Bitter (wlw) (txs)

thirty-six

(a/n:  i felt like it would be nice to hear sam's thoughts on everything since i never really gave space to them :') )

Sam's pov

I felt the happiest I'd felt in many years that evening, like anything that could happen wouldn't be enough for me to not be as happy anymore.

The more I looked at Ellie the more I realized how much I loved her, and even if my first time saying that wasn't what I'd thought it would be, I knew it would have slipped out sometime soon anyway.

We went back to my place after dinner and just spent hours cuddled up in my bed, not saying or doing much. Just enjoying each other's company. I couldn't really figure out what, but something between us felt different.

I suddenly felt like it wasn't just me and her, but us. If that made any sense. Like saying "I love you" for the first time confirmed everything that had happened in the past months. Like nothing felt as certain and meant to be as us being together.

The smile on my face never faded away, not even when Ellie fell asleep in my arms and I just couldn't do the same because of all the emotions I was feeling. I didn't mind though, and I didn't want to move anyway because that would have woken her up. Her mouth was also curved into a hint of a smile, which I found really cute.

The more I looked at her, the more I also realized how lucky I'd gotten and how much I couldn't envision a future, or a near future at least, without her. Which felt weird for me, because just the word 'future' was something that scared me in the past.

Ellie was the first person who didn't make me feel bad about wanting to focus on one day at a time, and respected it, even before we were officially together.

At first I'd been skeptical and felt something similar to guilt because I thought that being much older than her, I wasn't supposed to have those kinds of needs. But thanks to the time spent with her I learnt that being older didn't mean not having doubts and fears.

And I was also scared she'd get the impression that just because of my age I would push her into a commitment before she was ready. That was one of the main details that held me off from even initiating everything during the first months.

I knew she'd just moved away from her hometown and finally was able to live more freely, I didn't want to be an obstacle in her doing that. But paradoxically she still wanted some kind of stability in her life, something that I'd been struggling to maintain for years, so it turned out for the best for the both of us.

What I also noticed is that, even if we'd never really discussed it, Ellie had this deep need to feel cared for and have emotional intimacy with someone. And I'd often find myself feeling good when acting particularly caring towards someone, helping people had always been something that I did quite spontaneously.

Even though people will say clichè stuff like 'age is just a number', which I'd probably joked about during the first times we went out, I kind of felt like that was true in our case. The age detail hadn't been noticeable in ages by then, we were just two people who found each other and, well, fell in love.

I eventually fell asleep, probably many hours after my girlfriend, my face almost buried in her always floreal-smelling hair. Luckily I had no problems with not sleeping much, since I had to get up early for work.

I tried to move as little as I could when the time came, but a confused mumble came out of her mouth as I cautiously moved her head on a pillow.

"Sorry baby" I whispered. "I need to go to work but I know you have later classes today, you can stay in bed as long as you want if you're still tired"