Through The Pages & The Ink

Suddenly, he stood, climbing onto the curved head of the gondola. The boat rocked haphazardly as he spread his arms in grandeur, gesturing to the open dark waters laid out before us. The stars overhead were strewn across the midnight velvet-carpet sky, reflected upon the calm waters and dappling the soft waves so that they sparkled with their light like jewels littered at our feet for miles and miles until they disappeared into the horizon.

He held is arm out in invitation. "Come on, get up here with me. You'll never see what beauty life has to offer if you sit there the whole time cowering in a boat."

Taking his arm, I allowed him to pull me up with gentle strength. I wobbled precariously at the helm of the gondola in the darkness, gilded by the soft glow of the Venice streets on either side of us. "I'm going to fall, you crackhead-" I fretted nervously, shifting in his arms which held my waist firmly.

"I will never-never-let you fall," his whisper hovered in the cool night air. His breath ghosted the shell of my ear, sending shivers down the length of my spine, his voice alone sending the butterflies in the pit of my stomach into frenzied flight. But it was the depth and weight of his words that made my heart flutter.

"You see those stars in the sky? You're the sky, and they're all the things you've written and said that have shone light on and made me think about things I'd never imagined one could glean from the smallest things in life. And there, beneath the sky filled with stars is the ocean-that's me; those are my waves reflecting them. So, even if your stars fall, I'm here to catch them."