Heaven Help Us

New Era

I walked into the living room, spotting Rain walking around the Christmas tree in thought.

After a few minutes, she saw me and stopped moving for a moment.

“Hey, Andy.” She smiled a little. “Story time go alright?”

“Yeah, it went good. So, listen, you know that I’m going on tour, yeah?”

“You told me last night on the phone. Did you tell Jepharee?”

I nodded. “Yes, I told him last night as well. But, I was wondering if you’d like to go out when I get back. Just me and you. On a date.”

She looked me over and a sweet smile lit up her beautiful face. “You’re asking me out?”

“Well, yeah, I mean it’s time I do things properly, don’t you think?”

“Oh, Andy,” She said, her words getting lost somewhere in her throat as she crossed the room to kiss me.

I kissed back eagerly, over the moon with joy at the fact that this seemed to be becoming a regular thing. “I’m taking this as a yes.”

I ran my fingers through her dark black hair and pulled back so that I could look at her, my hands dropping to wrap gently around her arms. I wanted to memorize everything that I could about this moment. About her.

I still carried the picture of us from the park in my wallet to keep as a reminder, but we’d both changed some since then.

My hair wasn’t as long, and neither was hers. She looked a little older; much more full of love and happiness than she had back then. The scars on her wrists were faded but not quite gone; nearly invisible reminders of her darker times. Like badges showing that she survived. I could still feel them as I ran my thumb across her wrist, but instead of taking away from her beauty, it added to it.

She didn’t look as tired and beaten down as she had years ago. No, instead she looked ready to take on the world. She looked free.

The words ‘I love you’ were on the tip of my tongue, but I pressed my mouth to hers just in time to stop them from coming out.

Right now wasn’t the time.

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So, I'm going to try to catch up to all of the writing that I lost. I can't fucking believe that my files are just fucking gone. Fuck. But yeah, here's an update. :) I'll try to keep them closer together from now on. Not waiting a month or so in between, yeah? <3