He shook his head like I wasn’t understanding what he meant. “No…not just since I’ve been gone, Sam. I’ve missed you being mine,” he clarified. “I miss it just being us without all the outside interference. Just you…and me,” he added, pulling my right hand to his chest.
The memory of what that used to feel like – it just being the two of us – made my stomach quiver as the butterflies that he’d been giving me since as long as I’d known him started to flutter again. Unsure of what to say, I said nothing at all.
Looking at him in that moment, there was so much emotion behind his eyes that I could hardly stand it. “Sam…be with me,” AJ finally said, breathing the words out with a sigh of relief, as if he’d been waiting a lifetime to speak them. “Let’s make it like it was before. Better than it was before.”
The smile slipped away from my face as shock set in. Slowly but surely, I was beginning to comprehend what he was saying. Still, because I knew that if I was wrong, and got my hopes up, I’d have a breakdown right then and there, I wanted to be sure. “But what about –“
AJ shook his head and slowly repeated the words, “Just…us,” before I could even utter Kira’s name.
I didn’t realize I was crying before he ran his thumb across my cheek to catch the fallen tear. This all seemed so surreal that I had no words.
“Sam…it’s over. Kira and I are over. I –” My eyes were trained on his face when his sentence broke and he lowered his head. “I almost made the biggest mistake of my life today,” he admitted. Without him saying it, I knew that this was his way of confessing that he’d almost chosen to stay in his engagement. When I placed my hands on his cheeks and made him meet my gaze, he stared, waiting for me to speak.
“AJ…I. Don’t. Care. I don’t care,” I repeated. Whatever the day had taken him through that eventually brought him to my door didn’t matter to me at all. All that mattered was that he was here now. My mind ran back over the words he’d just spoken to me and I finally let them sink in.
Just us.
I’d almost forgotten how good, how easy we once had it. With AJ’s face still in my grasp, I moved in slowly and pressed my lips to his.
He was my chance to truly experience happiness again – something I thought I forfeited years ago…
He was the one I saw myself building a future with every time I’d ever dared to dream about it…
He was…my entire life.
Without him, I wasn’t living; I was just existing. There in his arms, regret, guilt, and uncertainty all melted away. I’d almost instantly forgotten that any of those feelings had ever occupied a space in my heart. Now, knowing that I’d finally have what was meant for me all along, there wasn’t room for any of that other stuff…just love.
I’d lost it all before and knowing how close I came to having it all slip between my fingers again, I promised myself that I’d make it my life’s mission to make this work.
I wouldn’t lose him. Not ever. If every waking hour had to be spent defending what we had, AJ and I would see to it that we got our happily ever after.
This love that we shared had been tried in the blazing hot fire time and time again. However, it didn’t burn to ashes like some may have expected or even hoped it would. No. When all was said and done, we were left with something solid and so rare that others would marvel at it for years to come.
I smiled against his lips while we continued to share the first kiss of many that we’d share as a couple. We made it.
We finally made it…
*****
Four Months Later…
“So…It’s been a while. Tell me how things are going.” Dr. Gill inquired, clearly impressed by the fact that I hadn’t stopped smiling since walking through the doors of her office. To be honest, I’d been smiling like that for months now.
“Things are…great, actually.” My cheeks tightened again when I thought about how much my life had changed and improved.