People have always had something to say. That what Anna and I shared was a phase. That I'd grow out of it... out of her.
Some brought God into it. Like my parents. They told me it was a phase, I was confused and that one day, I'd find the right man and laugh at this version of myself. Called it sin. Tried to bend scripture into a blade and press it against my love like it would make me bleed guilt. As if love could be fought off with scripture, when it was built on it.
But I didn't care.
Sin doesn't exist in my world. Mistakes do, and this? This love for Anna, it wasn't a mistake. It was the most deliberate, most natural thing I've ever known.
I'm not an atheist. I'm not a churchgoer. I don't hate religion or the people who need it. I respect belief, tradition, culture, I just don't live within them.
I live in energy, in feeling. In the spaces where love outweighs doctrine and holding someone's hand means more than anyone's approval. And no, I am not some starving thing waiting at the feet of the world for scraps of love. I know what fills me. What feeds the hollow parts of me like warm custard in a fresh pie.
I don't want crumbs. I want wholeness.
And Anna gave me that, not all at once, but slowly, carefully. Like she knew I was starving but still deserved to be fed gently.
I spent a week wrapped in her arms, it was summer time and our town was quiet. Just the right amount of quiet to feel like we were alone with no school, and plenty of time while our parents were at work.
Her home was simple but beautiful. A quiet house nestled beside a lake that shimmered with sunlight like spilled glitter. And that week, I lived in her arms.
I had never felt more drunk on something that wasn't poured from a bottle. Her warmth curled around me like a vice, and I clung to her like someone who finally found the thing they thought didn't exist. Her eyes drank me in. Mine swallowed her whole.
We lit something in each other, not a spark, but a full-blown blaze. Fire in the marrow, heat between fingertips. The kind of burning that felt holy, not hellish.
Anna was a well; deep, still, and quietly dark. Her emotions didn't surface unless asked. But that week, I drew her out. Bucket after bucket, she poured.
Between shared whispers and soft kisses, she spoke of galaxies and gravity. Of falling for the stars, the moon, the unknown. And as she kissed my shoulder and cupped my chest with reverent hands, I knew I wasn't just a body in her bed. I was her cosmos and she was mine.
