The rooftop feels like a dock suspended in the sky.
Wind rolling over you like tide.
Janet sits at the edge, shoes dangling over nothing, staring out like she’s waiting for a ship that never comes.
You used to sit beside her.
Now you stay standing.
Too much space between you.
When you confessed, it hadn’t been dramatic.
Just quiet.
I think I love you.
You’d said it like something sacred.
Janet had gone still.
“I don’t think I can give you that,” she’d replied gently. “I don’t… feel that way.”
But the truth was — she didn’t know what that way was.
You had climbed down from the roof that night feeling like you’d stepped off something higher than the building itself.
And you stopped reaching for her.
Stopped brushing hands.
Stopped watching her like she was something holy.
It left a silence between you.
A hollow.
The next time you climb up, the sky is pink and bruised with evening.
She’s not on the ledge.
She’s kneeling.
Facing you.
Like she’s at confession.
Your breath falters.
“Janet—”
“Please don’t walk away,” she says quickly.
The wind tugs at her hair.
She looks wrecked by something she can’t name.
“I thought what you felt was just… intensity,” she says. “Gratitude. Attachment.”
You swallow.
“And now?”
She shakes her head, frustrated.
“I tried to ignore it,” she admits. “The way I wait for you to climb the stairs. The way I feel lighter when you sit next to me. The way I hate when you don’t.”
Her voice drops.
“The way it feels like I’m standing on the edge of something every time you look at me like that.”
You crouch in front of her slowly.
“You told me you didn’t feel it.”
“I didn’t understand it,” she corrects, almost pleading.
She looks up at you like you’re something she’s just realized she’s allowed to want.
“In my life,” she says softly, “that kind of love didn’t exist for girls like me.”
The wind moves between you.
“You made it exist,” she whispers.
Your chest tightens.
“You turned me down,” you say, not cruel — just honest.
Her face crumples slightly.
“I thought I was saving you from something shameful,” she admits. “But when you stopped reaching for me…”
Her voice trembles.
“It felt like drowning.”
The word sits heavy.
Like saltwater in your lungs.
You reach out and cup her face.
She leans into your hand like she’s been waiting for it.
“I fell too early,” you murmur.
“And I fell too late,” she breathes.
Her hands grip your wrists — not to push you away.
To hold you there.
“I don’t know what to call this,” she says quietly. “I just know it feels like standing at the edge of the ocean at night. Terrifying. Beautiful. Bigger than me.”
You smile faintly.
“Then let it be big.”
Her eyes search yours.
“Are you still mine?” she asks, barely above the wind.
You lean closer.
“I never stopped being.”
That’s when she breaks.
She rises from her knees and pulls you into her — desperate, almost reverent.
The kiss is soft at first.
Then deeper.
Like something long-suppressed finally exhaling.
Her hands tremble against your waist.
She kisses you like someone who’s just realized she’s allowed to.
When you part, her forehead presses to yours.
“I’m not afraid of it anymore,” she whispers.
The wind howls around you like open sea.
“And I don’t care what it’s called.”
She kisses you again.
Not late this time.
Right on time.