Sweet Tooth [HS]

FIFTY ONE

In the next second they were in another moment. A fresher lifetime.

A new fucking universe.

Because suddenly, Harry loved her.

Harry Styles

fucking

loved

her.

"You love me?" She asked and her voice wavered. She felt timid, terrified. Sort of like her hopes were so high up that the plummet downwards would be unsurvivable.

But then he said, "I love you, Mackenzie Sweet," and it sounded so final. So absolute. And Max felt like a chain was breaking around her heart. Each syllable was a link falling away, being forgotten and replaced by his love, their love, that wrapped around her like a blanket.

"I love you." She replied, as her face split into a smile, all teeth, all dimples, all creased eyes and wrinkled forehead.

The words were like liberation. Like freedom. Tasted like food to the hungry, felt like light in the darkness.

It was like she was finally breathing. Was finally able to come up for air, after all this time and all these years of holding everything inside of her so tight.

How long had Max craved this? How long had the words I love you bubbled up beneath the surface, festering inside of her mind, inside her own heart because she was too scared, too embarassed to say the words aloud?

And how long had she yearned to hear it? How long had she needed this?

God, it had been years.

Years of this torture.

But now it - her big, special, private I LOVE YOU had been spoken, the words were alive, had been released and now they were floating in the air. His truth and hers, intermingling in the small space between them.

They were on her skin. They were inside of her.

And it felt so fresh and so new. Felt like this sort of chemical reaction, like something was fizzing in her bloodstream. It was a fever. It was that her broken heart was fixed and new and thudding to a new rhythm. And it was this strange heat, this new pressure- a feeling like she was close to the earth's core with him, on the brink of melting.

But it didn't scare her. Not when his hand was pressed against her cheek, when his eyes were boring into hers with a look that could last forever. No, Max felt spurred forwards. She leaned into the feeling, bending to it, worshipping it.

So she kissed him. She threaded her fingers through the thick hair at the back of his head, and his skin felt warm, like the sunshine. He tasted like mint and something sweet and something soft. And he was delicate, gentle. It was steady, the way their lips moved against each other. Like there was no need to rush because their love was final, it was there, it was real, and there was no possibility of it going away.

And when she pulled back, resting her forehead against his, her nose against his nose, their lips still brushing and their breaths falling upon each other's, she smiled.

"You love me," She whispered, wanted him to say it again.

"Maxie," he said quietly, and Max thought his eyes looked like diamonds as they stared at her, gleaming. "I love you. I think I've loved you for a long time, actually."

And his words travelled through her body, echoed through it, and settled in her heart.

"I think I have too." She whispered back, bringing her hands up to his cheeks as she nuzzled her face against his. "I think I've loved you ever since I met you."