It's not a kind smile.
It's the smile of someone who's found what he was looking for after searching for so long he forgot he was searching. The smile of a villain who's just discovered the one person in the world worth being a hero for.
"I finally found you, Sweetness."
Her eyes flutter closed.
A sob escapes—relief or grief or some devastating combination of both.
And then—because I've been wanting to since the moment she crashed into me, since the moment I caught her scent, since the first letter she sent me five years ago that made me believe maybe I wasn't completely alone in this nightmare?—
I kiss her.
Not gently.
Not tentatively.
Not the soft, questioning press of lips that asks permission.
This is a claiming.
A declaration.
A promise written in action instead of words.
I kiss her like I've been dying of thirst and she's the first water I've tasted in years. Kiss her like the letters she's written are prayers, and this is the answer. Kiss her like the world is ending around us—which it might be, with the rain and the thunder and the ruined pages spinning down from their strings—and this is the only thing that matters.
My hand stays wrapped around her throat.
Anchoring her to me as I pour five years of loneliness and hope and desperate, fragile connection into the press of my mouth against hers.
She tastes like rain.
Like salt from her tears.
Like the dark red lipstick that's now smearing between us.
And underneath it all—sweetness. So fucking sweet.
Cotton candy and cherry blossom and the sharp metallic edge that says she's been through hell and come out the other side with teeth.
Mine.
The word echoes through my skull like a battle cry.
Mine, mine, mine.
The girl who writes letters in blood.
The pen pal who kept me sane when the darkness got too heavy.
The beautiful disaster who's been waiting for me without knowing it.
Mine.
The letters fall around us—ruined pages drifting down from their strings, landing in puddles, dissolving into nothing. The rain pounds against our shoulders, soaking through our clothes, washing away the makeup on her face and the careful composure on mine.
I don't care.
