Genevieve threw herself onto Tristan's bed and watched him paint as she kicked her feet back and forth.

"Hey, Sneezy."

"Do you remember back when we were at Madeline's house and I woke up the next day not knowing what happened?"

"Uh..."

"The day I swore off drinking." She added, hoping it would ring a bell.

Tristan said nothing as he stood with his paintbrush twirling between his fingers. It seemed as if he were having flashbacks of the moment.

"Tri—"

"Come here?" He said, moving to the very couch, Genevieve swung her feet to the floor and walked over to him.

"You did a little something like this." He whispered, pulling her down on top of him, pinning her waist down to the couch. Slowly, he brushed her hair out of the way and peppered little kisses along the base of her neck. The night came back to her in bits and pieces as he rendered her motionless underneath him.

"Look how pretty you look," Tristan ran a finger along her neck, tracing her hickies softly, making her shuffle around. "So pretty."

"I'm never touching alcohol again." She said, mortified, "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. I liked it."

"Tristan!"

"I'm an honest man." He shrugged.

"Stop."

"Your face is so red right now." He giggled.

"You know what?" Something mischievous flashed across her face, "Since you wanna talk about the past..."

She nudged him to the side and strode over to his bookshelf and came back with his journal in her hand.

"When did that get there?"

"I just wanted to see if you'd notice." She said, flipping to the first page, "To my Genevieve." She read, "Now, does me being "your" Genevieve have anything to do with the fact that there was a hands-off rule for me at Chilton?"

Tristan choked on air, "Huh?"

"Come on... you thought I'd never find out?" She said.

"Who told you?" He groaned.

"Samuel." She said, "Turns out he was supposed to be Romeo."

"Fuck him." Tristan said, "He was bragging about being able to kiss you."

"I ended up kissing Paris anyway." She said, and Tristan raised an eyebrow.

"Did you really?"

"A lady never tells." Genevieve said, "Oh? What's this?" She pointed to the page, "You're so intelligent, and you know it. I adore your confidence, and how you know that you're beautiful. Fuck. You're gorgeous. You're like a girl sent from the heavens above— don't hide your face you're the one that wrote this!" Genevieve threw a handful of popcorn towards Tristan who hid his reddened face in a pillow. "You wrote me love letters!"

"Hey. You did too." Tristan said.

"Wow. You must really love me." Genevieve said and immediately froze.

"Yeah, I do," Tristan said, picking the popcorn off his shirt.

"Huh?" She tried her damndest to play dumb, she truly did.

"I love you." He said the words came out naturally as if he were discussing the weather.

"What?" Genevieve's eyes widened at his sudden proclamation, "Hold on—"

It finally dawned on Tristan the weight of the words that he just said, "I love everything about you, the good and the things you consider to be bad, even though I love those just as much... I was put on this earth to love you, everything else was made to pass time, and I think you love me too."

She inhaled softly, "Tristan...I don't know what love is..."

Tristan felt his heart stop.

Did he overestimate? Was he too confident?

"I don't know what love is," Genevieve said again, "But you're the only person I would want to find it out with."

"Genevieve." He said, relieved, "My beautiful Genevieve."

"Oh, I'm yours?"

"Are you?"

"Tristan, what's mine is yours. My heart, my mind, and even the stuffed animals I know you know all the names of." She said, "I'll be yours if you be mine."

"That's a promise I can keep." He linked their pinkies up.

Cloud 9 had nothing on them.