Asunder

Chapter 43 - All That Remains

Sky and I lie there on his floor for a long time before I realize it's midnight. I whisper to him about having to be back in bed for my mom, and he smiles at my happy story, hugging me to him a last time before letting me go. And it's so painful for both of us in the moment that I want to break my promise to mom. I want to stay. But I can't, so I slip out the door with him smiling at me, gazing at me with eyes I now see all of. With a strength he didn't have before.

I jump into bed and feign sleep, and a few minutes later, as rain begins to pour heavily from the sky outside, my mom peeks her head in. The door shuts. After a few seconds, I'm about to jump back up when I feel her lips on my temple, and hear her whisper that she loves me.

It makes more tears fall from my eyes. And once I'm sure she's back in bed, I spring toward my balcony.

When I come out, he's already on his porch, soaked by the rain battering down on him.

I beam at him. And I swing a leg over the railings, straddling them like on that first summer day. "Isn't it your bedtime, Blue?"
He smirks, feline. "I'm not the one who had a curfew, Cinderella," he winks. And I laugh, mirth tingling in every cell of my body.
He smiles at me, smiles at me like I'm glowing, like I'm shining.

And I am. I do. For him. Because of him.

His smile softens, and the world quiets. The rain fades into inaudible noise. His voice becomes a beautiful murmur: "Come down."
My laughter ceases, easing into a giggle. "I can't."
He pleads softly. Irresistibly, with his eyes, with his heart: "Come down..."
"Sky, I can't," I giggle, covering my mouth, "the rain." And there's no real reason why I can't. But I play the game. Because it's always been this way with us. And no matter what I know about him, we will always stay the same.
He pouts, and my heart twirls, but I shake my head with an apologetic grin: "I really can't, Sky."

His pout falls. And he shrugs:

"I guess I'll climb up, then."

He jumps over the railings of his porch, making his way to my house with a sigh. And my brain doesn't have the time to process his words before he reaches my wall, and successfully begins to scale the bricks—
"No!" I shout, heading inside, bolting down the stairs to escape him.

I suppress my laughter as I burst through the dark, empty halls of my haunted house, full with light. And as I shut the door behind me, leaving an immeasurable weight inside, the rain touches me, cleanses me from the old. Forgives me.

I reach the space between our houses, chest alight with heaving breath and laughter. I'm already completely drenched, and I laugh up at the clouds above, alive. I look up at my balcony for Sky. But he isn't there, he isn't anywhere—

"Boo," his voice whispers at my ear, and I yelp.

And though confusion takes me, the smirk on his stupid face tells me I've been tricked:
"I got you to come down, Greene," he murmurs, wagging his brows up and down.

I hit his shoulder, "You asshole!"

He tips his head back to laugh at the moon, at the rain furiously falling down, and time does a weird thing.

It slows for me. It gets on my side. It gifts me this sight of him for a few seconds longer, for an eternity in my heart.

He looks down at me, stars in his eyes. And I smile, too. Just as brightly. Joy bubbling in every inch of me. So much joy that it feels natural for him to bring himself closer to me, until we're breathing the same air.

Then he's smiling at me softly, so tenderly. Like I'm something unimaginably precious. That's when my heart goes galloping, and I'm afraid he might feel the force of it against his own chest.

But all fear disappears when he raises a hand to caress my neck. I can't help but lean into his touch.

I can't tear my eyes away for the world. I can't look away from him, from the sparkling dark of his iris. Of what only I know lies beneath. And I wouldn't for the world, either.

And time stops entirely, when he kisses me.

No words exist. No expressions. No comparison under the sun, no metaphor. Only the feeling of opening a door, and finding myself home.

Because behind that door, in his lips, slow and full against mine, sunshine bursts though. Obliterates the dark, as great as a bursting star.

He holds me, home against his chest, and I smile with him. And everything explodes in light, bursts into place. We kiss, like waves crashing onto a soft shore. His lips and mine, him and I, between our disappearing houses, under a disappearing moon. Because with our kiss, all that remains is the sky, the ground, the rain. The gentle explosions of us, slowly cresting on our mouths, tenderly pushing me into the sun.

I can't stop kissing him, I can't rip my arms away from where they drape so perfectly on his shoulders, the rain battering down on them, on us. Dropping onto my closed eyelids, onto his lips. I can't stop loving him. And I can't. Stop. Kissing him.

Until even the rain fades away. Until we are all that remains.

When everything else fades away and we're still entwined, mended souls and all, we are all that remains.