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Jade wasn't shocked to see Kit at her door in the very late hours of the night, but she was surprised. They’d been in this exact situation many times before. They had sleepovers where Kit snuck out of her bedroom in the castle to go stay with Jade in the small room Ballantine provided her. They would stay awake for hours doing anything their hearts desired. Sometimes they talked about nothing, other times, they would sneak out and train, climb the castle walls, or just do something entirely frowned upon by the Tanthalos family and anyone involved with them. At the end of it all, usually just before sunrise, Kit would sprint back to her room and pretend like the night never happened. Of course, Jade’s walls remembered their conversations and their footprints around the castle pointed to their mischief, but it was their secret and theirs alone.
However, over the years, their responsibilities and duties grew. Their late night rendezvous abruptly stopped. Jade no longer expected Kit to be at her door at the exact same time every evening. She would appear at random times in the night, no set time interval between visits. There was no more special knock, she snuck in through the window. All night turned into a few hours which turned into a couple of minutes which turned into nothingness. For the past ten months, Jade hadn’t been woken up by Kit’s soft footfalls on the roof and for the past ten months, she hadn’t been able to get restful sleep.
So, when Kit showed up at an hour past sundown and did their special knock, Jade couldn’t help but to feel happy.
“Kit?”
The princess grinned. “Hey.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Thought we could sneak out like we used to.”
Jade stared at her blankly. Obviously she knew what Kit meant, but it had been so long and there was no explanation as to why she was here or how she snuck out. The last time they got together, the guards caught her sneaking back into the castle and security had been tightened.
“You really think that’s a good idea?”
“No, but to me it is.”
“You’re not going to take no for an answer, are you?”
Kit shook her head. Jade contemplated while her best friend patiently waited, standing in the door frame, the harsh winter wind stinging her face and rustling her hair. Jade went through a million scenarios in her head, most of which included getting punished, caught, or reprimanded in some way. But when Kit looked like that, she was more dangerous than any guard. Soon enough, she was trailing Kit in nothing but her night clothes and a pair of boots.
Winter in Tir Asleen wasn’t as brutal as many other places, but the snow had been steadily coming down, piling up around the main square and the stables. At night, especially during the winter, it was still. All noise was muted, the snow swallowed any noise made. Jade loved it. Often, during the night, she would take walks, bundled up in a thick coat and pants. She enjoyed the serenity. It was the only time she was ever truly alone and she valued it. Her mind wasn’t jumbled and she wasn’t on high alert. Only then was she relaxed because she couldn’t afford to be at any other moment.
But now, she was blindly following Kit through the stables, through the gates, and out into the forest. Her mind was anything but calm and her senses had never been higher. Whenever she was with Kit, she was always nervous. She was protecting a princess after all.
“Hurry up! I know you’re faster than that,” Kit called behind her shoulder.
“It’s below freezing and we are doing something incredibly stupid!”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t run.”
Jade grumbled but picked up her pace. Stupid or not, she would follow Kit for her safety. She was good with a sword and could hold her own, but Jade wanted to know she wouldn’t be hurt. Following Kit was part of being her best friend and a soon to be knight.
Kit didn’t slow until they got to the cliffs that overlooked the ocean. When she stopped, Jade slowed down and walked the rest of the way to her side. She turned her head and looked at Kit. She saw her soft smile, she saw the way her eyes caught the moonlight, she saw the way Kit looked more content, more free.
“How’d you find this place?” Jade asked, turning her attention away from the princess and to the scenery. They were on a cliffside that granted a perfect view of the ocean, yet the forest trailed all the way until a few feet from the edge. It was beautiful.
“I was trying to find Arik a couple of months ago, and I just found it. I’ve been coming here every once in a while to clear my head.”
Jade wandered around, taking in everything around her. She was half admiring it and half checking to see if there was anyone else in the vicinity. She could sense Kit following a little ways behind her. Furthermore, she could feel the other girl’s eyes on her. The cold got to her and she shivered. Almost immediately, she felt a weight drape around her shoulders. Kit came around in front of her and adjusted the fur shawl over her.
