Only You

fuck it

We drive for a while in silence, without any pressure to explain ourselves to each other. I keep having to glance at her, her head resting on the window, watching the highway glide by beneath us. I am overcome with a sudden vision of Cate and I flying through cities with silver wings, fleeing from the oppressions of the dark world behind us. And in that moment, with the setting sun sitting rosily on her golden hair, I love her so much it physically aches.

She sees me looking at her, and laughs slightly. 

"Do you have any idea where we're going?" I ask.

"Let's go see the ocean."

I smile at the definite tone in her voice, the certainty, as if she was a warrior queen who had been knocked from her throne and was steadily climbing to the top again, more powerful than she ever was. 

"It's cold," I say, even as I pull the car around in the direction of the boardwalk. 

"We can keep each other warm."

God.

The wind is insane when we pull up to the boardwalk. It's almost completely devoid of people, and I don't see anyone around for endless stretches of distance. Cate gives a little yelp of surprise as the wind hits her full in the face when she steps out of the car. I laugh, pushing my hands deep in my pockets as the cold makes me tremble from deep inside my chest. Cate comes over and presses me against her as we walk, as if we've walked together like this countless times, as if it was completely normal for my head to be resting on her shoulder, her arm around my waist.

"I don't give a shit anymore," Cate announces as we walk along the steady gray line of the sea. She throws her head back and lets the wind sweep its fingers through her hair. "I don't care!"

I giggle and turn my head so my face is pressed against her coat. She smells soft and dark, just like her voice. I could drink her in forever, let her take control of all of me. The most beautiful possession. 

"Let's run on the sand," I say, and we break into a run, racing wildly to the end of the boardwalk and jumping into the beach. The sand we kick up flies in billows with the wind, and we laugh and run and I realize I am wrong, today is just as exquisite as the night in the snowy woods, and I know that every moment I spend with her will be just as wonderful, because this is Cate. Cate herself, Cate just Cate. I would never feel ghosts when I'm with her, I will never feel that hollow ache. She is everything. She is enough--she is more than enough. She's overflowing, spilling over the edges of my heart. 

We scrape the playful waves, laugh into the writhing sky, and somewhere between the icy tides and the dying light Cate takes me into her arms and kisses me hard, hungrily, tremblingly, and I let her in. I let her in with a little sigh of relief that seems to release everything I've been trapping inside me. Her hands are like ice against my hot neck. My hands ignite from her skin. 

"Fuck it," she whispers, or maybe it's the wind.

"I missed you," I tell her between kisses, and tears well up in my eyes, my voice breaks. I have never said anything so true and clear, it swings into me like a blade. "I missed you so much, Cate."

I don't ever want to let her go, I could stay on this beach swaying with her and kissing long into the night, but soon we hear the searing yellow lights of the workers clearing out the beach, and reality comes crashing back to us. 

We know the beach is closing soon. We know, we know, there is no escape from knowing. But for a little bit more we push together against the world, sacrificing a multitude of fleeting, trivial parts of our minds for just a minute or two more of holding each other tight, with the ocean's song in our ears. We're both shivering from the cold, and both of our faces are flushed pink. 

"Oh, isn't there somewhere we can go?" Cate asks wistfully. "Isn't there somewhere just for us?"