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“I didn’t do anything to hurt you. I supported you.”
He shakes his head. “No, you were torn out. I got confused. I never realised there’s a place in the centre of my heart that’s empty without you.”
My eyes fill with tears because Bryn’s describing how I’ve felt the last weeks. “I missed you. I loved you and I didn’t think you wanted me anymore, that you’d gone back to the girl you once told me was your soul mate. How could I compete with that?”
In his familiar way, Bryn holds my face in his cold hands. “If anybody is my soul mate, it's the inept waitress who makes an awesome teacher.”
I scowl at his teasing but how can I be angry with him and his heartfelt words? “Do you really think that?”
“In my crazy world, I’ve met thousands of people – girls – and not one of them had any effect on me. Nobody has touched my life in the way you do, not even Hannah. I know I carried Hannah in my heart for too long, but don’t we always carry a part of our first love? I just needed to realise that’s all she was.”
I swallow, wishing he wouldn’t mention her but know he needs to.
“When you walked away from me into the snow that night at Liam’s wedding, something changed. I had to see you again because somehow, I already knew you. I met the person who’d change my life forever,” he says quietly.
I smile at the memory of Bryn gate crashing my night out the following evening. “And you did so spectacularly.”
“As always,cariad. I never do anything by halves.”
“And that’s why I love you even when I don’t,” I say. “Please don't break my heart again. You've done that twice already.”
“I won't. Ever.” In the cold of the evening, I shiver and Bryn pulls me close, wrapping his jacket around us both. “Come with me. I don't want another night without you in my arms.”
I bury my face into Bryn's neck, inhaling the scent of leather and sandalwood, losing myself in memories of us. “But Australia?”
“Come back with me. We can do some touristy shit while we're there if you like. I'll take you to hold a koala if you want, as long as you promise not to drop the poor creature.”
“Ha ha.”
He rests his chin on my head and I wriggle out of the way. “Sometimes I hate you’re so much taller than me.”
Bryn takes my hand and places my palm against his chest, the steady beat rapid against my skin. “You’re closer to my heart down there, so every time I hold you, there’s a reminder you have my whole heart for your whole life.”
“Down there’.” I smack the place on his chest where he holds my hand. “I’m not that small.”
“Oh, but you are,cariad. Small and cute—” He skilfully sidesteps my attempt to retaliate and grabs my arms. “—and the person my world revolves around.”
I smile and bury my nose into his shirt. Bryn rests his chin on top of my head again. We fit together in our own way, the strange couple from opposite worlds pulled together; our connection taking each other to a place nobody else belongs.
“Maybe I’ll come with you,” I say nonchalantly. “I guess the weather is better over there.”
“Huh! And your hot rock star is over there too!”
I run my finger along his cheek. “So he is my hot rock star?”
“I always was,cariad.”
In the darkened shadows of the school, our mouths connect with the weeks of passion and longing we've missed as we discover each other again. Why do I always find myself back in his arms? Because Bryn knows me in a way nobody ever has. In a few short months, he showed me I can believe in myself, and gave me the strength to strive for what I wanted when I wasn’t sure I could.
Even when Bryn isn’t around, I feel him in the beat of my heart and the centre of my soul. We click back together like magnets, every time we get close, and the idea soul mates could be real makes sense because something in Bryn holds onto something in me, and we’re unable to let go.
