One Autumn Day

Chapter Three

"Good morning Autumn."
"Good morning Nathan."
"Are you hungry? I made breakfast."
"Yes and thank you."
"How did you sleep?"
"Almost perfectly."
"What was wrong?"
"I wanted to sleep next to you."
"Well that can be arranged."
I walk over to him, give him a hug and kiss. Then I go sit down.
"So what's for breakfast?"
"Pancakes, bacon, and eggs."
"Yum. That sounds good."
He comes over and puts the plates on the table.
"So what do we have planned for today?"
"Umm. Nothing in particular."
"Well, can you play the Fur Elise for me?"
"If it makes you happy I will."
"It will definitely make me happy."
"Then I will play it for you."
"Yay!"
We finish breakfast quickly.
"Okay, are you ready?"
"Yes I am."
He sits down on the bench in front of the piano and begins to play. As he is playing, I look at him and it's like I see him in a whole new way. It's nice to see him doing something that he enjoys. I start to hum along and that's when he looks up at me and smiles, at that moment my heart melts. I walk over to the bench and hug him.
He finishes the chord he's on and then turns to me. He moves a piece of my hair and puts it behind my ear. Then he gently grabs my face and slowly leans in and kisses me.
When he pulls away he says, "Go get dressed I want to take you somewhere."
"Okay." I get up and go put on a new fall dress.
When I came back downstairs, he is standing by the front door in a really nice outfit.
"Wow, you look beautiful."
"Thank you. You look really nice."
"Thank you. Are you ready to go?"
"Yes I am."
I walk down the rest of the stairs and walk over to him. He helps me with my coat and gives me a kiss.
"We will be taking the car."
"Okay."
"Where I want to take you is a little ways away from here."
"Oh..."
We get in the car and he starts the engine. We back out of the driveway and start heading to the place.
"So, where are we going?"
"It's a surprise."
"Oh." We sit there in silence for a minute or two and then he turns on the radio.
"Oh my gosh. This is my favorite song."
"Same!" The radio was playing "I Won't Let Go" by Rascal Flatts.
I start humming along to the beat and then we both start singing along. I look over at him and smile. At the end of the song we both look at each other and then break into laughter.
"I missed you. I honestly did."
"I missed you too."
"Why did you run away?"
"I was scared."
"Scared of what?"
"I was scared of..."
"I'm listening."
"I was scared of what might of happened to me."
"Oh."
I look out the window to try and hide my face from him as a tear rolled down my cheek. He looked over at me and somehow he knew I was crying.
"I'm sorry, Autumn. I didn't mean to make you upset."
I look over at him and say, "It's okay. You didn't know."
"Well if it makes you feel any better, we're here."
I look around, "What is this place?"
"It's my second happy place."
"What is your first?"
"Anywhere that I'm with you."
I smile as he gets out of the car. He walks over to my side and opens the door.
"Thank you."
He takes my hand and leads me over to the railing, on the edge of the cliff, so I can get a better view of the waterfall.
I started to back up when he grabs me from behind.
"It's okay, I have you. I won't let you fall."
I smile and turn around to face him.
"So, what do you think?"
"It's beautiful. How did you find this place?"
"I just kind of came across it one day."
There was just a little bit of sunlight peeking through the trees and hitting me perfectly. He looks at me with his eyes twinkling.
"What?"
"It's just that, you look stunning in this lighting."
I smile at the compliment and I'm pretty sure I start to blush. He walks closer to me and wraps his arms around me as he is embracing me. This is what it feels like, to be in the arms of my one true love. Thank you God, for giving me a chance to correct my mistakes and to find mi otra mitad.
He slowly pulled his lips away from mine but his arms remain in the same spot.
"I love you."
I have never really understood that line, but when he says it I understand the true meaning. When he says it my heart starts to race, I get butterflies in my stomach, and my mind is all jumbled.
"I love you too."
He smiles and kisses me again. This time when he stops he also lets go. I stumble backwards, losing my balance. He catches me before I fall down.
"You should be more careful."
"I know. Thank you for not letting me fall."
"You would have hurt yourself if I let you fall and I would have never been able to live with myself knowing that I could have prevented you from hurting yourself."
"Wow, that's deep."
"Yeah, I know right. I'm the deepest person in the world."
I look at him and then we both start laughing really hard. The laughter eventually fades out.
"So, what do you want to do now?"
