794 A Dazzling Time, Part <<Waah, surprise!>> I read those first two words, once and then twice, then moved on ahead. This wasn’t Irene. <<Hey, Boyfriend! Managed to swipe your girlfriend’s found while she wasn’t looking! Thought I should give you an update on her status since apparently hasn’t yet. Don’t worry about a thing, me and the girls are keeping lonely little lover company in stead! You owe us big time, hear me? ;)>>
Buzzed again. A photo this time around. And my God, I almost dreaded to see what I’d find.
It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what the hell I was looking out. It was so red and dim and out of focus, it was hard to make out anything. But I saw it, alright – I saw her. Irene at the center with a mic in her hand, visibly flustered and dying, singing her lungs out while a smudged outline of a tipsy Green and a cheering Red had her boxed into place.
I think I just found my new lock screen.
And because why not – another notification sprung out at me in the top right. Except I’ve missed this one by a full thirty minutes. Apparently Amanda had started a brand new stream – ‘movie watch-along with Ms. H’ – currently live to over eight thousand viewers.
Must be quite a good movie.
There was another flash of light – the brightest one yet – and I glanced back up to the dissipating trails of a big ball of fire, raining fading sparks entwined with the falling snow.
Then, I noticed it. To my right. Staring. Blinking. I turned.
“Something wrong?”
.....
Adalia simply stayed her gaze, missing the rest of the nightly performance, half her face intermittently illuminated in a different shade. Another explosion went off, and she was a moody blue when she finally answered.
“No…” She responded, the blue ebbing from her skin. “Just… looking… away…”
“Looking away,” I raised my brows. “By looking at me?”
“Yes…”
Another light flashed the dark skies. She turned a deep scarlet. Her lips almost a crimson red as she slowly spoke.
“You are… just like… him…”
“Who?” I blurted, clueless in that one second, before realization quickly caught up to me. “Oh, you mean… um, thanks. I’m flattered you think so.”
Being compared to a dead person from her past, a person that was deeply infatuated with her, at that… was not something I expected to be laid onto me tonight.
“I suppose so, though,” I went on. “In a way…”
“Not in… a way…” She said. “You… really are…”
The windows shimmered once more, and the deep purple tinting her silver locks almost seemed to sway a little closer.
“Just as kind… just as gentle… weak… but so very… strong…” closer, not my imagination, she really was getting closer. “...and you love me too… you saved me… too…”
“So you do think he saved you.”
“If he is… like you… if he loved me like… you…” the purple left her figure, the darkness enveloping. “Then yes… he did… I hope… he did…”
“What’s going on, Adalia?” I asked. “Where is this coming from all of a sudden?”
“Thinking…” She blinked, and I swear I could almost count every individual eyelash fluttering. “What I have done… to have someone like you… in my life… again…”
“You don’t think you deserve me?”
“No…” She whispered, blue again. “But I do not… care… about deserving… you… I will still… only want… you…”
“Well I don’t think I deserve you either,” I gave her a smirk. “But yeah, let’s not let that stop us, hm?”
From the side, I manage to glimpse at a rumbling explosion in unison – lighting the world in a flux of all kinds of colors. It was mesmerizing. She should have seen it, but as always, her eyes were focused on one thing, and one thing only.
“It’s getting even better, you’re missing it,” I said, glancing back at her. “I’m sure it’s okay for you to take a peek now.”
“No…” She shot it down at once, her gaze even heavier onto me. “It still hurts… to see…”
And as blinding as the lights were, I could still kinda see through the facade she has here.
“Are you flirting with me right now?”
“Yes…”
At least, she’s upfront about it.
“Do you know how to flirt?”
For an answer, Adalia crept another inch forward, and it was here she made first contact. Her hand brushing against my knee, pressing against it, almost as if she was trying to clamber over me or something.
“I’ll take that as a strong ‘maybe’,” I looked up at her, feeling a swell in my chest, anticipating ballooning. “So, what are you going to do next?”
“I am… going to crawl closer… to you…”
And true to her claims, I felt another hand press my other knee down against the hard concrete. I could hear her breath, feel her cold, see the braids I’d made in her locks slowly come undone with every move she made.
“Okay, you’re closer now…” I said, doing my best not to stammer. “Now what?”
“Now… I am… going to kiss… you…” She said. “Please… stay still…”
Naturally, I complied. And as she crossed the distance, another flash of scarlet painting her expression, her slightly parted lips, I couldn’t help but think back to all the things that transpired, all the things I’ve seen, all the things I’ve learned… with her… and she with me.
And I wonder…
“Before, back then…” I spoke up, her lips a meager gap away from mine. “When you were with Liamel. You told him that… that you didn’t know what love is, that you never felt what it’s like to love someone… and now with the way you are… well…”
The moment I began, I already wanted to stop – turn back time, shut myself up – but it’s too late now. I let the intrusive thoughts out, I have to let all of them out.
“How do you feel now? After everything, after today. With me – being with me, do you think you’re able to understand it now a little? Your thoughts, your feelings… your love… for me… do you… umm…”
I fizzled out at the end there, because even I stopped making sense of myself there. Adalia was frozen before me, idling like a robot rerouting all processes in order to compute an answer.
A few moments ago, I was wondering why I was being compared to a dead person – and now here I was doing the same exact thing to myself. I shouldn’t do that… she shouldn’t have to…
“Never mind,” I blinked hard, opening my eyes to find her flushed in a bright shade of green. “I was just thinking…”
“Are you asking… if I… understand… the feeling… of being in love… with you…?” She said, tossing her head and hair sideways in question.
“In other words,” I breathed out, her pale, beautiful face the only thing in view, and once again I recalled those words said so long ago. ” Do you finally understand what love means to you…?”
A few more fireworks burst and faded. A shine of yellow, another gleam of blue, before finally, I saw Adalia’s face suddenly ablaze so brightly, so clearly, in an explosion of pure white.
And for that one fleeting second, it was as if I could read her, sense her, the murky swirl in her eyes… momentarily so crystal clear, as she spoke.
“I still do not know… how it is to love…” She said, her voice ringing in my ears with so much more. “I do not… understand it still… or… why… it happens…”
The white light stayed. Burning the brightest, the longest. Adalia lifted a hand, placing it gently against my chest. I felt her body move closer.
“But I will… keep trying to… I will keep… wanting to…” the last of her whispers, the cold of her breath, everything, I felt it all, the very moment she slowly brought her lips towards mine. “Because… when I am… with you… it feels like… that I do…”
She kissed me. Passionately, firmly. And it was more than what she made it out to be, clearly. Everything unexpressed, with every word ringing hollow – this made up for it. All for her feelings, all the emotions trapped beneath the surface, I could feel them all.
Harder, she pushed. And I fell back, quickly pillaring us back upright with my arms. She was overpowering, overwhelming, the kiss a surge of all the things she felt for me. And it was a lot… more than I expected… more than I ever imagined.
It was like a bomb had exploded. Or a dam crumbling beneath a raging torrent. The way she felt, the way she loved…
Like a firework burning bright.
We broke apart. Our shared breathing the only noise in the sudden silence around us. Her fangs were showing, and around her eyes, vaguely, the bulge of veins protruding.
“A-Adalia, your…”
“Tonight…” She cut me off, both her hands lightly trembling against my chest. “I… still have you… a few more… hours…”
And suddenly, with a shove that did not take any effort, she pushed me down onto the snow-paved concrete. Another firework shot off, bursting, unveiling in a glow of deep red, the almost frenzied expression on her face.
“Please,” She said, and for the first time, I could hear much more rousing within her words. “Don’t let it end just yet.”
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