breathe me (e.dolan)

thirteen

***FLASHBACK***

The setting sun seemed to dance in his eyes as it reflected across the different shades of brown and green. As I watched Ethan from my spot in the grass, I became unsure if the warmth that blanketed my body was from the lingering heat of the day or the feeling I got just from being with him.

"You're staring," Ethan's voice teased, breaking me out of my trance. There was a smirk on his face as he leaned back onto the grass and stretched his arm out toward me, silently asking me to mirror the action. I smiled shyly and reached my own arm out to his, taking his hand into mine and squeezing it.

"I know," I whispered back. Ethan blushed, buried his head into his own shoulder to hide the crimson shades spreading across his cheeks and forehead. There was a dimpled smile indenting his cheeks despite his embarrassment.

"You're feeling awfully affectionate today, Pey," he pointed out after a passing moment of comfortable silence, squeezing my hand in his gently. "Not that I'm complaining."

I couldn't help myself from moving in closer to Ethan's body. I shuffled in, stopping only a few inches from his face and propping my elbow onto the grass to stare down at his relaxed frame. "I know. I just woke up today and... I feel like I'm seeing you for the first time. I feel like I need to make sure you know how much you mean to me."

Ethan stared at me intently, his eyes filled with adoration, burning through my own as his lips curled up into a smile. His expression was soft as ever as he leaned up to press a kiss against my lips.

"I'm so lucky to have you," Ethan sighed into the kiss, pulling away and resting his head back down into the grass to stare at me. "I-I love you, Peyton."

I bit the inside of my cheek, my heart swelling up and filling my body with an insatiable warmth as his words sank in. Ethan and I had known each other for four years and dated for two of those, yet in all that time we had never spoken those three words in the context that Ethan meant it now. In that moment, all I could possibly focus on was the love coursing through me with every beat of my heart, and I knew then that I could never picture a world without Ethan in it, because he was my world.

"I love you, E." I exhaled sharply, collapsing down onto Ethan's body and burying my head into the crook of his neck. "Don't ever leave me, please."

Ethan planted a kiss against my hair and rested his cheek on the top of my head. "I don't think I ever could."

If only there was some way I could have known that merely 10 hours after that conversation, at three in the morning, Ethan would have a seizure and be taken to the hospital, where he would do just that.

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I hope you guys enjoyed seeing a written part so you can get a better idea of Peyton and E's relationship :)