June.

Sunshine.

I'm here without you baby,
And you're still on my lonely mind.
I think about you baby,
And I dream about you all the time.

- 3 Doors Down, Here without you.

She sucked in a cold breath of air as they waited for the traffic light to go green.

Though he had the heater on, she still felt the cold air drenching her from top to bottom. Her teeth chattered as she bundled up her jacket towards her tightly.

He glanced at her and frowned. 'I told you to dress warm.'

She nodded her head, too numb to formulate words.

He chuckled. 'Hold on. We'll be there soon.'

She rolled her eyes as the car sped along the road. Who holds a bonfire in the middle of nowhere? But that was where they were headed. The entire school was coming. So that kind of included them.

She groaned as Declan eased the car off the road and carefully parked it next to a shiny red sport car and a rusty old truck. God, all she wanted was her bed and a book. Was that too much to ask?

But after her temporary relapse and her incident with her old blade and a few sleeping pills, her shrink decided that a few extra sessions would hurt no one.

Since they had not asked for her point of view, June had been sulky and grumpy all this while, refusing to leave the house and socialise. Declan had forced her to come.

She knew he had cried. When her mother had called him from the hospital to tell him about her pathetic daughter he had completely broken down and cried into the phone.

He had not come to meet her. Although he swung by a couple of days after she was discharged. His smile was bright on his face. Bright and fake. She could see her betrayal in his eyes. She could see the pain. The hurt.

But he kept his emotions hidden and stuck by her. Constant and unwavering. A force that kept her together.

In school, the news had spread like wildfire. Soon everybody new about her depression and her blade.

But he didn't desert her. He fought them. He would've fought them all for her if he could've. But some were enough. And slowly the rumours and the gossip faded away into a forgotten corner.

But she didn't forget. And she loved him for that.

As she glanced at their fingers, intertwined like a string of pearls, she felt a fire burn inside her. A raw desire. A sharp tug in her chest. The loud thumping of her heart. The flushness on her cheeks.

He absent mindlessly traced her scars. When he did that, she didn't think them ugly. She thought them beautiful.

The bonfire licked the dark blue sky as students surrounded it, laughing and talking, all pains and pasts forgotten.

It was only them, this moment, and this time that mattered. And somehow that was enough. To her, it was everything.

He tugged on her hand and led her closer to the fire. He laughed as she commented on the size of the thing.

Her jokes were stupid. But he laughed at them anyway.

He talked to her about a dream he had once had. About a tribe and a bonfire and a pretty princess he had had to defend.

She asked him if he had managed to keep her safe.

He smiled and said that she didn't need him for safety. She alone was enough.

The stars put on a show as her hand found his again.

The shadows cast paintings in the dark. Alive and dancing.

As he looked down at her, she saw the fire reflected in the green of his eyes. Ablaze with its own flame. Beautiful in its own space.

He smiled as if he knew the thoughts in her mind and he kissed her wrist with a surety. A promise. Though what it was, she did not know.

She reached out to brush a dark strand of hair away from his eyes. And Oh, it was so soft.

He held her gaze in the night, like her eyes were the only things he could see, and her breath was the only thing that he could hear.

And when he whispered her name in the dark, his eyes clouded with an emotion she could not name, but felt herself.

He held her chin in his hand and slowly turned it upwards. His eyes flitted down to her parted lips, as he leaned in towards her.

Their breaths mixed as one, as the distance between them shuffled away.

He whispered her name again and her heart thudded against her chest.

He first kissed her eyes as she leaned further in. His chest was rapidly moving, like she took his breath away.

His lips moved to her jaw, and he pressed kisses alongside it, slowly towards her lips.

And he breathed her name again as he kissed the corner of her mouth.

When their lips met, they felt electricity in the air. There were fireworks in the sky and there was just them. Only them.

His taste drove her wild as she ran her hand back through his hair. As he moaned through her lips he leaned forward, his shirt fisted in her hands, her hair tangled in his fingers.

And as they explored each other, lips against lips, heart against heart, breath against breath, they heard each other clearly for the first time.

He heard his name in the waves of her body, the curve of her hips, the taste of her lips.

She heard her name in the freckles on his nose, his breath on her clothes, and the mold of him on her.

They were frantic, reckless, complete.

It was under the laughing stars and the dancing shadows,that  June felt cold no more.

And he had everything to do with it. She did not mind that though. She did not mind that at all.