It was a choice.
And whatever I chose next would change everything.
We pull apart, barely.
My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat. She’s stolen my breath again, like she always did, like she always would if I let her. Rain slides down her temples, clings to thecurve of her jaw, gathers at her lashes until she’s blinking hard, eyes glassy and bright and wrecked.
“I love you,” she whispers, like it’s a secret meant only for my skin. “I never stopped. I don’t know how to.”
Her fingers slide into my hair, nails scraping lightly against my scalp, and the sensation shoots straight through me — familiar, addictive, deadly. She pulls, not hard, just enough to tip my mouth back to hers.
I should stop her.
I don’t.
Her lips find mine again, more desperate this time, less careful. Her mouth opens and her tongue brushes mine, heat and insistence and memory colliding all at once. I groan into her kiss before I can stop myself, the sound torn out of me like a confession.
God.
She’s always known how to undo me.
I hiss when her tongue presses harder, when her body fits against mine like it was made for this exact moment. My hands come up without permission, settling at her waist, feeling the slick cold of rain-soaked fabric and the unmistakable warmth beneath it.
This is the trap.
I know it even as I sink into it.
Every kiss with her is a promise and a threat wrapped together — all heat, all want, no safety net. My mind flashes through the nights that followed moments just like this. The fights. The apologies. The way love with her always burned hotter than it should.
But standing here, soaked and shaking, I want it anyway.
I want this bad love to work so badly it hurts.
I kiss her back like it might rewrite the past, like if I just want it hard enough, it’ll be different this time. Like the world didn’t just fall apart, like we didn’t already break each other once.
She sighs against my mouth, a soft, satisfied sound that goes straight to my chest. Her hands tighten in my hair, holding me there, claiming me like she’s already won.
And maybe she has.
Because even as a small, rational voice in my head whispersthis is how it starts, all I can think is how alive she makes me feel — how empty everything else felt without her.
The rain keeps falling.
And I stay.
We stayed like that for a long second.
Rain pouring down.
Breath tangled.
Foreheads almost touching.
The world narrowed to the space between our mouths.
She was the first to speak.
“Can I come in?” she whispered.
