Plié and Clout

Chapter 41: 380

"I love you." She mumbles, it rolls off her tongue easily, laying over me in some sort of phrase-induced intoxication. I sit up and trace her jaw with one finger, bringing her lips back to mine.

"Thank you," I wanted to say I'm sorry. Every ounce of me almost whispered 'I'm sorry'  to her. I'm sorry for everyting she's about to go through, whatever is going to happen after Saturday. 

I kiss her again. Slowly, softly. Nothing aggressive. She's just kissing me in the moonlight. I run my fingers backward through her hair to get it out of her face. Then I just hold her there, cupping the back of her head and letting the ease of tonight drift between my lips and into hers.

Her lips part from mine after a moment or two, but she keeps me close. Just our breathing against each other's skin.

"You shouldn't thank someone for something they want to do." the words fold over my lips, lay down delicately, like a cloud falling onto me. Like sleeping with one layer of sheets in the summer.

"I want to thank you," I whisper back. Just for her to hear. Just her. "Because you didn't have to fall in love with me," her forehead brushes against mine, her nose dips and she kisses by the side of my mouth. "You didn't have to, but you did." I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I never meant for you to fall in love with me, with fake me. 

"Because you're worth it, Stephan," she mumbles. I kiss her cheek, then below her ear. Her fingers aren't on my skin, they just brush me, like wind off the ocean.

"I love you too," I duck my head, not looking at her. I'm guilty but I mean all three words. 

I take a breath. "Before I met you, the prettiest thing I thought could ever exist was flying over a city at night. That feeling of looking out the window at the thousands of lights, millions of people, each experiencing something deeply individual and in their own, powerful. Individuality as a whole, the existence of so many things so vastly different, yet the same. Watching thousands and thousands of lives happening under your fingers. Being a satellite to life." 

I close my eyes and let her fingers continue to wander me. "Then I met you," I let it slip off my tongue without having much to follow it with. "Then I met you," I whisper it again. "And beautiful got redefined, beautiful became this thing, this small drawing force between two people, not yet experienced in this way. Our own universe. For us. To design, to build and rebuild and structure and restructure varying on how we feel in a moment, in each moment. And it's different, more beautiful than the individuality of others, because it's the individuality of two in one." 

I pause for a moment. "Watching two different people become the same, yet, somehow highlighted, accentuated by the other. How, parts of me became parts of you and parts of you became parts of me, and how," I can't put the rest of it together.

"How you took on parts of me, and I took on parts of you, and yet, though together, we both grew from the giving of each other to the other." August mumbles.

"And that's more beautiful than any city, any painting, any of anything in the cosmos, because it's redesigned through each group for that group. Beautiful to them, not meant for others," I shake my head, smiling. "God, I,"

"Is love a big enough word?"

"Yes," I kiss her again. "It's the biggest word there is."

August kisses my forehead, and then stands up, my hoodie and shorts. The hoodie is too big on her, so when she stands up, all I can see is legs, no shorts. She walks over to my window, and looks out on the street below. I ease myself out of bed and slip on a pair of sweatpants, then make my way to her.