Admit It

27; new year's kiss

The lights were low, the air was quiet, and the walls were vacant. All could be true for all rooms of the library except one- the study off the left hand corner, the room with the mahogany table and the decade old golden lamps and the bookshelves that ran for centuries full of poetry. 

In that room, the every light was flickering as bright as it possibly could, the air was full of the sound of piano and classical guitar and softly-filtered vocals, and the walls were marked with the shadows of two figures dancing alone in the library. 

How long had they been there? Only the ghosts that ruled the hallways could tell. But the two lovers were laughing and smiling along as he pulled her to his chest. She ran her hands cautiously through his soft curls that fell in his face, and he brushed the bangs he'd noticed she'd been letting grow out from her delicate features, placing a kiss on her forehead before letting her spin out again. Her short skirt was the color of the butterflies he imagined swarming the room as they danced, and barely twirled around her. Or at least if it did twirl, it was weighted down by the fleece-lined denim jacket that fell too large over her shoulders like the nickname 'babe' seemed to fall around his. 

She landed back in his arms and they swayed in place for a little while, kissing with a slow, deep type of love. 

After watching the sunset for what seemed like the hundredth time on the balcony, they drove to her apartment so she could kiss her Mama on the cheek before turning up the volume of the music and driving back to his home. 

Together with his little sister, they made chocolate chip cookies and watched a movie that used to be his favorite when he was young. They sat on one end of the couch while his sister sat on the other, making faces every time one of them leaned over to steal a moment of a kiss. 

She left for upstairs before midnight had passed, planning to sleep through the moments as the years faded into themselves, leaving the two to love each other however they pleased- with giggles and whispers they would only ever share amongst themselves and, with gentle caresses and deep kisses that would quickly disappear into the darkness of the night.

The TV wasn't even on when midnight struck. Only the small cassette tape player strapped to the waistband of his black trousers made noise. Not even the people themselves, silently swaying as they'd done hours prior to the sound of their favorite songs coming through the low-quality speaker, made a noise, only listening for when the watch he wore ticked its final second away.

He whispered his promises of love to her when he noticed the clock was only 60 seconds away from midnight. She did the same, brushing her lips against his cheek and combing her fingers through his hair.

The first fireworks exploded in the distance.

The second ones went off as their lips met, their skin caught on fire, and their bodies were pulled to the bed upstairs. 

Until that moment, they'd been each other's. 

Of course. 

No one simply walked around with their fingers intertwined, stopped to smile and place a kiss on the other's lips in the mornings when they first woke up, or stayed up until the morning watching the stars collide in the empty fields for nothing. but they'd been each other's in a very unstable, loose way. One wrong move, and the panels of their gorgeous glass tower would collapse in on themselves. But as soon as they heard the fireworks go off in the distance and their bodies and lips crashed together like nothing else had ever existed, they were promised to each other. From that moment on, they would try until death to make sure that the next morning, they would wake up in each other's arms once again. And again, and again, forevermore. 

✧✦✧

Morning came far before they'd even realized. Realized anything. 

The new year had come. What had been last year was infinitely separated from the reckless abandon, the whispered words of love, the dancing in the darkened library that'd created their poem of euphoria had seen its closing line as their lips met in the final moments of night. 

The truth had spilled. Poured out like a waterfall as it unfroze from the brutal winter, drowning like the love that had suffocated them until their only source of life was somewhere inside the other. Never would things be the same between them, but in a better way, like the feeling of watching sunsets from separate windows to curling up in each other while they watched the stars sparkle in the skies, in their eyes. 

The final layer had been removed. Only when they woke up, skin against skin, hair soaked and sticking to foreheads, a nervous feeling in their chests, did they realize what had happened in the morning after the earliest fireworks. It wasn't nearly as nerve wracking as they'd expected it would be, after all, they'd already stripped each other bare more times than they could count, just not with clothes. They'd stripped of every ounce of partial truth and disguised armor, of each other's honey drizzles and shadowy covers, of happiness, fear, pressure, freedom, and words until the only things remaining were the fatal flaws and traits that could single-handedly make you want to spend a life with somebody, the raw, broken remnants of the human soul. 

But soon they found each other in the same position. Tangled up in each other like flowers that had grown side by side, warm against each other's skin like the sun when it came out in that dead of winter. And it was magical. 

By midmorning, they laid in the fields with him softly plucking the strings of his guitar while she finally sung to him. The sounds of her voice, quiet, delicate, and heavenly, blended with the sounds of the wind blowing through the brush. Before much time had passed, their laughs formed a melody together as they tumbled into each other, lips barely brushing against each other every time they smiled, snow falling like specks of light unto the blessed ground. 

 The snow continued to fall to the ground as long as they continued to laugh against each other's lips. There was no feeling more blissful than this, both of them silently agreed, to be alone with the person you would die for without half a moment's hesitation, or rather, live for. 

"It must've been a glitch," she said aloud after some time to think to herself. 

"We were supposed to be just friends," he agreed quietly, almost laughing a little. "But that could never work. No matter how much I hated the thought of messing up a single thing about you." 

"Is that really why?" she asked. "No lies, or bluffs, was that why you did what you did that one Saturday?" 

He nodded. "It was fear. Of everything. It is fear. But then I learned I'd rather kiss you than breathe." 

"I love you," she said, and let her lips melt into his for one of the infinite kisses they shared that morning. 

"I'm in love with you, sweetheart," he responded, wrapping his arms around her waist to hold her close to him forever. 

"You have nothing to be afraid of, Shawn Mendes," Camila whispered in his ear. "The only thing you've ever done for me was save me." 

Some time passed in the fields before they headed back to his home to make up for the sleep they sacrificed for loving each other all last night. By evening, they both returned to the only families they had. And by nightfall, they were staring at the skies in the snow-covered field from the back of his car, and kissed until the most perfect New Year's Day anyone had ever seen came to a sparkling, fluttering end.  

________ 

fun fact: i wrote this chapter on the first day of 2023! 

also this book (which i started back in september that's crazy) was inspired by two things, one was a tiktok i saw about a bad boy x mute girl trope and the other was glitch by taylor swift! ik ik, this song isn't the best song on midnights but idc it's my favorite and when this song came out i could just see the rest of the book in my mind✨🤍

april 1, 2023

1:46 p.m.