“Kit, this is yours,” Jade protested.
“Well, it’s yours now.”
“Kit, come on.”
“Jade, you’re freezing.”
She wasn’t about to argue with Kit. “I’ll give it back when we leave”
Jade shook her head at Kit’s back when she had turned and walked back to the cliff. She watched as her best friend took a seat with her legs dangling over the edge. As always, Jade followed her lead and took a seat at her side.
It wasn’t hard to tell that there was something on Kit’s mind. She had her tells. The way her brows would furrow ever so slightly, her nails were chewed raw, and the most obvious, she was as still as a rock. Normally, she fidgeted and in general was constantly moving, but not tonight. She hadn’t made a movement unless it was required. Any time Jade made a sudden movement, Kit would glance in her direction. She was worried, and it was clear that Jade was at the center of that.
“What’s wrong?”
Kit sat there, just staring at the water. The waves rolled in one after the other, each of them breaking rhythmically. There were no disruptions on the water. No birds, no ships on the water, just the water fighting with itself until it dispersed over the sand.
“Are you going to leave?” A wave crashed against the shore, echoing up the cliff, filling the silence the sudden tension between them caused.
There was no way to tiptoe around what she was asking. They both knew that the petition Ballantine sent to the Shining Legion had a good chance of getting approved. “That’s complicated,” Jade answered. It was a safe response. It was the only one she could give without lying.
“When do you get an answer?”
“In a week I imagine. Maybe sooner.”
“Are you going to go?”
Jade saw these questions coming. She’d thought about them long before she officially sent the petition. No matter how much she thought about her answers, she wasn’t prepared to give them.
“If I don’t change my mind all of a sudden, then yes.” The only way Jade would be able to get through this is if she gave her answers as facts. As if they were an effect of an event.
Kit made a noncommittal noise. “Is this what you want?”
These questions were getting harder and harder to answer. Jade’s mind was spinning. There were words on the tip of her tongue that she wouldn’t say. That she couldn’t. I want you .
“I’ve pretty much devoted my entire life to this.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
Kit could be so oblivious at times, but when it really came down to the important conversations, she didn’t let anything slip through the cracks. “I’ve been looking forward to it,” Jade replied.
She could tell Kit wasn’t satisfied with her answer but she dropped it anyway.
“I’m so happy for you,” Kit said, voice quivering.
“Kit-” Before Jade could get another word in, Kit leaned over and kissed her.
Rationally and logistically, it didn’t last long. Not even long enough for Jade to react. But in her mind, time stopped. She swore thousands of thoughts whirled around in her brain, but none of them were coherent. She just sat there, feeling Kit’s lips against hers and the small tear that dropped on her check from the other girl.
“You’re going to make a great knight,” Kit said once she pulled away. At that moment, Jade couldn’t ignore what she wanted. But before she could put the words together, Kit started to walk away.
She heard the soft footfalls against the snow get quieter and quieter until she was left with nothing but the echoes of the crashing waves and the storm of thoughts in her mind.
She couldn’t even begin to decipher what she was thinking as she started the long trek back to her room. There were so many questions that were left unanswered. Why did Kit kiss her? Why now? What did it mean? She didn’t even know how to feel about the kiss itself. Of course, she’d wanted to kiss Kit for years, but she never did. She didn’t give into any impulses, even if she thought she was reading the signs right. But she couldn’t comprehend what just happened.
Once she was home, she was exhausted. She didn’t bother to clean up or change, she immediately laid down. She was so tired that she had forgotten about Kit’s shawl. Instead, she nestled further into it right before she fell into an uncomfortable sleep.
=====
Two days simultaneously felt like two minutes and two weeks to Jade. It was two days of seeing Kit out and about in the castle, but never being able to interact with her. Two days of training harder than she ever had before because she needed to push what happened out of her mind. Two days of her catching Kit staring at her, then looking away. It was the worst kind of torture imaginable.
