Atlas

Seventeen

By the next morning, both Adrian and Luna had left to go back to Brighton – Adrian had work the following day – which left Atlas who's head was full of the assignment work that was due the next Thursday, given to him by a professor he barely liked.

I don't think I would ever forget that night. Funny, because everything was perfectly normal. No rainclouds, no looming darkness... just perfectly normal.

I had spent the day in Atlas's apartment, finishing up some theoretical lab work. I was almost done and was proud to say it took me only two cups of coffee.

With the mug clasped in my hands, I turned to Atlas, who was leaning by the windowsill and scribbling in his notebook. He looked like he had jumped out straight from an old Greek painting. All harsh contour lines, lean muscle... even his skin against the shadow looked flawless.

"Staring, are we?" he joked. But there was so smile on his face, even his eyebrows were drawn furiously together.

I got up and walked towards him. The oversized sweater I was wearing slipped off my shoulder. I kissed his mouth. "You're amazing." I whispered. 

"And you taste like coffee." He fixed the sleeve for me, pulling it back over. He traced my collarbone with his finger. "We can't. Not right now."

"I know." I said. "But I also think you shouldn't be as tensed as you are."

"I don't think you get it, he doesn't like me." He said, referring to his professor. He took his glasses off and put them on the table. "And I'm having a hard time with his stupid assignment."

He looked outside. It had begun to drizzle just the slightest bit, and his eyes got darker. I noticed that about him – how his mood seemed to shift as the night got heavier. Almost like he ached for something.

He took a deep breath and pulled my body closer towards him, until his chin was resting on the top of my head.

One word in my mouth crystalized – happy. I was happy when I was with him. But it was a different sort of happiness. It wasn't sunshine, wasn't the feeling you got as a child drawing with chalk on the sidewalk as the hot summer sun looked down upon you – it was a more muted feeling. Like content, except it was better. 

Like hearing his heartbeat kept my own alive.

I wasn't going to be some angsty teenager and say that I had found the man of my dreams and I was falling in love. No. That was bullcrap that only happened in bad tv shows.

I wasn't sure what I would have told you if you asked me what I felt for him at that moment. I was in love with Atlas's soul – I'll give you that. It was the fire that tasted like oak and ash, the sky that was made of an inky river, the city that was muted in dusk.

He wasn't the rainbow that appeared after a storm. He was the angel that looked upon it, with torn wings and eyes made of gold that cried blood.

It wasn't the kisses. It was how he cradled me at night. It wasn't when he called me beautiful, but when he would touch my cheek and smile ever so softly to himself. 

"What are you thinking of?" he asked me quietly.

I leaned deeper into him, resting my cheek on his chest. Biting my lip, I decided there was no better place to be. Like if I were to lose him, that would be the greatest tragedy that own soul would ever endure.

"Grace?" he said my name softly, almost poetically. I could feel my heartbeat pacing. "What's wrong?"

I looked up at him. "You're really something, Atlas." I murmured.

And somewhere between staring at my eyes and feeling my heart thumping out of my chest, I think he knew.

He kissed my forehead. "You're going to change your mind eventually." He sighed.