Her

48

PHOENIX

It takes 2 hours and 17 minutes to make a chocolate cake. It takes 27 minutes to decorate a chocolate cake, so that its frosting looks like a superhero sign. And it takes 30 minutes to go to the flower shop which Aza and I went to, buy the most beautiful flowers, convince myself that giving Aza a superhero cake and flowers is a good idea, and then driving over to her trailer.

I unlock the door, using the key Cass gave me. I place the flowers on a table, in a vase, open the fridge, put the cake inside. I look at the outside of the fridge, where there are still the magnetic letters spelling 'I HATE U AZA'.

I change the second word.

_____

phoenix océane leflore

come over

aza superhero masterchef ainsworth

now??

now!!

_____

PHOENIX

"I know what I did was kind of overromantic and kind of weird, and I know what I did before was even worse, but -"

Aza kisses me, hard. After a few seconds, she slows down, but then I kiss her harder, so she kisses me harder. She pulls me into the trailer and pushes me onto the bed.

We make love.

"That was...," I say.

"I know."

"You're so..."

"I know."

We laugh.

"I'm sorry," I say.

"I know."

"And..." I shift a little, look at her. She looks like a work of art. I wish I could be an artist too, like her, so I could photograph her or paint her, and capture her beauty. She's both the artist and art. "I love you, Aza," I say, quietly, but honestly.

She smiles at me. "I love you, Phoenix," she says.

"I know."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

She kisses me.

"Do you want cake?" she says. "I happen to have this really beautiful, really delicious cake inside my fridge."

"It's almost 11pm."

"So yes?"

"Yes."

Later, we're in bed, cuddled up. Aza says, "Tell me a story." So I do.

Once upon a time, there was a girl. When the girl was young, she believed that her parents were in love; in her eyes, they were the perfect couple. But then she grew up. She realised that her parents weren't in love; in her eyes, there couldn't have been two people less right for each other.

Her parents made her believe that there's isn't such a thing as love. It seemed impossible to her that romantic love existed. Love and romance was something unreal, something which didn't exist in the real world, in her world. For her, it was something made-up. She saw it in movies, read about it in books, heard about it in songs, even wrote about it herself. But she never believed in it, let alone experienced it.

Until she met her.

At first, she didn't understand what it was the other girl made her feel. After all, she didn't think love was something which existed. But as time passed, she found herself falling harder and harder. It scared her; it felt like falling from the sky, nothing down below to save her. But then, more time passed, and she realised that there was something there to save her. Or someone. She realised she wasn't the only person falling. The other girl was falling too. They were falling together, into each other. And then, they learned to fly. They were high, so high that they were in a different universe. Their universe.

And for the first time, the girl believed in love. Because she was in love. In love with a girl. A girl who saved her. Her superhero.