everlasting.

.more than the stars.

Mateo
1:43

This is a world where everything that mattered so much during our lives has basically become irrelevant. There's no need for someone to keep up a reputation in order to look cool. No use for unnecessary hatred towards people that aren't like you. Time isn't even relevant here; all we know are night and day. But I feel uneasy not knowing how long we've been here or there, so I've come up with my own mind of time. A time that started the moment that my life began.

The amount of time that I've been here with Rufus.

Yes, it's hard to keep track of the minutes and the hours and the seconds, but I manage. Whenever there's a quiet moment between us I start to count from approximately where I left off the last time. It's a good way to keep myself distracted from all of the persistent worries that want to invade my brain. However, right now I'm finding it awfully hard to concentrate on counting. I've never been the best at staying calm and keeping my thoughts ultra focused on one thing but Rufus... he makes it so hard for me to focus on anything.

It was just supposed to be a picnic. Money is irrelevant and since everyone here is supposed to be 'good' all the stores practically just hand things out to whoever asks. So, I guess to celebrate us being reunited in the afterlife, Rufus wanted to do something special. A date. My very first date. I couldn't be more happy to be going on it with someone so absolutely amazing, but at the same time it made me nervous. Rufus kept saying that it would be just like us hanging out the way we did before without the imminent threat of death looming over our heads. Of course that sounded nice; it's just a matter of me being hopelessly inexperienced. Even so I wanted to try for him because he deserves that and anything else I could possibly have to offer.

Things started out okay. We grabbed the foods that we liked or had never tried and wanted to eat despite the fact that hunger is a thing of the past. Rufus picked out a cute checkered blanket because it's 'what they use in all the movies.' He even convinced me to let him get a basket even though I thought it was being too cheesy. He said I made him like being cheesy.

At first things felt kind of awkward. What were you supposed to talk about with the guy that watched you die? I still wanted to apologize over and over again, but being wrapped up in his arms made it hard to be sorry about anything. It was dark out, which wasn't unexpected seeing as how we both died at nearly midnight. The idea of having a picnic under the stars sounded so silly at first but as soon as I let myself fall into the moment I realized that I didn't want to be anywhere else. Eating wasn't our top priority despite how much we had gotten so, for a while, the food stayed in the basket while we laid on our backs and watched the night sky come to life. Well, Rufus was on his back. My head was on his chest and my body had pretty much latched itself on to his side like I was scared of losing him all over again. Things were incredibly quiet aside from the usual symphony that strikes up after the sun goes down— crickets invisible to the eye chirping their own songs, the distant noises of people staying up far too late, gentle gusts of wind that made me glad Rufus was so warm.

Although we weren't talking, everything felt so nice.

Rufus

I can't believe how fucking lucky I am. If someone were to tell the me from three years ago that one day I would be able to die happy I would've flipped them off and walked the other way. Mateo was too good to be true. For a guy that I met a day ago he sure as hell was meeting all of my standards without even trying. Aimee used to tease me whenever I wanted to do sappy shit like this with her, but Mateo just took it. He was embarrassed, yeah, but he did it. And thinking about that makes me so damn happy.

Laying here and staring up at the stars in a way that I haven't done in a long time with a cute boy is nice, but it wasn't exactly my goal here. So far Mateo was one of the greatest human beings I've ever met which, honestly, was kind of off putting. I knew that I was no saint and it felt kinda weird to be with someone so perfect. That would no doubt start giving me confidence issues if I didn't find out more about him soon to remind myself that he was a real person and not an underrated angel.