"I don't know"
"We can go back to our house and watch a movie."
"Okay."
He kisses me one more time and then we get in the car. As soon as he starts the car the radio starts to play "God Bless The Broken Road" by Rascal Flatts. We both look at each other, smile and sing along. After the song is over we looked at each other and laughed.
"So, what movie do you want to watch?" 
"I don't know. Just put your favorite movie in and we'll watch that."
"Okay."
The rest of the ride is silent besides singing along to some more songs and laughing.
When we arrive at the house we go inside and he puts in Toy Story, because why not.
"Your favorite movie is Toy Story?"
"No, it's just one of them. Plus it's a good movie."
"Point taken, it is a good movie."
He goes in the kitchen and makes some popcorn. Then he sits down on the couch and I snuggle up next to him. He puts his arm around me.
A little later in the movie, I realize that he is laying down while I am pressed against him. When I look up at him he smiles and kisses my forehead. The movie was good but I ended up falling asleep before it was over. Nathan stayed on the couch with me, because he didn't want to wake me up. I could feel his breathing slow down, so I knew that he also fell asleep. Everything that we did was aligned at the same pace. Our souls seemed to be intertwined with each other.
I woke up about thirty minutes later, to find him sound asleep. When I moved my head, he opened his eyes and scared me half to death.
Then he said, "Well, hello there."
"Hello. Did I wake you up?"
"No, not really."
"Oh."
I laid my chin on my arms, which were on his chest, and looked up at him.
He smiled and said, "You look so adorable right now."
I tried not to smile but I couldn't help it. "Now, you just make me want to kiss you."
"Well, I don't see anything standing in your way."
He smiled and gave me a gentle, yet small, kiss. I just layed there for awhile because it was comfortable.
Then I got up to put some comfy clothes on, because I was still in my dress.
"Where are you going?"
"Just to change my clothes."
"Oh. Well, do you want me to make us some lunch."
"Sure."
"Okay."
I go upstairs to our room and grab a new outfit. Once I have it on, I go back downstairs.
"So, what are you making?"
"I don't know. What do you want?"
"Do you have any blueberry bagels?"
"Yes I do."
"I will just have that."
"Okay."
I go sit down at the table and he brings over two blueberry bagels. One for him and one for me. And we eat our lunch. We had a little bit of small talk but we finished pretty quickly after that.
While I was washing the dishes he came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. Then he kissed me on the cheek and moved down to my neck. I liked it, but to be honest no one had ever done this to me so I wasn't really sure how to react. So, I basically let him do him, while I did me and finished washing the dishes.
After I finished the dishes I turned around to face him, but I had to look up into his eyes.
Then he said, "You are so short,..."
"Shut up."
"It's cute. Did I ever tell you how much of a turn on it is when you get mad."
I couldn't help but smile and laugh. He always knows just the right thing to say, in order to keep me from getting angry or just to make me smile.
"Just shut up and kiss me already."
He smiled and gave me a kiss that I will never forget. Honestly if he lets go of me after this kiss I am one going to lose my balance, and two probably fall down and hurt myself. That is the moment I realize that I have completely fallen for him. Everything he does, everything he says, everything he is. He is my first thought in the morning, my last thought before I fall asleep and he is almost every thought in between.
He slowly starts backing up, being careful not to let me go, so I slowly start walking forward. He took me up to our room and made me sit on the bed, then he let go.
"Where are you going?"
"Hold on. Sit there for a minute or two, I have to get something out of the closet."
"Okay."
A few minutes later he comes out with a nicely wrapped, box.
"What is that?"
"It's something I bought for you."
"Why is it so big and fancy?"
"Well it is a present."
He walked over to me and handed the present to me.
"Open it."
"Okay."
When I opened it, I found the dress that I saw the other day at the mall.
"Oh my, Nathan."
"Do you like it?"
"Yes, but when am I ever going to be able to wear this?"
"You can wear it tonight, because I'm taking you out for dinner."
"Oh."
I threw my arms around him and thanked him about a million times. At first he was alarmed by the shower of kisses and thank you's, but then he hugged me back.
"You're welcome."
"Wait, where are we going for dinner? Let me guess, it's a surprise."
"You got it spot on."
"You are just full of surprises, aren't you?"
"You'll just have to find that out for yourself."
"Oh, great."
We both start laughing and then say "I love you. That was really weird. How do we keep saying the same thing at the same time?"