When the third day came and Jade didn’t see her at all, she got worried. She asked around and no one else had seen her either. Even Ballantine didn’t have any answers. As the day started turning into the night, she did her last round of the castle to make sure everything was in order. She went down the hall where Kit’s room was with a heavy heart. She looked anywhere except the door. Once she checked everything was fine, she turned to leave, but she heard the door open. When she turned, she saw Airk.
“Airk?”
“Jade!” he said, clearly surprised. “What’s up?”
“Just doing the rounds.” He was holding a rag and a bucket. She narrowed her eyes, not out of anger, but confusion. “What are you doing?”
“Older brother activities.” Jade made it obvious that she knew he was lying. He gave up the act instantly. “She’s sick. Like, very sick.”
Almost instinctively, Jade started asking questions. “Symptoms?”“Like, all of them. She’s throwing up, she has a fever, she said she feels like her limbs are a million pounds. It’s bad.” Jade made her way to the door before Airk intercepted her. “She said she doesn’t want company.”“You have no idea what you’re doing.” He looked a little hurt, but he knew she was right. Airk moved out of her way. “Thank you.”
Jade pushed it open and saw Kit looking miserable and disheveled. She pushed down all the thoughts that had been in her mind and the memory from their previous encounter. As she stepped further into the room, she realized just how sick Kit was based on how bad she looked. She was wrapped up in her covers, but her forehead was glistening with sweat. She was pale, her body was trembling, and she laid with her head over the side of the bed, hovering above a bucket.
She closed the door softly. Kit heard and when she met Jade’s eyes, she winced.
“I told Airk no visitors,” she mumbled.
“You’re going to trust Airk’s care over mine?” Kit shook her head. “Let me help you.”
When she got a resemblance of a response, Jade went to work. She told Arik to get water and to throw a rag under cold water. She stripped the covers off the bed after Kit gave up the fight to keep them. She knew that her shaking wasn’t due to her being cold but because her body was working too hard. As she retrieved the water and rag from Arik, she heard Kit retching. Her hair getting in her face wasn’t too much of a worry, but she placed the cold rag on the back of her neck and traced patterns into her back.
Arik didn’t stick around once she started vomiting again. Apparently he didn’t have the stomach for it. Instead, Jade tasked him with finding Ballantine and telling him that she wouldn’t be home until late. She didn’t know how long Kit was going to be like this, but she was prepared to stay for as long as required.
It had been two hours already and Kit showed no signs of getting any better. If anything, she grew worse. The trembling grew, her temperature went up, her vomiting happened more often than it should have, and everytime Jade asked a question, she groaned out a half-intelligible response. She gave Kit occasional sips of water. If she drank too much, she wouldn’t be able to stomach it. At this point, she was throwing up water and any other fluid that was in her stomach. It always got worse before it got better.
It was horrible to see Kit like this. She knew Kit would argue with her about being here if she had the energy. She would say it was embarrassing. Jade didn’t care about what she looked like, only that she was okay. When she was younger, when she first came to Tir Asleen and wasn’t under Ballantine’s care, she got sick often. The worst part about it wasn’t the sickness itself but the loneliness it brought. No one helped her, no one really cared either. Just being there for Kit was the least she could do.
After another two hours, the vomiting slowed and she looked slightly better. Enough to the point where Jade felt comfortable going out of the room to get more water and a new rag.
“Kit?” Jade said, leaning down to where her head rested on her lap, her face buried in her shirt. She gave a strained hum in lieu of a response. “I’ll be right back. I’m just going to go get you some more water, okay?”
Her weight had barely shifted from the bed when Kit threw her arm around her waist. “Don’t leave me.”
Those words hit Jade with full force. She fought against the memory of three days ago that threatened to flood her mind. It was a losing battle. Little by little, she remembered flashes of Kit’s face during their conversation. The tears that dripped down onto her cheeks, her lip quivering ever so slightly and her biting it to stop, her eyes, oh her eyes. Her eyes, which conveyed every emotion and thought Kit wouldn’t tell her.
She shook the memories from her mind and returned to the present. She looked at Kit who had shifted and was staring straight at her. She looked so unraveled. “Okay,” was all she managed to get out.
