blackheart ➵ m. clifford

➵ eighteen

➵ michael

I fell in love with my aunt's best friend when I was eleven years old. I remember that she used to let me walk her dog every day after school, and I had felt ecstatic. She moved to Cardiff before I turned twelve and slipped my mind every day until I forgot about her. She was my first love.

At fourteen, I fell for a Muslim girl who had big, brown doe eyes and shiny black hair that fell to her tailbone. Even though this pretty girl had reciprocated my pathetic, pre-pubescent feelings, she wanted to marry someone of her faith. She was my second love.

This, this was another love. This was my stomach filling with tinder and her touch igniting sparks that caused a flame. I had never been so in love like this and it made my chest ache as my heart thundered, and my blood fill with chemicals as adrenaline burned through my veins. It was a bitter taste on my tongue that only her lips could sweeten and it was a frigid breeze on my skin that only her touch could warm.

I couldn't even stutter as Sam pulled the door ajar and I definitely couldn't breathe as I heard her feet scuffing against the floor. It was impossible for my eyes to leave her and that's when I knew I was in love with her. I was in love with her cheeks and her fingers and how her ankles met her feet. I was in love with her laugh and her voice and the way she turned the pages when she read. I was in love with her and I didn't have a single regret.

I wanted her to wear my sweaters because she felt cute, and my boxers when she was tired. I wanted to feel her forehead against my pulse when we slept, and her fingers on my cheeks when we kissed.

Jett was the smell of fresh paint and the art that caressed the canvas of my favourite paintings. She was the stars that ignited the dark of my chest and the moon that held my sanity in the palm of its hand. Jett was the entity to anything and everything and I couldn't possibly conjure up the words to describe how she made me feel. It was like diving head-first into your favourite coffee. It was warm and it was engulfing and it was satisfying and it filled my stomach.

"Is that my jacket?" I grinned, leaning against the doorframe as she stepped towards me. I hid my shaky hands in the pockets of my jeans, crossing my ankle over the other.

Jett had me drunk every day, but this was a new level of intoxicating that filled my lungs and my heart and choked my brain until there wasn't a word to describe how inebriated I was. She was wearing a pale, lace dress that matched her hair, with a collar that barely hid the purpling art that painted her throat. My favourite colour tainted her plump lips, and her hair tumbled down her shoulders in a beautiful, wavy mess that seemed shorter than it had yesterday.

"It might be." She pulled at the lapels and flattened the collar, painted-red fingernails running across the smooth black leather.

I pondered over the little changes I could make out on her face, from the neatened brows to the darkened lashes, and then my eyes dipped down to the precious swirls of pink and red and violet that burst on her skin, like paint on a canvas. She'd changed herself a little, with a light artificial blush to taint her cheeks in the most adorable way, and her skin was creamy and smooth, but she'd left the essence of me on her throat.

"I like your hair." I wanted to reach forward and touch it, curl it around my fingers. It shone like silk and probably felt like it, too, but it was woven and tangled in waves that framed her heart-shaped face. "You look gorgeous."

"Thank you," She looked down to her feet as her real blush reddened her cheeks beneath the powder, but I could still see the little smile that she was so desperate to hide from me. "You look... handsome?"

I snorted, looking down at my white button-down that I was sure was buttoned incorrectly, with the sleeves messily rolled up to the elbows and the collar hastily ironed to lie flat. I'd fallen asleep on the sofa and had barely half an hour to get ready, and most of that was just trying to keep my hair in place. And it still wasn't.