Black Diaries

17. How to fold up a Panther

Time rushed past like a herd of hungry zebras. As the days passed and turned into weeks, news reports of the infamous Cassy McKinney got scarcer and scarcer. I really started to believe that maybe, just maybe, I could build a new life for myself. That this wasn't just a temporary thing, a phantasm of happiness that could be destroyed at any moment, but real, tangible, everlasting.

"Cassy?"

"Hm?"

I looked up from my cup of coffee. Chuck and I were having breakfast at my place, after a night of going at it like slugs (who, by the way, are a lot more active in bed than rabbits). Chuck was looking at me with a faint smile on his lips. His eyes were intense, wandering over my face as if looking for something.

"I don't know what it is about you," he murmured, half to himself.

"What do you mean?"

"I... I've never met anyone like you before, Cassy. I've never been drawn to a woman the way I'm drawn to you."

Wow. That's not the kind of stuff a girl usually gets to hear at eight in the morning. And on an empty stomach, too! Did he want to make me swoon?

Chuck looked around at my space. The bed, ruffled and screaming "sex", the bean bags and potted plants scattered over the room, and Lucky, perched in the corner on top of the dilapidated Chrysler.

"This isn't exactly the usual idea of a romantic setting," Chuck told me, taking my hand between both of his, "but then, nothing about you is usual. You're the first girl without... the first girl I've ever—" He swallowed, breaking off. His grip on my hand tightened, and so did my throat.

"Chuck... What is the matter?"

"This is the matter." Leaning across the table, he kissed me softly on the lips. "I love you."

If his words before had been too much for an empty stomach, these definitely were. Dizziness came over me, and my heart rate picked up. Had I just really heard that?

"Chuck—Chuck, do you really mean that?"

"I do. I so do." He smiled at me again, that same shy, self-conscious smile as before, a smile that warmed my heart and made my toes curl. "I've been working up my courage to tell you, been trying to think of the perfect place, the perfect time. But then I realized... The perfect time for 'I love you' is right now. Always it's right now."

"Oh, Chuck!" My empty coffee cup clattered onto the table. In a second, I was up and around the obstacle. My arms went around Chuck in a chokehold tighter than anything he had ever taught me in class. "I love you too! I love you so much!"

And I did. I really did. Saying it out loud, finally, brought tears to my eyes. A new beginning. A mended heart. Miracles do happen.

"I only wish we could tell my parents," he sighed. "But they're going to be out of town for a few more weeks."

There you go! Miracles even happen in pairs!

❤☠❤☠❤☠❤☠❤☠❤

He loves me. He really loves me.

That was my new mantra. On the whole, I liked it much better than "I'm not in love" or "we're just friends." Neither of those gives you a wonderful, warm, bubbly-fizzy feeling of freaking fantabulous happiness. But "he loves me"? Yeah, trust me. That works.

I was so happy that I decided to tap the full potential of my scanty cooking skills and make him dinner. The cooking in itself wasn't that difficult: health fanatic that he was, Chuck was more than satisfied with a pot of boiled broccoli and avocados. The most difficult thing about a homemade dinner with Chuck was stomaching the stuff I had concocted.