For a moment, Michael was convinced he was dreaming. The fence that lined the perimeter of Ari's backyard suddenly looked to clear, too focused. It's grain was too perfect to be real.
I think I'm falling in love with you.
He examined his hands, his fingers curving into small, round, nails. Why did he have fingernails, or fingers at all? Why did he have legs and arms and a body? Why did he look the way he did?
Falling in love with you.
He looked up at Ari, and realized with horror that her face was pinched, her perfect mouth curving downward into a sad frown. A single tear slid down her cheek, and she reached up a hand to wipe it away, but Michael beat her to it. His thumb brushed gently against her cheek, taking the drop of moisture with it.
Love.
Love.
Love.
The word rattled through his mind like a pinball, a solitary thought in what felt like an empty skull.
Love.
Finally, Michael realized that he wasn't breathing. He took in a gulp of air and let his hand rest back in his lap. Suddenly words began to spill from his lips like a tidal wave, unstoppable.
"Why did you tell me you just wanted to be friends? Why didn't you - "
"I was scared," Ari cut him off smoothly. "I was scared of feeling something. I was scared of what it would do to me."
"Well..." Michael gulped, a lump in his throat. "You don't have to be scared anymore."
There was a deafening silence, and then Michael found the courage to speak the words that were stitching themselves together perfectly inside his head.
"Do you believe in love at first sight?"
Ari shrugged slowly.
"I do." Michael felt a smile curve his lips, and before Ari could respond, he filled the gap between them, pressing his forehead against hers.
He didn't have to do anything else. It took a single blink, one solitary heartbeat, for Ari to press her lips against his.
It wasn't like the times they had kissed before, hesitant and illegal, and it wasn't hungry and vicious eaither. It felt as amazing as a first kiss, and as perfect and right as if they had done it a million times before.
Michael felt an explosion erupt inside him. It was as if his heart had filled too much, and burst like a balloon, flooding his insides with warmth.
Ari's hands found his hair and then they were knotting through it, trailing down his neck and resting behind it. Michael ran his fingers gently down her jaw, kissing the spot were her ear met her neck, and she let out a soft moan.
Her legs twisted around his waist, and then she was sitting on his lap, his legs crossed beneath her. Her lips met his again, and they felt perfect against his mouth, as if the two of them were two interlocking puzzle pieces, made for each other.
Finally, they broke apart and Ari rested her head against his chest, her soft hair tickling his chin. He could feel her heavy breaths against his forearm, and he felt a feeling of contentment flutter up to his chest
"I love you." He whispered, so quietly that he would have been sure she didn't hear him if she hadn't whispered it back, just as silently.
And then he told her.
He told her everything.
Because how could he not?
He told her about the crash, about Grace, and about how sometimes he felt like he was in a deep black hole with no way out, and when he finished, Ari looked up at him with tears in his eyes.
"Michael..." He voice sounded fragile, like a spider web. "That's horrible...I'm so sorry."
"Y-Yours was worse." Michael's voice was shuddery with tears.
"But I was ten," Ari ran a comforting hand gently through his hair. "I..." She trailed off, pressing her cheek to his chest again.
"How do you..." Michael swallowed, his heart ricocheting off his chest like a tennis ball. "How do you...live with it? You seem so happy all the time, and I can't even imagine ever feeling like that again. Does it get easier?"
Ari was silent for a moment, and he could feel her breath deeply against his chest. Then she leaned back and looked up at him again.
"I don't think it really ever gets easier," he blue eyes were still full of tears. "It's just gets easier to deal with the fact that it's hard."
There was another moment of silence during which Michael stared up at the setting sun, the clouds now dusted a light pink, and then he felt his deepest, darkest fear crawl from within him, out into the open.
"I just feel like if I would have made her sit in the back seat, if I would have...if I hadn't been so stupid, maybe she'd still be here."
"Michael," Ari looked up at him, her eyes wide. "Are you suggesting that this is your fault?"
"I-"
"Because it's not," Ari insisted, cutting him off. "It is not your fault Michael. You couldn't have done anything to change what happened. It was fate, and even though it's horrible, you're just going to have to live with it. And I know you can do it Michael, because you're strong. I've never met anyone as strong as you."
Michael couldn't help the small smile that fluttered across his mouth, and he wrapped his arms around Ari, pulling her lips to his.
They sat there as the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, stars dotting the sky like tiny, glittering snowflakes and the night enveloping them like a welcome hug. Their ice cream cake slowly melted into a sticky river, but they ignored it. Michael was sure he saw a face glance out at them from the other side of the screen door at one point, but nobody came out to check on them. As he ran a hand through Ari's hair, gazing up at the moon, he felt something growing inside of him, a tiny flower, it's petals unfolding by the light of the moon.
Soon, he realized what the flower was.
It was hope, it's vines winding around his heart and filling him with a welcome, floaty sensation.
He smiled, because you know what they say:
Everything will be okay in the end.
If it's not okay, it's not the end.
That was the last chapter. I probably should have warned you when it was getting close to the end, but I didn't. I'm a loser like that. There's like literally one person reading this right now anyway. Hi IckyIrwin!
But I want to thank you all - aka one person - for reading. You have no idea how much each and every read means to me and even though this story doesn't have many reads, it still means everything to me that it even got as many as it did. I hope you guys enjoyed reading this book as much as I liked writing it. It did have its rough patches, but to the people that stuck it out until the end, thank you so much.
With love,
Loser_Luke
(P.S. I'm thinking about a sequel. Would anybody read it? IckyIrwin, I want to know what you think because you're like the only person reading this anyway.)
