Page 71 of The Story Of Us

“Why didn’t you take mine down?”

I can feel his jaw graze across my hair as he turns to look at me, but I don’t move my head from his shoulder. It might be easier to have this conversation if we don’t look at each other.

“I did.”

“They still had the pins in them.”

He doesn’t say anything for a second, but I can feel his jaw moving against my hair like he’s opening and closing his mouth.

“It felt like they were the only thing I had left of you.”

I close my eyes, letting the words into my chest, where my heart is pounding.

“You stopped talking to me, and of course you did. I don’t blame you for that. But then I realised how little we had of each other. There was hardly anything tangible that I could use to reassure myself that what we had was real, that it wasn’t all just a dream.”

He plays with my fingers, untangling our hands and running his fingers up and down my palm.

“But I had your cards. So I settled for looking at them every day, reading them every night, just so that I would remember what it felt like to be with you.”

I take a shaky breath and pull my head away from his shoulder so that I can look at him. He lifts his head, green eyes gazing right into mine, and I see the answer to the question that I’ve been so afraid to ask this whole time. But with him next to me, my hand in his, I feel brave now.

“Where do we go from here, Isaac?” I whisper because we’re so close I don’t need to speak any louder.

“Wherever you want.” His free hand comes up to cradle my cheek, his thumb running across it. “If you want to just be friends, we’ll just be friends. If you want to try again, then we’ll try again. If you want to end it here and never see me again, I’ll walk out that door and tell my parents I want to transfer schools.”

He tilts my head down and presses a kiss to my forehead before focusing his eyes on mine again.

“I’ll do whatever makes you happy, Violet. No matter what it is.”

I close my eyes and bring my hand up to cover his as he drops his forehead down to meet mine.

“I don’t want to just be friends.”

He lets out a soft chuckle and pulls back so he can look at me.

“Good. I don’t want you thinking I act like this with just any of my friends.”

I push at his chest, feigning annoyance, but I can’t hide the laugh that escapes me.

“And that last option is unthinkable.”

“Good again, because I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know.”

He smiles at me, and I want to just tilt my head up to his and close the distance so our lips can finally meet again, but I use all my willpower to resist.

“So we’re trying again?”

“I think we’ve been trying this whole time,” I say because it’s the truth.

He leans his head down, and I close my eyes, waiting for the moment his mouth is on mine again, but instead, he kisses my cheek, my nose, and my forehead before wrapping both of his arms around me, holding me close to him.

I pull one knee up on the bed so that I can face him properly and put my arms around his neck, and even though we’ve hugged a lot since we started talking again, this one feels different.

It feels like our hearts are connecting again after being apart for far too long. It feels like a magnetic force pulling us together, erasing any space between us, and I never want it to break. I clutch him tighter, not thinking about anything else apart from the fact that he’s mine again. That he’s always been mine even when I didn’t want to admit it.

His hand runs up and down my spine once, twice, before he loosens his grip and pulls back, hands on my face again so that I look straight at him.

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