Where We Left Off
: Part 1 – Chapter 9

“Daylight savings is next week. I don’t know about you, but I’m done with this dark at five thirty nonsense.”

Nana had been flipping through the TV guide, circling the shows she wanted to watch for the upcoming week with a red Bic pen that was close to running out of ink so it skipped and stuttered on the paper. I never understood why she did this since she had her favorites set to record already, but people were nothing if not creatures of habit. And Nana’s habits were pretty harmless.

“Hoping for some extra hours in the day to paint the town, Nana?” I’d teased and she just offered me a mischievous smile in return.

I’d finished all my homework for the night, thanks to Heath, who offered to go to the library during lunch to help me replace what I needed for my English paper on Flannery O’Connor. I’d checked out one of her novels, A Good Man Is Hard to Find, and held it up in front of my face just so my eyes peeked out over the top. “It is not!” I’d exclaimed, waggling my eyebrows and pointing to the title. “I found you pretty easily.”

“In all fairness, I found you.”

“Maybe we found each other.”

“Nope.” Heath was adamant. He’d been wearing dark jeans and a Rockley High hoodie with a bulldog in white ink drawn across the front, and as usual, he had his hair tucked under a gray wool beanie. “I’m taking the credit on this one. Remember, I walked two miles in the snow both ways to ask you out.”

“Fine. The credit is all yours.” I’d winked at him and he launched at me with a hoomf! The book dropped and clattered to the ground right as his lips smothered mine. We got the expected shushes and eye rolls from several nearby students and the librarian shot a deadly look of warning from behind her pretentiously tall desk, but that only encouraged us. Heath pulled me behind a bookcase and yanked me closer to his body. He was warm and solid. We kissed like that all lunch recess, sneaking away among shelves, pressed up in dark corners and hallways, his mouth on mine, our hands on each other.

Heath was never shy in showing his affection, and I was never hesitant in receiving it.

If someone had asked me that day how much Heath loved me, I would have said with his whole heart. I’d earned every portion, and he’d taken every bit of mine. It was an even and beautiful exchange, to care about someone intensely and equally.

I gave him all of my heart, knowing that I’d never want it back, hoping he’d never have the need to return it to me.

It was his.

I was his.