The Truth About Love

by Maisie Myers

If anyone can prove to me that love is real, it’s Auden Wells with his dimples and kind heart. My worry isn’t that his efforts will be wasted on me. It’s that I can already feel them working.

I tuck a non-existent hair behind her ear, losing the fight with myself not to touch her, and stroke my thumb across her cheek. Her eyelids flutter shut. “You don’t need to be nervous. Not with me, okay? Never with me.”

“Shhh,” he pulls me to his chest and runs a flat hand up and down my back in soothing strokes. “I know, I’ve seen your monsters Summer-Raine. They don’t scare me away.”

I’ve never been more attracted to anyone in my life. Her tiny waist, plush lips, legs that go on for days despite her being kind of short, everything about her slays me. But it’s more than just her body that entrances me. It’s her heart and her soul and her secrets too.

It might not have been love at first sight, but it was pretty damn close. It was more like the recognition of souls. Like my soul saw hers and knew instantly that it had found its home.

I wrap my arms around her thighs and hug her tight to me, telling her with my body what I’m unable to say in words. That she’s brave. That she’s extraordinary. That she’s everything.

I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you Till China and Africa meet, And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street

“Summer-Raine,” Auden’s warm hands take mine, “is that okay? I know it’s kinda terrifying, fuck, it scares me so much I can’t sleep at night. But I needed you to know, you know? And you don’t have to say it back, not right now, not until you’re ready. I know how you feel without needing to hear those words from you, but I wanted you to hear them from me. So, is it okay, baby? Is it okay that I love you?”

With his confession of love, he has both murdered the old Summer-Raine and given life to a new one. Because, from this moment on, I will forever be the girl who is loved by Auden Wells. And I’ll never be the same again.

Together, we count down from ten, our lips getting closer with every passing second until finally the first firework explodes and her mouth is on mine. We miss the entire display. The sparks flying between us are so much brighter, so much more explosive than the bursting lights in the sky above. My hand winds into her hair, clutching her head to me in fear of her disappearing into thin air. Because, surely, she’s too good to be true. Too beautiful to ever belong to me. And yet, she does. She’s mine, just as I am hers. And I don’t ever see a time in our lives when that will be different.

“Be with me. Be my first, Auden. I want it to be you, if that’s what you want too?” “What I want too?” I repeat, mystified. “I want everything you’ll give me. But baby, I don’t want to just be your first, I want to be your only.”

“If you need me to help you feel something, tell me and I’ll love you harder. And if that’s not enough we can ride a rollercoaster, go skydiving or even fucking shark diving, but don’t ever ask me to hurt you again.”

He looks at me like I’ve broken him. “Not a big deal? You think I’d ever be okay with causing you pain? You tried to manipulate me into hurting you and by doing that, you’ve hurt me. You’ve fucking destroyed me.”

Our worlds may have changed, we may not know each other anymore, but that magic that was always between us is still there. We don’t belong to each other anymore, but our souls still reach for each other as if we do.

We’re strangers and soulmates and ghosts from our pasts. I’ve moved on from her, yet I’ve loved her every single day since she left.

“Do you remember, Summer-Raine?” he whispers. “Do you remember watching the sunsets with me?”

“Pretty girl, listen to me. There is no one else in this world for me but you. It has always been you. And I will wait as long as you need me to until you show up on my doorstep and tell me its time. I’ll wait forever, baby. Forever.”

It doesn’t matter how much time passes between us, if you need me, I will always come for you.

I guess the world fell in love with our story, with the girl who had monsters in her head and the boy with a hero complex. The soulmates who were fated but could never quite get things right.