𝙎𝙒𝙀𝙀𝙏 𝙏𝙊𝙊𝙏𝙃; ʳᵒᵗᵗᵐⁿᵗ ♡

𝐈.

it was a nice night tonight, you thought. 

you were sitting beside april on the fire escape outside your apartment, the cool metal was contrasting to the summer heat. you had been snacking on popsicles, watching the city lights flicker and the cars pass by. chatting and laughing at nothing in particular.

at some point she had fallen asleep, her head against your shoulder and her knees lolling towards your own. mumbling something incoherent between breaths.

you sighed as you tilted your head back against the wall of bricks, closing your eyes for a moment before glancing over at her. you chewed on the popsicle stick, twirling it between your fingers.

you've memorized the exact color of her skin a million times. and the angle at which her nose bended just slightly. the freckles that star aligned across her shoulders and around her neck, the curls that framed her face like something from a golden age dutch painting when she wore it in a certain way.

you felt the skin of your palm burn and heat with a desire to brush away that loose strand of hair that mingled over her closed eye, and you felt the desperate and pathetic urge to run your thumb over her knuckles and place kisses along her wrist like she was a goddess you were sent to praise. 

you want her. Lord knows, you want her more than anything in this world.

she plagued your thoughts. throughout the bright days, beyond the moon's ghostly glow, when purple pink skies merged into the dark of blue midnights.

you noticed her small habits, too. how she would chew her nails when she was lost in a deep thought, how she would draw figures on any flat surface when she was bored. how she pursed her lips when she disapproved of something, and how she never let that said thing slide, not on her watch.

you admired the brown of her eyes when she was awake, noticing how they were closer to a crepuscular ray of golden around the center.

her confidence glowed off her smile, sparkled in her eyes. glimmered through the crack of her voice and laugh when she was peculiarly excited about something. the bounce of her twirl when she had a lead on something.

she was... beautiful. breathtaking. inside and out. she was a soul that couldn't be described in one word. 

or even a million. 

"i love you, april." you whispered into the silence just to comfort yourself, you didn't expect her to hear, no less respond.

"love you too," she mumbled back a response into your shoulder, her chest rising and falling with steady breaths. unlike you.

your throat constricted, and your heart sunk into your stomach. you couldn't tell if it was because you were mortified that she heard you, or because you were happy to hear those three little words. or because you were sad to think that maybe she didn't mean it in the same way that you did and you were overthinking this all. 

maybe (definitely) it was a little bit of each.

oh, if only you weren't so busy untangling your own mind, you would have felt that beautiful and telling smile that pressed against april's lips as she leaned against your shoulder.