Love Always, From Mayberry

Chapter fifty two

Steven watches me strip down to my bathing suit from the water with a look as if he's looking at Megan Fox rather than Whitney Cromer.

"I guess there isn't much of a graceful way for me to do this?" I can't help but be self conscious about everything especially around someone I care so much about their thoughts.

"Baby, just lower yourself in. I got you. I won't let you drown." Steven extends his arms and I can't help but laugh. As much as I'm impressed by the knight in shining armor rescuer thing, I was a better swimmer than anyone I knew but I decided to stick to my feminine damsel pretense to let him have his moment.

"I'm surprised you could hold me up. I've gained so much weight." I went ahead and tossed my biggest insecurity out there.

"I'm going to stop you right there. My addiction issues have been well known for years so I feel like we can talk about your past as well. I know about the eating and food issues but what I don't know is why? Why on earth did you put yourself through that for so many years? You've always been so beautiful, I never understood what happened to make you feel like you needed to change anything about your appearance. You look beautiful. You look healthy. Please don't ever go back down that road again." Steven takes my body pulling me closer and I wrap my legs around his torso in the water before continuing the conversation.

"It was everything, Steven. Loosing you. My parents and their chaos. Then, well, you know. That summer wasn't easy on anyone." I knew the subject of the summer after my junior year would come up eventually but I'd always avoided it like the plague. Steven looks past me into nothing.

"No, it wasn't. That summer was the first time I ever tried drugs, like actual drugs, I'll spare you the details, but you know to this day no one's ever asked me how that summer affected me? I'm not taking away from the loss everyone suffered but my whole family suffered, including me. Nothing was ever the same. I feel like I could've stopped it. I could've asked questions. I could've been responsible for once, but no. I just let Alex leave the house knowing damn well he didn't have a license." Steven's grip on me becomes tighter.

"Steven, I never blamed you or Alex for what happened." Steven looks up at me and his eyes look into mine with pure adoration and love that I realize never left.

Kissing him again is just as familiar in my mind as if we never stopped, the only difference is I'm not the same. His kisses have always been intense but now I kissed him back with a hunger. The kiss speaks what words simply cannot. I'm rediscovering my first love while stepping into a new chapter of my life.

I'm the first to break; we both look at each other, panting, then simultaneously break into the sweetest laugh before splashing one another and playing for hours like children, just the two of us both wishing we could stay in that river forever and be our teenage selves again. So in love before adult life hardened us.