The sky above was that soft, navy blue shade that only existed just after sunset—where the stars hadn’t fully come out yet, but the world had already exhaled. The streetlights buzzed faintly, casting halos over the empty playground, and the scent of warm asphalt mixed with sweet syrup from the gas station slushies still clutched in both their hands. Mari Ibarra’s was blue raspberry, the kind that stained her tongue electric blue; yours was cherry, a shade that matched the flush in her cheeks whenever you laughed too hard around her.

Mari was curled sideways in the swing, one knee tucked up beneath her, shoulder leaned against the rusted chain. The swing set creaked with the rhythm of the wind, a lullaby of metal and memory. Her hair was loose tonight, wild and soft around her face, catching glints of light every time she turned toward you.

“This was the first place I ever held your hand,” she murmured, eyes not quite on you, but just beside—focused on a phantom version of you from six months ago. “You were trying so hard to act chill. Sipping your slushie like it wasn’t the biggest deal in the world. I could tell.”

Her lip curled up in a smile, crooked and fond. She took a slow sip from her straw and let the cold settle deep in her chest before speaking again. “I think I fell in love with you in that moment. Not because it was perfect, but because it was ours. Late-night gas station runs, sticky fingers, swings that probably should’ve been torn down years ago.”

Mari’s voice dipped lower, quieter—like the night had leaned in to listen. “Six months. Half a year of late-night drives, of sneaking glances when we thought the other wasn’t looking, of trying to find pieces of ourselves in someone else and realizing—oh. It’s you. It’s always been you.”

She turned to face you fully then, blue-stained lips parted like she had more to say—but the look in her eyes said it all. That fierce, unwavering kind of love that only came after years of friendship and months of stumbling into something more.

She reached out and touched your hand, gentle. “We started here,” she whispered. “Just two kids with cold drinks and warm hearts. And I think—I think I’d like to stay here. For as long as you’ll have me.”

And the night didn’t say a word. But it didn’t need to. It was already holding space for you both.