The Story of You and Me

Chapter 41

"Dylan..." He whispers, reaching out as if to touch my face and then thinking better of it and dropping his hand. "Can I come in?" He asks, appraising the room behind me from his position in the doorway.

"Um, sure... I guess, just... what are you doing here?" He closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath, slowly letting it out again. "It's long and... complicated." I stare at him for another moment and then step back and let him in. "Well then it's a good thing that I have a lot of time."

He offers me a small smile as I shut the door behind him. He walks around the small room, fingering boxes, taking his time before turning to me.

"You want to know why I'm here." He says, not really asking. He knows that I'm desperately wondering what brought him all the way across the country and delivered him to my doorstep. I nod and he mimics my movement before sitting down on one of the beds.

"Well, I could come up with some bullshit answer about why I came here but in all honesty I really don't know. All I know is that I drove to that damn recruitment office 13 times and not once could I bring myself to go in. Everytime I tried you were there."

He looks up and meets my shocked gaze. "I was never really going to do it I don't think. It was just a thought but then after that argument I felt like I had something to prove, not just to you but to myself. The only thing I managed to accomplish was realizing that I made a huge mistake letting you move all the way across the country."

"The last time I sat outside that office I decided to listen to the Footloose album. I bet you'll never guess what I found in that cd case... After I read that letter I knew that I had made a huge mistake in letting you go. I always knew that you didn't really mean what you said that day and I'm sorry for never giving us an opportunity to work things out."

"Dylan, I came out here in the hopes that, just maybe, you could somehow forgive me. I'm just as much to blame for that fight as you were, I should have told you about the pamphlet instead of having you find out like that. We should have had a rational conversation and the entire thing could have been avoided. Dylan I'm so sorry..."

"You asked why I'm here and I guess that's why. I got your letter and I just knew that I had made such a big mistake. I just knew that I still loved you, that I will love you for a long, long time. The only question now is, will you give me the chance to prove that to you?"

I stare at him, wide-eyed. I never in a million years thought that I would hear him say that. I always thought that I would be the one on my knees begging for forgiveness. He wasn't supposed to come to me, it was supposed to be the other way around. Though I guess, in a way, maybe it still was. After all, it was my letter that helped him realize all of this.

"Cole..." I begin and then pause, still trying to process everything and collect my thoughts. "I... I love you too, I just... I need to process." I sit down on the bed behind me and study him for a moment. "Cole," I begin again, "We can't go back, I know that and I hope that you know that too. We can't go back from what happened between us. But I think that it's okay because I don't want to go back. The only direction I want to go is forward and I can't tell you how much I want you to be in that direction."

"I'm finally free, I finally told my mother exactly what I thought of her and now I'm free. I'm getting a fresh start here but before you showed up I felt like something was missing from that start and now I know. It was you, I want you, every step of the way I want you. Cole I love you and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for what I said, for making you chose. I never should have done that and I'm truly sorry that I did."

"You have no idea how much it means to me that you're here. I feel like I've finally figured out who I am by myself and now I want to rediscover who I am when I'm with you. I wasn't in a place before to do that but I am now. I want to rewrite our story with a fresh start and I hope that you're willing to do that. I hope that you're willing to embark on this journey with me and that somehow, we can find ourselves as Dylan and Cole again."

I look up and meet his gaze with tears in my eyes. He stands up and slowly comes over to me. He gets down on his knees in front of me, each move carefully measured. He reaches out and takes one of my hands in his, with the other he touches my cheek, gently tracing the curve of it, his fingers stopping as they brush against my lips.

"Dylan, I would love to rewrite our story with you. In fact there is nothing more that I would like to do." He whispers, "Except maybe this." With a small smile he slowly leans in and brushes his lips against mine. They're warm and soft as they fall against my own.

I drink in his kiss, the taste of his lips, melting into him. As the kiss grows stronger, I can feel him seeping into me as well. Slowly we're erasing all of the time apart. All of the mess of the relationship seems to disappear, as if the last 3 months were never spent apart.

Slowly, we unite and as he kisses me, as I kiss him, there in my dorm room, far far away from any trace of the life that I used to know... I know that together we are far stronger than we ever could have been apart. There, as we kiss each other, as we say I love you in every possible way, I know that there is no one else for me. As long as I have him by my side, there is nothing that I can't do.

The End