23. A Long-Distance Love #3
“I’m scared,” I say finally. “Sometimes I look at how hard we’re working just to keep our heads above water and I think… what if this is our ceiling? What if it doesn’t actually get easier after you graduate? What if we get there and we’re too tired and resentful to enjoy it?”
His jaw tightens. “I think about that too.”
The admission hangs between us—the kind of honesty that could either break something or make it stronger.
“But,” he adds, voice softer, “I’d rather be scared with you than safe without you.”
My eyes sting. “You know that’s not a logical argument, right?”
“Nothing about us has been logical,” he says. “We had a baby before we had a real plan. We’re figuring it out backwards. But I’m still here. I still want this. Even when I’m overwhelmed. Even when I forget a call. Even when you miss one. I’m not going anywhere unless you tell me to.”
“I’m not telling you to go anywhere,” I whisper. “Even when I’m mad. Even when I feel alone. I still want it to be you.”
He shifts closer, closing that small, awful gap between us. His hand finds mine, fingers threading through.
“Then we keep trying,” he says. “Not to be perfect. Just… to show up. Better than we did last week. And when we screw up, we talk instead of pretending we’re fine.”
My chest loosens just enough to make room for air again.
“Okay,” I say. “We keep trying.”
His gaze drops to my mouth, then moves back to my eyes. “Can I kiss you now,” he asks quietly, “or are we still in heavy-talk mode?”
“We can multitask,” I say.
He huffs out a soft laugh, then leans in. The first kiss is gentle, careful—like we’re both testing whether the ground between us is stable again. When I don’t pull back, he deepens it slowly, one hand coming up to cradle the side of my face.
Everything else drops away. For the first time in weeks, it’s just us.
No screens. No lags. No background noise except his breath and mine.
I slide my hands up his chest, feeling the tightness in his muscles, the steady beat of his heart under my palms. He shifts, turning so I’m on my back and he’s braced above me, leaving just enough space that I can move away if I want to. I don’t.
“Amelia,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Tell me if you want to stop.”
“I don’t want to stop,” I say, fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt. “I want to remember how this feels when everything else is loud.”
He exhales, that sound threaded with relief and something hotter.
We move slowly at first—kissing, touching, relearning each other without rushing past the moment.
There’s nothing hesitant about it; we’re not teenagers trying to figure out where to put our hands anymore.
But there’s still that same almost-first-time intensity, like every time we get to do this is its own small miracle.
His hands slide under the hem of my hoodie, warm against my skin. I lift my arms, letting him pull it over my head, hair falling around my face. He pauses, eyes roaming my expression, checking for doubt.
“I’m sure,” I say, answering the question he hasn’t voiced.
He smiles, small and earnest, then kisses me again—slower now, deeper, like he’s savoring every second.
Clothes end up in a trail—shirt, jeans, his hoodie, his sweats—none of it ripped off in a rush, all of it removed with the kind of care that says we both know what’s at stake.
The room is quiet, lamplight soft, shadows pooling around the edges of the bed.
When his skin finally presses fully against mine, a shiver runs through me—not from cold, but from the sudden, overwhelming relief of him being here. Not a voice. Not a face on a screen. Warm and solid and real.
He touches me like he’s relearning a language he already knows—fingertips along my waist, my hip, the curve of my shoulder. Every brush of his hand is a question: this okay? this still home? My body answers before my mouth needs to.
“It’s you,” I breathe. “It’s always you.”
His eyes close briefly, like that undoes him more than anything else could.
When he finally moves over me, sliding in slow enough that we both have to catch our breath, the air shifts.
There’s nothing casual here, nothing purely physical.
Every sensation is layered with the weeks of frustration and fear that came before it, the apology and promise threaded together.
We find a rhythm that feels like clinging—my hands in his hair, his mouth at my neck, both of us chasing something we’re afraid of losing. It’s not perfectly smooth; there are moments where emotion spikes and we have to pause, breathe, brace. But we keep moving through it together.
When I finally shatter, I grip his shoulders, eyes squeezed shut, his name a broken sound on my tongue.
He follows me a moment later, body tensing, breath stuttering against my collarbone.
After, he doesn’t roll away. He gathers me closer instead, arm banded around my waist, our legs tangled under the blanket.
His heart is still pounding against my cheek.
“This,” he says quietly, “is the only part that ever feels easy.”
I huff out a tired laugh. “Speak for yourself. My legs are definitely going to complain tomorrow.”
He smiles into my hair. “You know what I mean.”
“I do,” I say.
I lie there listening to his heartbeat, the faint noise of campus life outside the window, and the distant, phantom echo of Liam’s baby monitor in the back of my mind.
“I don’t want to pretend this fixed everything,” I say into his chest. “Because it didn’t.”
“I know,” he says. “We’re still stressed. We’re still tired. I still have midterms. You still have work and Liam and a brain that won’t turn off.”
“But I feel closer,” I say. “Like we took a step instead of just spinning in place.”
He squeezes me gently. “We did.”
For a while, we lie in silence, the good kind. No pressure to fill it. No obligation to perform. Just warmth and breathing and the quiet understanding that for tonight, at least, we’re on the same side of the distance.
I don’t know what next week will look like. I don’t know how many calls we’ll miss or reschedule. I don’t know how many times life will pull us in opposite directions before we can find a way to stand still.
But as I drift toward sleep with Reid’s arm around me and the weight of his birthday watch resting on my wrist for a moment—him insisting I try it on, laughing when it slid down—I know this much: Love didn’t magically solve anything tonight.
It just reminded us why we keep fighting through the hard parts. And for now, that has to be enough.