Kit tried to move, but her body gave out and she fell. Before she hit the bed, Jade caught her in her arms. Slowly, she moved Kit to where she was propped against her pillows. She stayed sitting at the end of the bed though. Kit made a noise, almost a whine, which got her attention. She patted the space next to her and Jade didn’t think to ignore the request. As soon as she got situated, Kit lifted her arm and settled her head on her chest. It took a couple of seconds for Jade to process what was going on. Once she did, she mindlessly ran her fingers up and down Kit’s arm.
Within minutes, Jade felt the smaller girl’s breathing steady, signaling she was asleep. Only then did she manage to relax. She felt all the muscles in her body release all the tension they were holding. At this point it had been five, maybe six hours. There was only so much she could do, but she did all of it. She needed to know that Kit would be okay, that she was being cared for. She needed Kit to know that she would be there for her and that she would care for her. Jade wanted nothing more than to be the one that Kit relied on and needed. She thought it was selfish, but she didn’t care anymore. She was the only one that meant something to her. She swore her loyalty to the crown, but really, she swore it to Kit.
—
Jade was startled awake by a knock.
“Kit?” she heard Sorsha say. “Are you awake?”
She was even more shocked to see how her and Kit had ended up. Jade had her body pressed against Kit’s and her arm draped around her waist. Kit’s chest wrap had started coming undone and was slipping off. Without looking further at the princess, Jade got up, put the covers over her, and walked to the door. On the way, she looked in the mirror to make sure she looked presentable at minimum. She was about to greet the queen at her daughter’s door and she had no idea she was there.
She opened it and Sorsha looked as shocked as Jade had just been. “Oh, Jade,” she said once she regained her wits. “I wasn’t aware you spent the night.”“She was sick,” Jade said, moving to the side to reveal a sleeping Kit with a bucket at the side of her bed. “When I did my rounds last night, I offered to help Arik and ended up staying overnight.”
It was always hard to read Sorsha, she hardly expressed her emotions. To Jade’s relief, she smiled. “Thank you for taking care of her.”
“It’s my duty.”
“It’s more than that though, isn’t it?”
This was more than Jade needed this early in the morning and this soon after she woke up. “What?”
“You two are,” she hesitated, “close.”
“You’re correct, we are.”
Whatever Sorsha hinted at, she stopped. Her face got slightly more serious. “The Shining Legion’s answer is here,” she said. “Ballantine has it.” Jade’s blood ran cold. She moved her mouth but no words came out. “You’re excused.”
Jade bowed. “Your highness.” Once Sorsha nodded her head, she sprinted down the hall. She ran into Arik somewhere in the castle. He mentioned something about Kit, some remark about how she stayed the night, but she ignored him. She ran out the doors, through the square, and arrived home. She burst open the door and Ballantine had a letter in his hands.
He gave it to her and she unfolded it. She read it frantically, skimming a lot of it. She gasped when she saw the words. She looked up at Ballantine. “They invited me to join.”
He roared with excitement and picked up and spun the redhead around in the air. “You’re something special, Jade.”
Her hands were shaking. She knew what it meant to accept the invitation and also to reject it. To accept it meant to leave Tir Asleen, to leave Kit. But it also meant to train with the Knights of Galladoorn, something she’d been working toward for years. To reject meant to formally declare her uninterest in becoming a knight and to stay stationed in Tir Asleen. To stay with Kit. She already knew what she wanted to do.
“I can’t accept it,” she said suddenly.
Ballantine’s face fell. “What?”
Her decision was totally uncalled for, completely unexpected, and entirely selfish. She wouldn’t change it for the world though.
“I’m not going to be a knight.”
Ballantine looked beyond confused. “But you’ve been training for this. You fought for this.”
“I just don’t think it’s what I want. To accept means to leave Tir Asleen for good, to turn my life around completely, and to follow orders for the rest of my life.” Ballantine stayed silent. “I know it’s selfish but I want to stay here. I found refuge here. I mean, Sorsha gave me a home, you gave me a home. I can’t just turn my back on everyone who has helped me.” She paused, taking in Ballantine’s reactions. “I’ve built a life here that I don’t want to leave behind. There are people here that I don’t want to be without.”
