#kulietedit

In a year you’ll be gone, but right now, you’re with her.

You spend most of her eighteenth birthday in the garden, picnicking and laughing. She wears one of her ridiculous hats and about a gallon of sunscreen, and you take a picture every hour so she never lives it down. You take a picture every hour so you never forget. When the sun goes down, you chase after fireflies and she watches from the porch. She rolls her eyes and reminds you you’re a senior now– time to grow up– but she can’t hide her grin when you catch one for her. There’s not much she can’t hide, so you figure she must be pretty happy.

You’re both pretty happy.

You sit next to her on the steps and you lock arms, rest your head on her shoulder. You wish you could stay like this forever, but you can’t, and you know it.

But right now, you’re with her.

“Thanks for this,” she says, and you tell her you’ll run after bugs any time. Juliet sighs and you laugh and take her hand, almost like an apology. She squeezes back and laces her fingers through yours, the same way you’ve done for over a decade. There’s never been space between you that you’ve created, not yet. She’s an extension of you, your own heart outside of your body. At least, that metaphor would hold if you had half her light.

That’s what you tell yourself.You don’t deserve her, not really, but she doesn’t seem to mind.She doesn’t even seem to notice.

So when you kiss her, you shouldn’t be surprised she doesn’t pull away. You shouldn’t be surprised that instead, she relaxes into it like you’ve always been there. You shouldn’t be surprised, after all this time, that she would kiss you back, but you are.

You shouldn’t be surprised, either, that you’re the one to break it: you’ve got seventeen years under your belt, and you’ve been a runaway for all of them.