Riarkle One Shots

What Love Is (part 2)

I'm out taking pictures in the park when my phone rings.

I look and see that it's Riley. I smile because last night I visited her and I think I helped her feel better. That's always my goal when she's feeling down. To make her feel happy.

I accept the call and say hello.

"Hey Farkley. Are you busy today?" she asks sounding a little off.

I furrow my eyebrows and set my camera in the bag as I go over to a bench. "No I'm not doing anything important," I tell her. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah everything's fine," she assures me. "I just need to talk to you, like today. It's pretty important."

"Um okay. I'm at the park if you want to meet me."

I hear her getting up and moving around. She's probably grabbing her shoes knowing her. "That's perfect," she says. "I'll call you when I get there. I won't be long."

"Alright. I'll be here," I say with a smile and hang up.

Leaning back in the bench I think about what Riley might need to tell me. There's an endless supply of possibilities. She could be moving schools or her parents could be expecting. Maybe she's getting a part time job or she has a new boyfriend. I really hope it's not a new guy because I like her. Things have just been too complicated these past few years to get together.

I sigh and pull out my camera to pass the time. I spot a rosebush near the bench I'm sitting at and take a few pictures. They're white with pink on the edges and the few raindrops on the petals reflect the light. I shift a bit so that I can really showcase the sunlight.

While I'm taking the picture I hear someone giggle behind me. I look over my shoulder and smile at Riley. She's taking pictures of me and being all cute.

I go over and look at the pictures of me and I look so dorky. I want to tell her to delete it, but that would be useless since she'd never do it.

I lead her back to the bench and ask, "What's going on?"

She fiddled with the ends of her beautiful brown hair and quietly says, "I realized something yesterday and I need to tell you before I change my mind and chicken out."

I nod to let her know to continue.

"My dad explained that he did his best to teach us about love and that he hopes that I take his lessons into my life. I realized that I really haven't been using his important lessons and need to start to. So here it goes.

"I love you. I'm honestly not sure how long, but I know that I do. I know that the way I treat you, the way I am with you is because I love you. I need you to know this whether you wanted to know or not and-"

I cut her off because I can't take it anymore.

I kiss her.

I let ever moment that I've ever wanted to do this take over so that she knows that I mean it. And to my surprise she's kisses back with much more force than I ever would've expected from her.

I want to say that this kiss created fireworks, but that's cliché.  This was more like that feeling you get when you step onto a beach for the first time in while when you've been looking forward to it. The warm sand making you smile. When you finally get to the water feeling the calm and excitement.

It's like you've expected and wanted it forever, but couldn't have it for whatever reason.

That's this kiss.

We pull apart at last and she smiles.

I look into her eyes and blush. "I'm sorry for cutting you off. I've just wanted this for so long."

She shakes her head happily. "I'm really happy that you did."

Riley then closes that space between us and we kiss again.

I mumble an I love you against her lips and she does back.

I make a mental note to thank Mr. Matthews for the lessons and then push it away to enjoy this moment.

Our moment.