After a moment of silence, he spoke. “Kit.”
She nodded. “I know you might be disappointed, but there’s more to life than fighting for survival.”
He smiled. “I’m not disappointed, surprised yes, but never disappointed.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “I will always support you in whatever you do. Like I said, you’re special, Jade.”
Jade immediately felt tears run down her cheeks. She flung her arms around Ballantine and stayed buried in his chest for a few minutes to calm down. After he released her, she wiped her eyes.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“You’ve made the decision, that’s the hard part. Whatever you say, she’ll understand.”
=====
The first day she checked in on Kit, she was still bedridden. When she opened the door, her eyes were closed and she slept peacefully. Jade didn’t care, she still closed the door behind her as she stepped into the room. She looked around a little bit. It had changed a lot since the last time she was there, barring the previous day’s events. The bed was in a different place, it was more well-kept, she wasn’t sure if that was due to Kit or to the maids, and unsurprisingly, there were more weapons on her walls. News swords and daggers and knives. There was even a mace.
When she sat down, Jade felt Kit move against her. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, but the other girl had managed to snuggle up against her. Jade couldn’t help but smile to herself. No matter if she was awake or not, Kit always managed to gravitate toward her.
Her mind was calmer now that she had made a decision and knew what she wanted. She knew Kit was asleep, but that didn’t stop her from letting words tumble from her mouth.
“I’m not going to accept the invitation,” she started. She watched Kit’s sleeping form rise and fall with each breath she took. “And maybe it’s a bad idea, but I don’t really care at this point. There are a lot of reasons I’m saying no, but we both know what the biggest is.”
The words sounded clunky, not well thought out. She had stopped second guessing her words, she stopped overanalyzing the words she said. It was useless to expend as much energy as she had censoring herself. The last thing she wanted was for people to find out that she wanted Kit. Everytime she talked about her or to her for that matter, she viewed it as a factual interaction. She grew up being taught that emotions were fatal, but Kit chipped away at that notion until it was completely broken down.
“I never realized how much I was holding back. Now I feel like I’ve been a bystander in my own life. Like I’ve never been in control. I do what’s expected and I try to excel at it and it worked out for a very long time, but not anymore.”
Jade felt her eyes sting and that was her signal to leave. She looked at Kit for a couple of seconds. She ran her hands through her hair a couple of times and then leaned down and placed a kiss on her forehead.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
—
The second day, Kit was asleep again. Jade didn’t hesitate to go in and sit at the edge of the bed like she did the day before. And like the previous day, Kit unconsciously moved toward her. She didn’t start talking, though. She let herself stare at Kit, thinking about how much the two of them had grown and changed. When they first met each other, Kit was seven, she was eight. Jade couldn’t remember a lot of her first year or two in Tir Asleen, it was overwhelming and it was hard to adjust without her parents, but she remembered Kit.
She was a bright spot in her first years in Tir Asleen. A few days after arriving, she had an audience with Sorsha. That’s where she first saw Kit. She sat next to her mother and couldn’t sit still for the life of her. Yet she was very attentive. At the time, Jade had no idea why she listened to her so closely, but looking back, both of them were lonely and they immediately recognized that in the other. Of course they would gravitate towards each other.
The first time they spoke to each other, Kit had been running from guards in the square. The two had made eye contact and Jade could never place what came over her in that moment, but she decided to run with her. They laughed as they ducked behind a couple of barrels and the guards ran straight past in a panic. Two two of them sat there for two hours, talking about whatever seven and eight year olds talked about, before they got caught. They were escorted through the castle while giggling and they were presented to Kit’s mother. And maybe Sorsha felt lenient that day or maybe she just felt bad for Jade, but maybe, she saw something more. Maybe she somehow intuitively knew that the two of them would be inseparable for reasons unbeknownst to all of them.
