"It's raining, again." Patrick declares, sounding smug.
"What? No way." I reject his information and rush to the window myself.
Sure enough, our garden is... pretty much flooded.
I sigh, place my hand on my forehead and say "Damn this country."
Patrick laughs joyously, triumphantly and says "Welp, that's five wins in a row for me. So, I guess you're doing the dishes tonight."
In retrospect, it probably wasn't a good idea to bet on whether or not it would rain in the UK.
The British always complain about rain but you never truly believe it until you're here.
We both sink into the sofa with a happy sigh.
"It's been a whole year, tomorrow." Patrick says out of the blue, causing me to scramble my brain for a missed date. His voice is calm and distant, so I give up and ask him.
"Since what? We haven't been living here that long, you know."
He exhales with a small smile on his face, looking at me with a raised eyebrow "Since we met."
I give him a cautious look, like he's lost his mind and tell him "Patrick... I went to your house for dinner every week for, like, nine years."
"Don't you feel like all of that was a different time, though? It's like... I don't know. Last year, that night... it was kinda like we started over." He says it wistfully, as if he's on a different plane entirely.
I think about it. I think about all the trauma we went through all because of each other. All the fights, the crying, the screaming.
The reckless decisions and hasty kisses.
Soaring jealousy, burning desire.
All because of each other.
Because of love.
It's stupid, and if you asked one hundred people, almost all of them will tell you that they've had those experiences too. It's in human nature, I suppose.
It's nothing unique. So why does it feel like the strangest, most distinctive thing in the world?
Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't.
Maybe that's what happens with unnatural disasters like us. Hurricanes and tornadoes.
Viruses and gods and we laugh in the face of anything anyone throws at us now because we've said it before, 'we're together so how can things go wrong?', however this is the first time we actually mean it.
This is the first time without any doubt. Without anything but each other.
Our tragedy is finally over. And neither of us are dead or injured. Not really.
Maybe I could let the curtains close for real this time.
We've had the intermission of our grand play, and now all that's left is the ending.
I could let the curtains close. But I've come to realise that this isn't the end; this is only the beginning.
And that is why when I look up to the sky I find solace in it because there's the world, and there's us.
Our play may be ending, but we're only just starting. And that is why when I kiss him I see the universe, and I feel new life. I haven't been reborn. It's as he says. We've started over, been recreated... together.
It's time to stop the playing, stop the acting, stop the pretending, and live.
*Thank you, truly.*