Sighing as I stared up at the cloudy weather this summer afternoon, I glance at Damon beside me, who also thankfully thought laying on our house's rooftop to hang around was a fun idea. The cycle of him throwing a baseball up in the air above him and catching it when it got back down into his hands repeated itself close to a hundred times.
I face the clouds again.
"No one told me graduation would be one big depressing roller coaster that's fun at first but makes you feel sick after you get off", I state absentmindedly.
He catches the ball, looks at me, then goes back to throwing it.
"Because that way no one would look forward to it", he casually says, "And it's supposed to be some sort of a 'huge' part of our young lives, so telling the reality of the aftermath to it would ruin the whole surprise."
"But still."
"But still?"
I sit up to lean back onto my elbows, "But still. It's only a few weeks left until a new life starts for the both of us and in a completely different city, too. That's not quite the 'woohoo let's have fun being adults and find out what the hell taxes are' situation like it's shown in movies."
Catching the baseball for a final time, he looks at me in thought before putting it away to the side, "New city, new you."
"Don't even dare."
Grinning, he extends his open arms out to me, "Come 'ere."
I happily oblige and lay down with him, resting my arm on his chest as I comfortably snuggled up against him when he loosely wrapped his arms around me back. His familiar scent being a daily reminder to me of how safe I was with him. We stayed like that for another few minutes before he sighed.
"But in all seriousness, it'll be a hell of a depressing part of my life, too."
"Why's that?", I curiously ask.
"Well", he looks down at me, "Maybe because my girlfriend's gonna be living in not just a different city, but a different fucking country for University, how about that?"
I roll my eyes, "Come on, it's just Canada. Right next to the United States. Still North America. Nothing to stress about."
"But still...", he mimics my words to have me chuckle.
"You don't think that maybe instead of talking about sadness and darkness, we should talk about how oh-so-exciting it is to go to Uni?", I suggest.
He shrugs, "I guess the only thing I hope for is that New York won't be like the stereotypes people constantly joke about."
"You'll be fine. You have the magical skill of easily adapting to new places anyway like you did here", I hold onto him tighter as he twirls his fingertips through the loose curls of my hair, "As for myself, I hope Toronto will be an overall fun experience. Don't want to get my hopes too high up or anything. It can ruin the expectation."
He kisses the top of my head, "You'll be fine."
I didn't know if he could tell how sneakily I was avoiding the topic of us staying in contact as a supposed long distance couple later on, but I guess that was just something even I wasn't ready to fully discuss, especially knowing that it could be either the worst or best thing to bring up basically ever.
"You two alright there?", a different voice interrupts the silence.
We didn't even have to look down from the roof to recognise Damon's dad calling out to us, possibly checking up to see if we a) were too busy doing anything past making out under the sky, or b) fell off and died.
Or both.
"We're fineee", we reply, too lazy to sit up from our current cuddled up position.
"Well, if it gets cold up there, you can always come down for some tea", Michael adds.
Damon laughs, "Dad, it's my job to keep Jo warm if she gets cold. I'm like a human-sized heater. Not only hot from the inside, but also hot from the outside. Two in one deal."
"No, you're there to woo her with your smooth jokes. That's how we Dawsons do it", Michael states back and I can't hide the giggle from Damon's glare, "Jo, is he a smooth one with you?"
I shrug, "He's alright-ish but could do better on the pickup lines, that's for damn sure."
"I knew it", Michael clicks his fingers.
"You two suck", Damon scoffs.
"You love it~", me and Michael sing for him but only end up laughing afterwards.
|
Three weeks later
"Blue or red?", Damon asks, holding up two of his similar in style shirts.
"Mmm both", I wave them off.
"Why both?"
"You never know when you'll have time to go to the laundry room at your campus."
He nods, "Good thinking, Daniels", throwing both shirts on top of the already forming pile of clothes in his suitcase.
Giving him a weak smile, I look away from him searching through more things across his floor to fiddle with the pillow I held onto as I laid on his bed.
"Ok, should I take this black shirt or- oh, no" he stops himself and I look up at him again.
"What?"
"You're making that face again."
"I don't have any 'faces' to make."
"Yes, you do. I've seen them. This is your 'I don't want you to pack up your things so soon and be reminded of you leaving, but I know that you have to so I won't say anything and will sit back with puffy cheeks like the cute girl that I am' face."