When they were kids, they didn’t have a care in the world, but they still had their problems and troubles. Through thick and thin, they saw each other. Jade was there when Kit scraped her knee and when she broke down because Sorsha stopped acting like a mother and more like a queen towards her. And on the other hand, Kit was there for Jade when she got bruised during training and when she was so overcome with grief from the loss of her parents she couldn’t move. They were just kids and they couldn’t yet comprehend the depth of the relationship, but they knew that they had each other and that was enough.
Jade looked at Kit now and could still see the same kid in there. She was still cocky and headstrong and impulsive, but the difference now was experience. Her ability to use those traits to her advantage even when they could make things worse was unbelievable. She had a knack for understanding what needed to be done and doing it in her own way, to make it less of a chore and more of an activity. Jade knew it was a change, but Kit was still the same person at heart and Jade admired that.
She felt movement which shook her out of her thoughts. She’d been staring at her hands while thinking, but she turned her attention back to Kit, who was observing her with a soft smile on her face.
“How long have you been awake for?” Jade asked. Kit looked more awake than she should have if she had just woken up.
“Not long.” Jade gave her a look that conveyed she knew she was lying. Kit lowered her gaze to the floor. “Since you sat down.”
Jade’s face immediately heated up. “How long has it been?”
“Ten minutes, probably less. I’m not good with time.”
Jade needed to change the subject. “Feeling better?”
“Yeah, a lot, actually,” Kit smiled. “Thank you, by the way. For helping me out.”
“It’s nothing, really. I didn’t trust Airk, to be completely honest.”
Kit laughed. “He came in to check on me in the afternoon and he looked sicker than I did.”
Jade chuckled lightly and they fell into an uncomfortable silence. Neither of them could look at the other. Jade thought that Kit’s weapons were very interesting all of a sudden.
“I should go,” she finally said, getting up.
“Why?"
“Ballantine said he needed me to sign some documents and whatnot,” she said matter of factly. It wasn’t necessarily a lie. She had to write back to the Shining Legion and she and Ballantine discussed making her position in Tir Asleen permanent.
“Shining Legion stuff?” Kit asked.
“Yes and no,” was what she settled on as a response. She could tell Kit was going to ask another question, but she cut her off. “Will you come out with me tonight?”
Kit didn’t mask her surprise at all. “Like, you mean…what exactly do you mean?”
“Where you took me a couple of days ago. Would you like to go back there tonight?”
Kit’s lips curled into a huge grin stretching across her face. “I’d like that very much.”
Jade didn’t know where she was going with any of this. “Meet at the gate an hour past sundown?”
“Sounds perfect."
And with that, Jade turned on her heels and made her way out of the room, heart racing and palms sweaty.
—
Kit was waiting at the gate when Jade arrived. The only surprise was that she was on her horse, Eclipse.
“Too tired to walk?”
“I thought it would be fun to take a ride like old times.” Jade knew she was referring to when she didn’t have a horse of her own, so Kit would let her ride with her. “Unless you want to walk, in which case I can wait for you there.” Eclipse started walking away on Kit’s command.
“I’m coming.”
Kit held out her hand to Jade and helped her on to Eclipse. As soon as she was on, the horse took off which caused Jade to fling her arms around Kit’s waist to stay on. After she regained her balance, she let her head rest on Kit’s back. She looked at the stars in the sky as long as she could before her view was blocked by the trees. It was slightly warmer than it was, but between the winter clothes she put on and Kit’s warmth, she wasn’t bothered by the cold air as they sped through the forest.
Once they got to the clearing, the two hopped off of the horse and Kit tied her to one of the trees. Jade immediately walked over to the edge of the cliff and stared out. Kit joined her soon after.
“This place is amazing. There’s really no other way to describe it,” Jade said.
“I’m glad you like it.” They sat there for a couple of minutes, taking in the view that they’d seen before. Jade thought she could get used to it. “Why’d you ask to come out here?”
She had hours to think about her response to questions she thought Kit might ask her, but she didn’t waste the mental energy. She decided to roll with the punches. “I wanted to talk.”
“Wow, really?” Kit said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Jade shoved her softly with her shoulder. “But seriously, what’s on your mind? You’ve been really,” she paused, thinking about the past couple of days, “distant, I guess would be the right word.”
