"Hey!" God, I'd missed that voice so much.
"Your meal awaits you," I waved my arms trying to act formal, like a butler at a fancy restaurant. This caused the smile to widen and the hope I was still holding onto for us, grew.
She started walking over to me and I swear, I had to fight the urge – so damn hard- not to run up, sweep her up and just kiss her forever. I wanted her in my arms. Wanted her in my life in a completely different way now.
She sat down on the blanket, opened the basket and looked inside. Her eyes flicked up to me and twinkled with a smile. "Good choice."
She grabbed the most sugar laden, chocolate drenched, dripping with sprinkles and caramel sauce donut and started shoveling it into her mouth.
"Where've you been," I asked, watching intrigued as she finished it in a few bites and moved onto another one.
"At the lake house. My dad took us there for a week."
"I was worried. I couldn't get hold of you." I sat down next to her, not sure what the parameters were, how close I could get. Could I reach out and touch her shoulder?
Fuck parameters!
"I fucking missed you." I didn't hold back and wrapped an arm around her, pulled her closer and put my head on her shoulder. She dropped the donut and reciprocated, she wrapped her arm around me too.
Two arms. We both grabbed each other and held on for dear life. I could feel her breathe on my neck and I wanted her. My weight was more that hers, and like a see-saw tipping to one side, she fell back and I landed on top of her. This was the first time we'd ever been like this.
Maria lay on her back and my body pressed into hers. Like this, her face was just centimeters away from mine. I took the opportunity to look at her. In this light her eyes were almost a deep green. Her nose was sprinkled with freckles. I looked from her eyes, to her nose and then to her lips. She bit her lip just a tiny bit and I had never wanted to kiss anyone more in my entire life.
And so I did.
Her lips tasted salty and sweet at the same time. I rubbed my lips against hers softly. I wanted to take my time. I wanted to remember this moment forever. I didn't want it to be a rushed kiss in the dark. I wanted to treat this like the first time we'd ever kissed. She ran her hand through my hair and it came to rest on the back on my neck. My skin came alive with Goosebumps. Not just on my neck, but everywhere.
I lifted by hand and let my fingertips gently trace her cheek. She shivered and her mouth opened a little wider. I kissed her all along her bottom lip until if felt like we could both no longer take it.
I held her face and she held onto the back of my neck and the kiss deepened and intensified. I poured all my feeling for her into it. I wanted to convey my feelings to her in a way that she would never doubt and question them ever again.
"I love you," I managed to whisper pulling back for a tiny seconds.
"I've always loved you." She replied in an equally soft whisper.
The kiss stopped and we just held onto each other for the longest time. My face against into hers. I closed my eyes, taking in all the detail of this moment, until I felt moisture on my face. I pulled away and looked at her. She was crying softly. Her eyes misty and the tears running down her cheeks.
My heart stopped. My stomach hurt as the worse feeling imaginable slammed into me. I sat up abruptly.
"Maria, what's wrong? What's going on?"
Maria
I lay there looking up at the small faint stars popping out of the darkening sky, feeling the weight of Mikes head on my chest. This moment was so perfect. It couldn't be more perfect if I had planned it myself. It was as if, in this moment, a forever-dream had just come true.
A dream that I had been having over and over again for as long as I can remember How often do dreams come true? And in such a perfect way.....?
But now, that all my dreamy thoughts had manifested into reality and this was actually happening, everything about it felt wrong. It mainly felt wrong because I knew that it was going to end. The timing was now just so officially off for this. For us. In the last seven days so much had happened that meant that Mike and I would never be the same again. Possibly ever. If this moment had happened a few weeks ago, things would be very different. But they weren't. Why couldn't he have opened his eyes just a few seconds earlier?
I was going away. And this moment here, the perfect, better than in my wildest-dreams moment was not going to last.
"Maria, what's wrong? What's going on?"
I was so trapped in these thoughts that I had almost forgotten that he was there and his voice took me by surprise. Like the tingly feeling you get as dental anesthetic wears off, reality came creeping in again and I realized that I had been crying. Mike was looking at me intently, his face just centimeters from mine and I wanted to kiss him again. Just forget the moments after this and focus on the now. What was here and in front of me in this moment.
"We shouldn't have done that." I whispered the first thing that popped to mind.
"What?" He flew up off his elbow