I turn away to roll onto my back, "That's not true."
When he appears above me, his face in an upside down view, "Is it really?"
"No."
"I know", he leans down to kiss my forehead before sitting down beside me. I sit up on the edge of the bed as well and am cheerfully welcomed into his tight embrace.
Holding onto him for dear life, I practically smash my cheeks against his warm chest, "I'm surprised I'm not crying now."
"Is what I was gonna say about you just now", he adds.
I smile, "I guess it's purely for the reason that I can already feel a future crying breakdown hit me only after about a day passes without you being around me. So get ready for the sobbing mess of skype call from me, begging you to come back to me after tomorrow."
He suddenly freezes in my arms, "Jo..."
"No, I know, I know", I shake my head at what he was about to say and lift my head up to meet his eyes, reaching out with my hands to cup his worried but so perfect face, "It's just another part of this thing we humans called life. And for you, that means having to be the first of the two of us to pack up and head off to university, because that's just how signing up for classes works in some places. It's done earlier. I get it."
He nods, moving his hands from my arms to my waist, "It's good we both do. But I'm actually really enjoying how you've been literally clinging onto me like a monkey the whole day today."
Instantly looking down in a shy blush, I cling onto him even more and mumble, "I don't care. I'm not letting you go."
He pulls me just a tad bit closer to him and lightly presses his lips against mine. I practically melt into the kiss with how gentle, soft he's been with me these few days. Maybe it was the knowledge of him having to leave for god knows how much time until we get to visit each other in our cities, or not.
Maybe he was just like that.
I couldn't tell.
I couldn't care.
I love him.
"I love you", he says in between kisses, ultimately speaking my mind.
"I love you", I bring my hands to his shoulders.
Our lips kissing in a dance, I feel my body pull itself towards him as his hands skim the edge of my sweatshirt from underneath. He carefully moves me over to lay down on the bed with him still trailing kisses up from my neck and back to my lips.
It didn't take much time at all before I didn't even realise my hands that tugged at the bottom of his shirt to take it off him. He smiled into the kiss at my eagerness, but didn't comment, simply pulled it up over his head to throw it off to the side. Which messed up his hair in the process but it looked even better to me in the I-don't-fucking-care mess it was in now.
He slid the bottom of my own shirt higher for me to sit up and pull it off then went back to kissing me more eagerly.
"We still have...", he says, glancing at the clock on the wall for a second before moving his mouth to my neck, "About 10 hours before my early morning flight to do whatever the hell we want."
"10 hours and 20 minutes to be exact", I correct, threading my fingers through his hair when he laughs in reply and lifts his head up to look down at me. A cheerful smile falling upon his face that quickly turned into a lustful gaze.
"Kiss me", I whisper.
And he does.
With one of his hands angling my face to meet his, I slightly shiver from the chills of his free hand touching my body from my neck to the waistband of my tights. I smile in my mind at the memory of him once telling me exactly how 'wonderfully beautiful yoga pants make my ass look', even if it was something I typically wore at home for comfort.
Just before slowly sliding them off my legs, he says against my lips, "I love", now placing both his hands around my bare waist as I laid below him, "Everything, every little part, imperfection, absolute perfection about you", and smooths his fingertips over the back of my thighs that I used to think were unflattering to my body before.
How hard I used to be on myself before meeting him.
"Your flattering legs", he says on purpose to make me smile while moving to take my hands in his, "Your hands", bringing them up to his lips, kissing my knuckles with eyes still only on me, "Everything."
"Damon, if you go on professing your love to the anatomy of my body, I swear I'm gonna cry", I chuckle with flustered cheeks when he lets my hands go back to touching him as I pleased.
"I just wanted to let you know that in case you ever forget", he slightly tilts his head, almost examining the details of my face as if it was his first time seeing me up so close, but shakes his head and comes back down to my lips when I looked at him in confusion, "Don't think negative of yourself while I'm away, okay? You're such a beautiful girl, woman, daughter, girlfriend, person. It would hurt to see you think bad of yourself where there's no need."
"Anddd I'm crying", I giggle as I wipe the small tears from my cheeks.
He kissed me back just as lovingly when I stopped smiling and made sure that this very last time of us being able to feel, touch, love each other in such a physical bond for a long time - was special.