Lady Laser 🤍

It was a simple thing, admitted far into the evening long after your heart had found its way onto your sleeve and your common sense had fled. You'd put too much thought into and hoped she wouldn't put enough in herself, and you let her comfort you with uncertain whisperings and an almost-brush of hands, and you left it at that.

It wasn't meant to be anything more. Yet still the morning came and with it, this strange, frantic conversation that's knocked the breath from your lungs entirely.

"I have often felt the same." She's clutching her datapad to her chest now as she confesses to you, eyes lowered and brows furrowed, her mouth tilted into some small, sad thing. "I have so much to make up for, it seems impossible to atone for, but..."

She stops. Her eyes, so dark and deep, seem to search everything in sight - the floor, the inseam of her boots, the bend of your leg, the lines of your face - until finally, she allows herself to look you in the eye and you see something there that yearns to be free.

"I cannot imagine that you would ever think yourself unworthy."

"Em..."

You want to fight her on this, to push her away as punishment for your own misplaced vulnerability, but those eyes, the way she's watching you. Now's not the time for fighting or for denial.

"I... I have something I need to say, only I'm not sure how to say it."

And the datapad falls away, placed somewhere nearby but ultimately out of sight, so she can take one of your hands in hers. It's the first time, the first real time, that she's chosen to initiate a touch between you, and it sends a thrill down your spine. You don't even dare to dream what she might want to say for fear of it coming true, for fear of it being little more than a wish. For fear that her words could topple you in an instant and you'd be powerless to stop her. But that's just love.

Emerie shifts a little closer. She takes hold of your other hand. Her toes fit into place between your feet. She leans in, so gentle and slow, until her forehead touches yours, and it's then that the curtain of her hair falls over one shoulder; a wave of dark curls that smells like her perfume and the sweetness of orchids.

She breathes in. Then out. Her breath stirs upon your skin, heating the apples of your cheeks and triggering your pulse until its galloping inside you, thrumming and straining as the everything that is her begins to consume you.

"I was alone," she finally says, "for so long. I did things I'm ashamed of now. And all this time, I thought I wasn't meant for anything more than that. You" - and she squeezes both your hands - "have made me feel more alive than, than anything I've done since the day I was taken from my pod."

There's a moment after that. It's fragile and uncertain, but it spans an eternity, warmed only by the sharing of breath and the flush in your cheeks. The air is electric in the wake of this second confession. It's so charged that you can feel it seeping into your bones until it curls up to rest somewhere in your ribcage, just below the place in your heart where Emerie has made her home.

Her breath stutters, she withdraws, glances hesitantly in your direction, and then she kisses you.

If ever there was a defining moment in the universe, this would be it. This awkward fumbling of mouths is almost juvenile, but it's everything. It's beautiful. It's perfect. It's her. It's her scent, her taste, the lingering notes of sweetened caf and caramel, the brush of her hair on your face, the palm of her hand on your cheek as she draws you in, closer, closer, until you're sure you're one being.

"You were meant to be loved," she tells you when she pulls back. Her lips are damp with your saliva and her pupils blown, and she's the loveliest thing you think you've ever seen. "You... are loved."

If she can be brave enough to admit it, then so can you. With your lungs on fire and your heart about to beat out of your chest, you offer your own admission. It's a simple thing, yes, but you mean it more than you've ever meant anything else. You've loved her since you met, even if you didn't know it, even if the words weren't there. Your heart had always known.