We both pause afraid to speak.
"O... you go first... no, you can..."
I smile at him and say, "That was really weird."
"Yes it was."
"This is totally off topic, but could you do me a favor?"
"Yeah, what is it?"
"I was wondering if you could teach me how to play the piano?"
"Yes, I will teach you."
"Thank you so much."
"I would do anything and everything for you. You are my everything and I want you to know that."
I have literally nothing to say to that. He just nailed the top way to describe your feelings to someone. I look away to try and keep myself from saying how I actually feel.
He looks at me and says, "What's wrong?"
"..."
"I'm listening."
"It's just that I don't feel like I deserve you."
"Why would you say that?"
"Because you are so much better than me."
"No, I'm not."
"Yes, you are. You're kind, funny, caring, understanding, loving, generous, and you are perfect."
He just looked at me blankly for awhile, like he had nothing to say. I knew I would regret telling him that, because now he seems upset with me.
"I'm sorry Nathan."
"Just please don't talk that way about yourself."
I apologized again as a tear rolled down my cheek. He reached his hand and wiped the tears off of my face.
Then he pulled me closer to him and gave me a gentle hug. I buried my head in his shoulder.
He then said, "Promise me you won't be so hard on yourself from now on."
"Okay, I promise."
He hugged me tighter. I lifted my head and looked him in the eyes. He leaned down and kissed me.
"I love you. And we deserve each other. You are perfect just the way you are." I smiled and wrapped myself around him.
"Can you promise me one thing?"
"Yes, anything."
"Promise me, you will never let me go."
He smiled then said, "I promise."
He held me in his arms and made me forget all of my insecurities. What would I do without him in my life? He understands me perfectly. I don't want to keep things from him. I can't lie to him. I have no reason not to trust him.
"Okay are you ready to go to dinner?"
"Yeah, just can you come zip me up?"
"Yeah, sure." He walked over to me and zipped the back of my dress. He rubbed my shoulders, then kissed me on the neck.
After that we left and went to Firefly Grille.
When we got there I was amazed. It was so romantic. We sat down and ordered some drinks and food. I had something on my mind but I decided not to let it bother me. I can take action after dinner. He looked at me and smiled. I looked at him and my heart, which was once as hard as stone, just melted through the ground.
I love his smile, his voice, his laugh, his eyes, his facial expressions,... I love him.
The restaurant set the mood perfectly.
All of a sudden he looked up at me and smiled, like I have never seen him smile. He, then leaned in closer and kissed me.
Then I looked over at the people two tables away. The guy was on his knee in front of the girl. He held a small box in his hand and looked as if he was reciting Shakespeare. The girl looked at him and literally almost fainted as she said yes to the proposal.
Nathan looked over at me at that moment. I think he decided on his question that he was thinking about. He took a picture of me, probably because my eyes were twinkling with delight. After he took the picture, he looked down at his phone and smiled.
The food arrived and we ate. We had a lovely conversation but nothing big happened. We finished eating and then we left.
"So how did you like dinner?"
"It was lovely. Thank you so much." I had his jacket around my shoulders because it was kind of cold out.
"I'm glad you enjoyed it. And you're welcome."
We got in the car and he put the keys in the ignition. The radio came on and we were singing along. We were smiling and laughing. Life seemed perfect. There were no flaws in our relationship.
"You know I am so happy that I'm sharing this lifetime with you. I can not live without you, Autumn. You are mein stern (my star.) Because you're one in well however many stars there are, and because you are so special to me. I love you and I hope to God above that you know that."
"You are mi otra mitad (my other half.) Because without you I am incomplete. Without you I am half alive, yet half dead. Without you I am a puzzle with that one tiny piece missing, I am a book without a cover, I am a diamond without a ring, I am a microphone without a singer, I am an instrument without a musician. Without you I am a soul without a body and heart. If none of these explanations are good enough for you than I have one more. Without you I am nothing, I am pointless without you mi otra mitad. I love you so very much and I pray to the Lord above that you will always remember that."
I built a wall around myself. Not to keep love out, but to see who loved me enough to climb that wall. He not only climbed it, he also knocked it down and made sure there was no way for me to build another one.
I am going to do it. I have to do it. I have to tell him about Chassen. Nathan is the only one who can protect me. He is all I have left. There is no one else I can turn to. My parents are dead, my friends don't even exist, and my enemy is after me. He is my only hope.