Page 74 of The Story Of Us

Violet twirls a pen between her fingers, and I can’t take my eyes off of her. I’m supposed to be studying, but it’s so hard to concentrate when she’s right next to me. The novelty of being next to her still hasn’t worn out, and even though we’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks now, I still can’t believe that she’s mine and I’m hers. I lean my knee against hers to try and get her attention, but she shuffles away from me, not even looking in my direction.

“Do your work, Isaac.”

I know she’s trying to be stern but her voice is far too lovely for that, and the way she says my name, a lilt to it that makes it sound like an angel singing, has me pulling her chair closer to mine. She lets out a small yelp, dropping her pen as she grabs onto my thigh to stop herself from falling off the chair.

“Isaac!”

I grin at her even as she tries to swat at my arm, but I take the chance to grab her hand instead. I turn it face up and start tracing a finger over the lines on her palm.

“You know, I’ve been looking up stuff about astrology and palm reading.”

“Why?” She gives me a puzzled look, eyebrows creased adorably as she tries to figure out where I’m going with this.

“Doesn’t it feel like we’re fated? What are the odds we’d be born on the same day, me at sunrise and you at sunset? And that we’d both end up going to the same school, end up in the same class?”

She smiles softly at me, and I get lost in her eyes before her fingers close over mine and she squeezes once asking me to continue.

“It feels a lot like fate to me, so I started looking up some stuff about it. I wanted to figure out what cosmic entity I need to thank for bringing you into my life. And I wanted to know how to see our future too, what amazing things we’ll do together.”

I run my finger across the small lines on her palm. My eyes focused there because I suddenly feel too shy to look at her.

“This is the life line,” I trace the curved line from the base of her thumb to the bottom of her palm.

“The heart line.” First finger to pinky finger.

“And the fate line.” The middle of her palm.

“And what do they all mean?” She asks, dipping her head to meet my gaze.

I cover her hand with mine and intertwine our fingers together.

“No idea. I just wanted to hold your hand.”

When we enter the bathroom, I take notice of how Violet has everything lined up on the shelf underneath the mirror. She has all her products set in the order that she uses them, and I have to hold back a smile because it’s exactly how I pictured it.

She lets go of my hand, and I want hers back in mine already, but then she’s opening the tap and running her hands under it. I know I’m staring at her, but I can’t stop myself. I love that I can look at her again, that I can be this close to her.

“Stop staring at me and wash your hands.”

She doesn’t look at me when she says it, but I catch the way the corners of her mouth lift up when I follow her instructions. I look in the mirror, and seeing us standing side by side over a small sink shouldn’t be making me this happy, but it is, and I’m smiling like a fool.

She takes the cleanser, squeezing a small amount onto the tip of her finger before doing the same for me. I turn to look at her, and she reaches up to take my glasses off my face, placing them on the side. She rubs her fingers together and starts to touch my face, slowly smoothing the cleanser around, and I’m completely frozen.

I close my eyes, letting out a big sigh of relief at the fact that we can be this comfortable and close with each other. It’s a brand new experience, yet it feels like it was always meant to happen, like we were always meant to be this close.

When she finishes, I do the same to her, running my fingers over the outline of her face, the curve of her jaw, the slope of her nose, her cheeks, her chin. I can’t stop myself from tilting her chin up to kiss her, so happy that she’s mine again. But in a new way. A better way.

We continue like that until the whole routine is finished, taking turns applying products to our faces. When we're done, I leave the bathroom and make my way to the chair by her desk to wait for her. Violet joins me a few moments later with a bottle in her hand, so I ask her what it is because I thought we’d finished all the steps.

“It’s oil for my hair.”

I think back to old conversations with her when she mentioned this before, how her mum would oil her hair every couple of weeks growing up, and now it’s something she either does alone or when she goes home.

“Can I do it for you?”

At this point, I just want any excuse to touch her, to reassure myself that this is really happening and it’s not just a wonderful dream that I’ll wake up from.

“Are you sure? It might take a while, and your hands will feel gross after.”

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