It wasn’t rare that a boy would find comfort in the warmth of those surrounding him, like he had with you. But it was also known that as you grew into adulthood and left adolescence, you were expected to find this solace in more.. normal things, women.

Except you never grew out of him, nor him out of you. In fact, as time withered on, your souls only became more buried and knotted into the other, like a rope tying the noose that would be love purely conditional.

So secrecy was in order to keep this tenderness. His hands drifting over your skin only in the dark of your room, unseen by even the light of the sun. His eyes tracing over your features that he had watched change over time, the skin that he had watched prickle with tears and shift with laughter.