"It's nothing, really. Just… close your eyes. Hold out your hands."
She complies, trust written in every line of her body. My heart stumbles at the sight—her vulnerability is a gift I'm not sure I deserve. I place the CD in her waiting hands.
"Nora's Mixtape #17," she reads, her smile blooming like sunrise. "I can't believe you remembered."
Her fingers trace the handwritten track list. Since we were six, this has been our tradition—me capturing our summer in songs, curating melodies that preserved our moments together. More often than not, the music said what I couldn't.
“Nora, I remember everything about us."
She puts the CD in and hits play. Aerosmith's"Angel"fills the car with guitar riffs slow as heartbeats. While Steven Tyler's raw voice pours emotion into the space between us, each note draws us closer, binding us together in ways that feel inevitable. Her soft sigh catches in my chest.
"This," she smiles.
"Is your favorite song?"
Her smile softens, and something cracks open inside me. Every buried feeling surfaces at once, truth hitting like a thunderbolt: I'm in love with this girl.
Wholeheartedly.
We keep driving and of all the moments I've had where I've allowed myself to just be, this has to be one of my favorite moments.
All because of her.
"Do you ever think about the future, Nate?" she asks out of nowhere.
The honest answer is no. I stopped dreaming past tomorrow long ago, learning to exist in single moments, surviving one breath at a time. Hope was more dangerous than any drug—it could kill in countless ways.
"I think learning how to just be in the single fleeting second that exists is more important than stressing about a future that doesn't exist yet."
She looks up through her lashes, beautiful enough to stop time. "You're right. There's no going backwards, but maybe it's not so bad to dwell on the past, as long as it brings you closer to the truth. So you can move forward." She turns to look at me.
"I don't know how to do that. I've made a lot of mistakes."
"Well, tomorrow is a new day without any mistakes in it yet."
By the time"Dare You to Move"fades out, we've circled town twice, ending up back at the lake house. The silence between us crackles with electricity, every breath charged with unspoken words. Under the porch light, she's ethereal—her cheeks flushed rose-pink, eyes dark with something that makes my pulse sprint. She bites her lower lip, gaze dancing between me and the door like she's wrestling with the same magnetic pull I am.
I can't let her just walk away. Not when everything in me is screaming to hold on.
My fingers circle her wrist, tugging her back before she can reach for the door handle. She spins into me, soft curves colliding with hard muscle, and the gasp that escapes her lips shoots straight through my body. My free hand finds the small of her back, pressing her closer until I feel her heartbeat thundering against my chest—or maybe that's mine. Maybe they're the same now.
"Nate…" My name on her lips is half-whisper, half-plea.
I tilt her chin up, and time suspends. The porch light catches the gold flecks in her eyes, turning them into their own constellation. Years of wanting, of denying, of running—it all comes down to this moment. Her fingers curl into my shirt, anchoring herself, tethering me.
The first brush of my lips against hers is feather-light, a question. Her answer comes in the way she rises on her tiptoes, pressing closer, demanding more. The kiss deepens, and it's like touching a live wire—electric, dangerous, absolutely necessary. She tastes like promises I want to keep, like every fucking dream I never let myself have. My fingers thread through her hair, tilting her head to deepen the kiss, and the soft sound she makes nearly breaks me.
When we finally part, her eyes flutter open slowly, like she's waking from a dream she doesn't want to end. She's looking at me like I've rearranged her universe, and fuck if she hasn't done the same to mine.
"Happy birthday, Leni," I whisper, voice rough with everything I'm not saying. Everything I want to say.
"Goodnight, Nate." Her words ghost across my lips, one last temptation.
I watch her disappear inside, my body still humming with her touch, my lips still burning with her taste. My heart pounds with absolute certainty—it's her.
It's always been her. It will always be her.
The moment feels perfect.
