“Nothing Hurts Here”

You’d been clean for five days.

No weed. No cuts. No smoke. No blood. Just Kevin’s texts every night and his arms around you in the quietest parts of the day.

Five days didn’t sound like much to most people.

But to you, it felt like climbing a mountain barefoot.

That morning, he’d surprised you at your doorstep with two coffees and a crooked grin.

“You’re mine today,” he said. “We’re skipping school.”

You blinked at him, still half-asleep. “Are you serious?”

*Kevin leaned in, kissed your forehead, and whispered,+ “Let’s go be alive somewhere else.”

You grabbed your hoodie, your sketchbook, and followed him out the door.

⸻

He drove you to the edge of town, where there was an old lake no one really went to anymore. The water was still. Quiet. The trees tall and slow-moving in the late-morning breeze.

You laid out on a blanket in the grass, and for a while, you just listened—to birds, to his heartbeat beneath your ear, to the sound of your own thoughts not screaming for once.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

You did.

You felt his fingers trail down your wrist gently—slow, patient, loving. He wasn’t afraid of your scars. He kissed them sometimes. Not to erase them, but to tell you they weren’t ugly to him.

“You’re glowing,” he whispered.

You opened your eyes. “I probably look dead.”

Kevin smiled. “Nah. You look like someone who’s finally starting to breathe.”

You didn’t say anything. Just kissed him.

And this kiss wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t desperate. It was slow and deep, with sunlight warming your cheeks and your bodies already pressed close.

You moved over him, straddling his hips, hands sliding under his shirt. You weren’t hiding anything today. Not the way you wanted him. Not the way your chest ached with how much you loved him.

Kevin pulled your hoodie off, kissed the space between your collarbones. You leaned over him, hands in his hair, his breath catching under your touch.

It wasn’t sex, not yet. It was heat and hunger and skin on skin and the space between your bodies narrowing with every heartbeat. It was the kind of closeness that felt sacred.

But then—you paused.

“Kev?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want to lose this,” you said, voice shaking. “I don’t want to mess it up. I’m so scared all the time.”

Kevin sat up, brushing your hair back, looking you right in the eyes.

“You won’t lose me,” he said. “Even if you mess up. Even if you break again. I’m not here just for your good days.”

You swallowed, hard.

Then he smiled. “But for the record, this one’s a really good day.”

You laughed through your tears, collapsed into his chest, and let him hold you.

Later, you went into town—shared fries at a diner, slow-danced in a parking lot to a song playing from his car speakers, and kissed like nothing else had ever existed before this.

That night, you lay in his bed, curled into him, your back against his chest, his breath steady against your neck.

You whispered, “Nothing hurts here.”

Kevin kissed your shoulder. “Then stay. As long as you want.”

And for once, the future didn’t scare you.