Page 160 of The Sins of Noelle

There’s a loud sound as the tail of the plane hits the ground, something resembling an explosion.

Yet as my arms close around her frail form, I don’t find it in myself to care about anything but the fact that she’s here, with me. I can hear her heart beating—louder than my own. I can fucking feel her skin on top of mine, and I swear to God I’ve never been happier than in that moment.

I hug her tighter, so tight, my own injuries start flaring up from the effort.

But once more, that is just background noise as my attention is solely on her.

“You’re fine. You’re fine,” I whisper in awe.

“We’re fine,” she replies, leaning back to look at me. “God, Raf…”

“We’re fine,” I echo, and before I know it, my lips are on hers, relief pouring from every atom of my body.

The kiss is unlike any we’ve shared in the past, and despite the still unresolved issues between us, it’s sweeter than anything I’ve ever experienced.

It’s the goddamn kiss of life.

We’re both out of breath, panting as we taste each other and the flavor of our tears.

I don’t know when I started crying.

My tears roll down my cheeks, as do hers, meeting together where our skin touches.

She’s holding just as tightly onto me, her lips skimming back and forth over my mouth almost as if she’s trying to convince herself that I’m here, with her.

“Shh, I have you,” I tell her, a false platitude, yet because we’re together it’s nothing but the truth.

Fuck, but I can’t even begin to contemplate the situation we find ourselves in. I’m only happy that in the face of such a disaster, we’re together. We’re both alive, and together.

The past feels like a tiny flicker on the horizon line as it becomes lost in the background until there’s nothing more but the sheer joy at knowing she’s alive.

At that moment I know.

I may be angry with her. I may resent her for what she’s done to me.

But it doesn’t change the fact that she’s the love of my life—will always be the love of my life.

And for that… For what she means to me now, and for what she’s meant to me from the beginning—from when she was just a disembodied voice behind a screen—and what she meant as the force that pushed me forward.

She might have been my hope at one point. She might have been just an illusion.

But at this moment, she is real.

“Are you ok? Does anything hurt?” I ask as I try to look her over.

She leans back, shaking her head at me and giving me a small smile.

“How do we get out of here, Raf?” She whispers as her hand reaches for my wound, her fingers lightly skimming the dried blood on my forehead.

Slowly, we both rise, turning to look down at the distance between our location and the ground. There must be more than a hundred feet…

“We’ll do it. Somehow…”

Even as the words are out of my mouth, though, doubt creeps in my mind. We’re fucking stranded in the air.

I remove my phone from my pocket, grimacing as I note the lack of signal.

Noelle does the same as she fishes her phone out of her pants, shaking her head when she sees hers doesn’t have coverage either.

---