❝ your eyes have galaxies inside of them and the moment you looked at me, i got lost in the stars. ❞
i. kiss me — ed sheeran // ii. woodland — the paper kites // iii. a whole new world — aladdin soundtrack // iv. made of light — mikky ekko // v. long way home (acoustic version) — 5 seconds of summer // vi. living in the moment — jason mraz // vii. you are enough — sleeping at last // viii. ho hey — the lumineers // ix. sweet disposition — the temper trap // x. mess is mine — vance joy // xi. galaxies — owl city // xii. a world alone — lorde // xiii. ready to run — one direction // xiv. new perspective — panic! at the disco // xv. love — american authors
People frequently comment on how keeping a relationship going for too long isn't easy, that people eventually get bored of each other, because they are still human beings and they meet failure. Love turns into some sort of hate and light turns into darkness — and right now, it's so dark.
But Gus thinks about the fact that, since he was six years old, a day hasn't gone by when he hasn't thought of Liv.
Gus believes a little darkness means nothing to them, because they're Gus&Liv. They're meant to be together, forever. They're okay. Nothing spectacular. They always go back to the way they were, say, the night before. Except that this time it'd been too long, too much of a good thing. He'd come back to Liv's completely, absolutely pissed. And they fought. Not that it mattered.
They're lying in her bed, facing away from each other. He can barely make out the silhouette of the night stand next to his side of the bed, and the mug on top — halfway full with lukewarm water and a teabag of Liv's favorite tea. It fucking sucks. Not precisely the tea (if anything, just the lukewarm bit). It's just. Everything. It sucks, it really fucking sucks. The possibility of Liv leaving him crosses his mind once or twice — it makes him want to pull his hair off its roots. So he tries not to think about that. He thinks about her eyes — the blue in them. Like staring into the sea, and the sea staring right back at him. Gus thinks about her eyebrows, about the little crease she gets in her forehead when she's mad. When she's yelling at him. He thinks about her hands. About her hair, about her laugh. He thinks about the good and the bad and the ugly, about the fact that they're still sleeping on the same bed even when they can't stand to look at each other. And then he thinks about Liv leaving him again and he can't take it.
The movement is minimal — he doubts she can even feel it, if she's still awake — but he still turns to his side, facing Liv's back. She's breathing softly, slowly. Her shoulders rise and fall with every involuntary intake of breath, and for a moment, he thinks she's actually asleep.
But he can see it. It goes away as fast as it appears but — she's shivering. It's that perfect, icy stillness in the way her arms shake, barely visible. Gus doesn't really have to think about it twice before he's wrapping one arm around her waist, breathing a sigh of relief against her neck when Liv doesn't fight it and instead falls back into his arms.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, kissing her exposed shoulder once. "I'm sorry," he says again, leaving a trail of soft pecks on her neck.
"Gus."
"I love you."
"Gus."
He kisses her shoulder again, softly. "I'm sorry," his breath rattles against his throat as it leaves his lips, "I love you so much."
Two minutes. "C'mon," she turns to give him a smile. Gus counts the seconds as they pass by. 119, 118, 117, and he keeps going even as Liv walks outside, right by his side. She's holding a red cup with a mix of one-third Tequila and two-thirds grapefruit soda in one hand, holding onto Gus's elbow with the other. She's not drunk, though. He knows she's not, she's only drank two sips off the cup, but she's still been nursing it since they got to the party. He thinks it's cute. Music blasts off the speakers pushed up against the walls. It sounds like noise, more than anything. Just noise. Gus is nervous, he won't deny it. He's funny, like that — knows himself and knows what he's capable of. They follow a small crowd of people to the backyard of the house — just to see the fireworks. Two minutes.
"I've never been kissed on New Year's Eve," Liv says, leaning against his shoulder. "I mean, I know you know that, obviously. But still," Gus is strangely anxious, feeling like it's literally now or never. He also thinks, I want to kiss you. But, as he's learned after a long time of being Liv's best friend — a thought on its own is harmless unless you believe it. So he keeps counting, 100, 99, 98. Beat, beat, pause. "Me neither," he still mumbles a few seconds after.
Liv shrugs her shoulders, "It'll happen someday," she murmurs, her voice drowned by the crowd of people yelling around them, the blaring music. "I mean, there's no rush, right? I'm only seventeen, someone's gotta kiss me on New Year's eventually." 62, 61, 60. 60 seconds.
"60 seconds!" someone yells and people cheer. Gus sighs. "It's not that bad," he says, a little louder than before. "Not being kissed on New Year's Eve, I mean. It's like — it's just a kiss, isn't it?" 52, 51, 50. He can do this. "What makes it any different than any other kiss you've received before?"
She smiles at that, looking up at him for just a moment. Just a second. 48. It feels like a lot longer. 47, 46, 45. "It's just... special, I suppose." The thing is, he wants it to be special. He wants to kiss her right here, right now. He's afraid he will kiss her. He's afraid he'll spoil something beautiful because of a silly crush. Gus would say it's just a crush, if someone (her) asked — not that she's ever bothered — and, hey, the fact that he's completely, desperately in love with Liv doesn't really change anything. 30 seconds. People start to pair up, looking at the sky, hopefully, as if it'll make the world stop. As if one kiss could do that.
He's running out of time.
"Who d'you think'll be your first New Year's Eve kiss?" she asks suddenly. Gus raises an eyebrow, laughs softly. She's still leaning against hiss shoulder, so it's easy to slide his arm over her shoulders, gingerly tickle the side of her neck.
"Why do you even want to know?"
"So I can kill her before she gets to you."
"You wouldn't do that," he laughs again, pulls her to his chest and tries to hide the fact that he feels like his head is about to explode off his shoulders.
"'Course I would, you clearly don't know me that well," Liv laughs right into his face and the same rising thought from ages ago boils in his gut. I love you, I love you, I love you. 13, 12, 11. 10.
"Ten! Nine, eight," people's voices ring in his ears, buzzing. It's awful. Liv buries her face in his chest. "Seven, six!"
"Wait, Liv."
"Five!"
She turns to look at him, "Yeah?" "Four!"
He can't breathe.
"I'm... I was w—"
"Three, two!"
"Mhm?"
"One!"
Gus kisses her. It doesn't really hit him right away, but he's not surprised to find that her lips are unbearable soft, or that they fit between his' perfectly, or that his stomach fills with butterflies the moment he realizes — he's literally kissing Olivia Whittman. Liv... his Liv! And then everyone's cheering and yelling 'Happy New Year', and then the world stops. As if one kiss could do that. The world stops and he can't hear anything, can't breathe. And then, boom — the first firework. He feels the roar of it burst under his feet. He sees pinwheels of white beneath his lids. Another firework shoots into the sky, then a thousand more follow close behind it.
And then it's over. He pulls back to find her there. Liv's eyes cross when he tries to meet Gus's gaze, and he smiles. "I'm sorry," he says, knows he doesn't really mean it. Liv's smiling back, a wide grin taking over her lips and all he can think about is how much he wants to do it again, and then another time after that, and another, and another infinite times until the day he dies. She's beautiful. She's so beautiful. "That was fun!" she laughs.
