I hate how the sight of him reduces my entire being to rubble.
Everything around us peels away, the rain, the sound of the wind, until it’s just us.
“I broke the first rule.”
“You - what?”
“No catching feelings, remember?” he mumbles.
My breath catches at the base of my throat. I forget how to breathe.
“You - you like me?” My voice sounds so pathetically hopeful, glazed with that childish, naivety. “Whe - H -How?”
“I don’t know the second, the hour, the minute that it happened. I’m not sure if it was when you first held my hand on our first fake date, or when you had cinnamon sugar all over your lips. I don’t know if it was when I first saw you with your hair braided, or when you first gushed about your favourite book, or movie, or song. I just - the sum of every single second of all these moments, made me realise this wasn’t just pretend anymore. It couldn’t possibly be.”
His hand reaches up, and they trace my ear, my jawline, before his palm settles against my cheek, like they belong there.
“I was already so far gone for you, before I’d even known I’d started.”
His words set off a blazing fire within me and I’m confident, I’m certain that of all the boys I’ve ever loved, I’d let him ruin my life the most. I lean into his touch, my entire being melted.
What do I even say? How could my own words possibly relay to him that my feelings surpass the sum of all the seconds we’d spent together since we were born?
“What about Christine?” I whisper, because I need to hear it from him. I need to know that this isn’t just a momentary thing. That this is solid.
“Jaslene.” He shakes his head, and cups my other cheek, so my face is encased in his grasp.
“You told me that loving someone is to become the best version of yourself with them. To feel your heart race beyond anything anatomically possible. I thought that’s what I felt with Christine, untilyoucame and turned everything upside down.”
My breath hitches, and he smiles.
“Your love for love is infectious, Garcia, because look what it’s done to me. I’ve becomehopeless.”
Marlon’s eyes bear into mine, wide with innocent hope. A hope that pulses and expands in my own chest.
“I choose you. I’ve always been all about you,” he murmurs. “You’re my person, Jas.”
I’m unsure if lightning strikes in the distance, or if that’s just me, if that’s just my brain, my heart, my entire being growing insane.
I hold his gaze, and I know that this is real.
This is real, and better than anything that I could’ve ever dreamed of. Anything that I could’ve ever written, or read, or watched.
A story that belongs to us.
“You’re my person too, Marlon.”
Delicately, yet naturally, our lips fall together. Slowly, as if we are unsure. It is not until I hear the sharp intake of his breath, and my name whispered gently against my mouth that I know this is right. My kiss in the rain was always written for him.
My arms wrap around his neck, pulling him closer, just as his hands travel down my ribs, settling at my waist, drawing me in. Our lips are moulded only for each other and while we areclumsy, we are fitting. I am furious at myself for denying this for so long.
We pull apart after what feels like minutes, or hours, or even years. Our eyes meet and suddenly we fall into giggles, like two foolish teenagers in love. There’s a heaviness in Marlon’s gaze that makes my stomach turn in of itself.
“So you really ran all this way in the rain, just for me, huh?” I tease, tracing his jaw with my fingers.
“Well,duh. It only seemed fitting that it be raining when I tell you.”
He’s grinning, and I never want to stop kissing his dimples forever.
