She elbows me in the stomach and I know it worked. Something ticks at the back of my head and I know I want to talk to him. I let my feet lead me back inside, knowing I'm free of suspicion it's easier for my natural slouch to seem nonchalant. A split second of eye contact. He knows as well as I do. I fumble convincingly down the hallway as though I picked it at random, but it leads to the upper floor, a tiny and tight staircase that conseals me from view. My time worn ex(?)-boyfriend appears from around the corner, a relief spreading through my still taut muscles. He places his hand on my cheek, and his eyelids lower over his irises, his eyelashes almost touching his cheeks with how long they are. He's close, enough to talk but not so far away I can't feel his breath on my collarbone. "Hi," I say simply, at a loss to say much else. A soft exhale escapes his ever so slightly parted lips, the whisper of a laugh. "Still a conversationalist I see."

Oliver is soft spoken, his voice carries too much to achieve a whisper. But I don't mind, I can hear his almost harmoniously rough tones behind the rasp of a hushed voice. "I want to talk to you. About a lot of things." I shouldn't be whispering. It's hard for me to tell him what's running through my head a mile a minute without being a little louder. His head tilts to the side, his lower lip sticking out in a quarter of a pout, his eyebrows furrowing over into an almost W, if it were stretched wide. They're thick, but not like mine, boxy and dark like my mother's, but bushy and round. Innocent, and they paint his face as gentle. "What's wrong?" This is a whisper, and I realize that this is not my Oliver. He's older, his eyes are hungry as they search my face.

I suddenly feel the weight of thirty three years catch up with me as I come to the notion of how much time has changed him. With the scars adorning his face, his arms, as my hands lightly brush over them I wonder about the rest of his body, and somewhere in the distant past his sighs are in my ears and he is adorned with nothing but freckles. I doubt this is the case anymore. But his cloudy blue eyes are locked on mine now and I forget that he has ever changed. I can still tell him everything. He's still the only one I can trust. "Not here," I mumble, and I let go. I lightly brush my lips to his, connecting with little pressure, and then firmly kiss the bridge of his nose. I pull away and go to meet Camryn again, and the look on his face is one I haven't seen before, but somehow I can read it. He knows where to meet me tonight.

Wind pelts the back of my shirt like arrows, curling it around my torso as though I am in the jaws of a predator made of cloth. My hands grip the solid meltal bars of the fire escape, the rings on my fingers making tiny clangs as I climb. It's like my own house, or at least it used to be, but it's long abandoned now. It's not next to Oliver's, same building but in a different spot. Little ways down the street. Oliver is already sitting there as I pull onto the roof, the lunar illumination from behind the clouds throwing his expression into elegant detail when he turns to notice me.

Something squeezes my heart for some reason. I swing my legs over the side of the brick ledge easily, but it's thinner than I anticipated and my ass slips over the side and my arms flail helplessly as I tumble onto the gravel roof behind me. Oliver laughs as I regain my sitting spot, rubbing the back of my neck with bitter embarrassment and a small smile. I notice that his smile is different now too, it doesn't push up into his cheeks like before, the gap in his teeth is gone and it sits on his face like it's just there. There's so much sadness behind every movment of his facial emotions and it makes the guilt bubbling in my stomach ignite with new ferocity. "What did you want to talk to me about?" His voice is speaking level now, music in his words. I manage a smile.

"It's just, you're so..." I pause, my mouth open in an O as I search for the right words to describe how I'm feeling. "Different." His face falls, and the amount of sorrow in his tender blue gaze is enough to cripple me. I realize with a jolt that I am afraid of just how different he's become, and as he reaches for me, in reassurance of mine or his own I'm not sure, for the first time in our lives I recoil from his touch. The moonlight glows from behind him, pushing his concerned and wobbling pout into shadow. It's hard to read a face I can't see. "You're older," I blurt suddenly, my fears flooding from me now. "You've spent all this time away from me and you've changed, when to me it's only been a day, you've suffered for years and it's my fault."

I break on the last word, this pulsing wave of sorrow and pain and anger washing through my chest, tears streaming from my eyes and blurring my view as they drip off my cheeks onto the brick seat below my hands. There are no words, just my repressed sobs filling the air and then a pair of hands cradle my head, and Oliver draws close, removing his left hand to rest it on my thigh, his breathing hot against my skin in the chill of the air. He's so gentle and it sends a warm, pooling ache through me, like spilling honey over my heart. I remember the first time he said it, it seems like eons ago, refreshed and reborn now on his tongue on top of this roof, a lovers reunion. "I love you." And I give in, wrapping my arms around his waist as I kiss him with desperation, like he might fade away in my arms at any moment if our connected heads loosen for a second.

The touches of his fingertips bring me to life, on my neck and arms and under my shirt, trailing over the naked inches of me like it's the only thing he's ever felt. I break away for air, the spots where he's touched me feel ignited with warmth with the cold of the night and he's still only an inch from my face. "I might've piped your sister," he says suddenly, shattering the peaceful lul between the moment, and I pull back enough to see if he's said something nonsense filled. My face must be incredibly puzzled, because he burts into snorting, giddy sweet laughter, and it's not long before I feel it in my lungs too and let it play out of me. It feels like nothing and everything has changed all at once, it feels warm and silly and good.

first chapter here!! third chapter should be out in a week