Jade sighed. She knew it was noticeable, but she just needed space to figure everything out. “I got the response to my petition.”
Kit looked ecstatic but Jade saw straight through it. Of course she knew Kit was happy for her, she had been her biggest supporter since the day they met. But she also knew Kit needed her and she was almost positive that she wanted her too.
“I declined their invitation,” Jade said before Kit could really respond.
“Wait, what?”
“They invited me but I turned them down."
“No, I know, but why?” Jade was pretty sure the decision came as a bigger shock to Kit than Ballantine. “You've been looking forward to this.”
“I have, but I’ve been thinking about other things.”
“Like what?”
Jade held her breath for a couple of seconds. She didn’t completely trust herself to speak, but she carried on anyway. “I want things and I’ve never let myself think about it before. Yes, I want to be a knight, but there are so many things that trump that. Becoming a knight was never my top priority. I can see the difference that I’ve made here and I want to continue my work here. I want to stay here, in Tir Asleen. It’s my home, it’s where my life is.” She swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat. “It’s where you are.”
She could no longer hear the waves or the birds or the twigs snapping under Eclipse’s weight. There was an incessant ringing in her ears and every thought was echoing through her brain. She watched as Kit processed the words. For some time, her face was blank, but she could tell that her mind was spinning just as much, if not more, than hers was. After a bit of time, neither of them knew how long it had been exactly, Kit wiped her eyes on her sleeves.
“You declined it for me?”
“Yes,” Jade said without hesitation. “Among other things,” she added at the end.
“When I asked you if you were going to leave, I really wanted to ask you to stay, but I knew that would be selfish.”
“You didn’t need to ask because I already knew you wanted me to stay.” Kit looked at her, confused. “I’ve known you for so long, Kit. Of course I knew that seeing me leave would break your heart. You couldn’t even talk about it.”
“I wear my heart on my sleeve, I guess,” she half-heartedly chuckled.
Jade smiled and nodded. “It’s admirable. People think it’s not wise, but it’s a hard thing to do.”
“Were you always going to stay?”
She shook her head. “I would have gone, but I think would have come back. I had to face reality at some point and I would have come to the same conclusion.” Despite her doubts, she took one step closer to Kit.
“What conclusion?” They were whispering at this point. The wind could barely hear them.
Both of them were looking deep into each other’s eyes, unable to break their connected gaze. Jade had one thought and she wasn’t going to hold it back. “That I want you . I am totally, ridiculously, desperately, in love with you. And I need you to know that.”
She could see Kit’s chest rise and fall with every rapid breath she took. Jade moved closer and Kit followed her lead. The two stayed in each other’s space, breathing in sync.
“Once I kiss you, I may never stop.”
“Only one way to find out,” Kit whispered.
Jade closed the rest of the space between them, placing a hand on Kit’s cheek while kissing her. Kit instantly put her hands on Jade’ waist, pulling her in carefully. It started off slow and gentle, both of their brains reeling from the words just spoken. They broke apart for a moment. Jade couldn’t stop staring at Kit’s lips no matter how hard she tried. Just as she was about to reconnect their lips, Kit spoke up.
“I’ve been in love with you for so many years.” The confession surprised Jade, but only because of how she said it. It wasn’t delicate and soft like how the conversation had been going. It sounded more like she blurted it out.
She continued after a moment. “I don’t think I really know how many years, but I haven’t been able to think of a life without you for a long time. You’re the only person that understands me and that’s all I’ve ever wanted.” Jade watched the tears start to fall. She wiped them away with her thumb. “No one bothered to listen to my wants. I’ve always been told what to do and how to act and it all goes against who I am but then there you are. You listen and you talk with me. You always catch me when I’m falling.” Both of them were crying now. Kit was a lot more emotional than she let on and her sentimentality always hit Jade harder than she anticipated.
They held each other for a long time, content with just being there for each other physically. They confessed, they’d done the hard part. Neither of them knew what was coming next, but it didn’t matter to them. No matter how challenging things might get, how many highs and lows they had, the important thing was that they had each other, and that was enough for them.