Indiana

it's the earliest hours of the morning, the seasons crushing between unending summer and an autumn that could never really matter... summertime in florida means a fictional kind of heat pushed through water, always water, always moving. and here i am. here we are.

i'm nineteen years old, wearing a ballgown and a corset and the black leather boots that have always played a part in my worst decisions. the noise the rain makes when it hits the roof is painful. it hurts me in a way i can't really describe. it hurts me everywhere. the feeling of the rain when it hits my hands, when it falls into my cupped palms, it makes me think of love. the strangest thought comes to me, then. "who would ever want a girl whose hands are full of rain-water?"

the door opens. enter stage left, enter you with your whiskey and water, looking at me with the rain. you ask if i'm okay. i am, sort of.

this conversation is going to take a while. and it's a long time until i can finally say, can finally voice, "okay. cards on the table. how do you feel about me?"

and when we realize we're at a dead end, when we realize something would have to change ifwhenif...

you put your arms around me, and hold me against your chest, and i... i love this. i really do.

and then we sit, and i twine my fingers through yours and you brush your thumb up and down mine. and just sitting here next to you, legs against legs and my hand on your hand, this feels right. it feels close to right, anyway. you put your arm around me, and you call me "my dear". you tell me a hundred things that feel like confessions, things that push you farther and farther into my heart.

and - the height of this - you put your arms around me a second-to-last time, the last while we have this stolen time between us alone, and you press the lightest, chastest kiss against my lips.

before i leave? you hold me again, in front of everyone, and in the tightest space with the most telling of companions... you kiss my hair. it feels like a felony.

(i love you.)