All About You

Thirty Four

I t’s sprinkling when I get home, which is frustrating. I didn’t bring an umbrella, so I had to walk the entire way from the bus stop home. Thankfully, the rain only got heavier once I was safely inside.

I shower immediately, not wanting to cope with an impending cold. All the while, Christine’s words wash over me just as the water does.

Marlon was into me all this time.

We’d both been into each other unknowingly, while thinking the other was into someone else.

God, talk about absolute wrong timing and miscommunication.

What a fatal coincidence, since miscommunication is what annoys me most in the romance books I read.

I need to see Marlon, to tell him that it was him all along. To apologise to him.

I need us both to have our cheesy little romantic reunion, to have our moment where everything that’s been hiding is revealed. God, how do I even make up for how I’d been acting the last two weeks?

How can I possibly mend the damage I caused? Even if Marlon liked me before, would he even like me now, knowing that this is how I deal with my issues? By ignoring them, hoping it’ll go away all on its own?

Once I’ve settled into drier clothes, I glance outside the kitchen window. The rain is pouring now, the season’s rain making its debut heavily.

Ugh , great.

I was planning to hopefully walk over later, when the rain had receded to talk to Marlon in person, but now, even the rain was trying to sabotage me.

I contemplate calling Marlon, but decide that this is something that needs to be done in person.

As the hours peel away, the rain doesn’t seem to die down. The heaviness dwindles, but it’s still too heavy to walk under. By the time all of my family is home, it’s still pouring.

“We’re finally getting the autumn rain, huh?” Dad proclaims. Ria heats up a meat pie for herself.

“I’m so glad. Rain makes it easier for me to study.”

My expression twists in confusion. “Why would you need rain to study?”

Ria shoots me an unimpressed glance, as if I should know the answer already.

“For the aesthetic, duh.”

Well, it’s not aesthetic at all right now, especially if it’s meddling with my plans to reunite with the boy who’s potentially the love of my life.

Before dinner, my parents tell us that they’ve got an order of ube pandesal to pick up at a house not far from us. I lock the door as they leave, groaning at the rain. The sun is dipping rapidly below the horizon, and the colours remind me of the mountain overlook.

Marlon’s face, blazing and beautiful under the sunlight, flashes through my mind.

Fuck it.

I run upstairs. This rain can keep pouring for all I care.

It’s not going to stop me from my happy-ever-after.

Ripping a jumper from my wardrobe, I throw it over my body, and clumsily put on some socks. I grab my umbrella from the doorknob, and almost stumble down the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Ria yells from her room.

“To win Marlon back!” I scream back, the euphoria bursting from my chest.

Opening the door, my heart races in anticipation.

“Jaslene.”

He’s there.

Standing under the rain.

Marlon, with a light-blue jacket and black joggers that’s beginning to grow more and more drenched by the second. Standing on my lawn, in front of my house.

My lips part in surprise and I step forward, crossing the threshold. The rain hits me immediately, and it’s loud against the pavement.

“Marlon?” I yell, squinting, because I’m afraid now that my feelings for him have caused me to drastically hallucinate.

When my vision makes out his figure, I step forward, pace quickening. The rain is going to make him cold to the bone, and then he’s going to be sick, and it’s all going to be my fault.

“What the hell are you doing? You’re going to ge-!”

“Christine told me everything.”

I stop just as I reach him, my body immediately rigid.

“She - what did she tell you?”

My words tumble over each other in a mess. Marlon shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“What - why are you sorry?” I ask, because if anything, I’m the one who should be crying a million sorry’s right now.

Even if he forgives me, I’ll never stop apologising. He takes one step, and another, until he’s right in front of me. I fear that if he steps any closer, I’ll perish. I’ll burst into flames.

Marlon’s eyes hold mine. It’s all brown, everywhere. My comfort. My safety.

His stupid hair is all wet from the rain, and he has that unbearable, dimpled smile, the one that I never stand a chance against.

I hate how the sight of him reduces my entire being to rubble.

Everything around us peels away, the rain, the sound of the wind, until it’s just us.

“I broke the first rule.”

“You - what?”

“No catching feelings, remember?” he mumbles.

My breath catches at the base of my throat. I forget how to breathe.

“You - you like me?” My voice sounds so pathetically hopeful, glazed with that childish, naivety. “Whe - H -How?”

“I don’t know the second, the hour, the minute that it happened. I’m not sure if it was when you first held my hand on our first fake date, or when you had cinnamon sugar all over your lips. I don’t know if it was when I first saw you with your hair braided, or when you first gushed about your favourite book, or movie, or song. I just - the sum of every single second of all these moments, made me realise this wasn’t just pretend anymore. It couldn’t possibly be.”

His hand reaches up, and they trace my ear, my jawline, before his palm settles against my cheek, like they belong there.

“I was already so far gone for you, before I’d even known I’d started.”

His words set off a blazing fire within me and I’m confident, I’m certain that of all the boys I’ve ever loved, I’d let him ruin my life the most. I lean into his touch, my entire being melted.

What do I even say? How could my own words possibly relay to him that my feelings surpass the sum of all the seconds we’d spent together since we were born?

“What about Christine?” I whisper, because I need to hear it from him. I need to know that this isn’t just a momentary thing. That this is solid.

“Jaslene.” He shakes his head, and cups my other cheek, so my face is encased in his grasp.

“You told me that loving someone is to become the best version of yourself with them. To feel your heart race beyond anything anatomically possible. I thought that’s what I felt with Christine, until you came and turned everything upside down.”

My breath hitches, and he smiles.

“Your love for love is infectious, Garcia, because look what it’s done to me. I’ve become hopeless. ”

Marlon’s eyes bear into mine, wide with innocent hope. A hope that pulses and expands in my own chest.

“I choose you. I’ve always been all about you,” he murmurs. “You’re my person, Jas.”

I’m unsure if lightning strikes in the distance, or if that’s just me, if that’s just my brain, my heart, my entire being growing insane.

I hold his gaze, and I know that this is real.

This is real, and better than anything that I could’ve ever dreamed of. Anything that I could’ve ever written, or read, or watched.

A story that belongs to us.

“You’re my person too, Marlon.”

Delicately, yet naturally, our lips fall together. Slowly, as if we are unsure. It is not until I hear the sharp intake of his breath, and my name whispered gently against my mouth that I know this is right. My kiss in the rain was always written for him.

My arms wrap around his neck, pulling him closer, just as his hands travel down my ribs, settling at my waist, drawing me in. Our lips are moulded only for each other and while we are clumsy, we are fitting. I am furious at myself for denying this for so long.

We pull apart after what feels like minutes, or hours, or even years. Our eyes meet and suddenly we fall into giggles, like two foolish teenagers in love. There’s a heaviness in Marlon’s gaze that makes my stomach turn in of itself.

“So you really ran all this way in the rain, just for me, huh?” I tease, tracing his jaw with my fingers.

“Well, duh . It only seemed fitting that it be raining when I tell you.”

He’s grinning, and I never want to stop kissing his dimples forever.

“Tell me what?”

Marlon leans forward, brushing his nose against mine, before pressing his lips against my cheek.

“That I like you. Most ardently.”

Frankly, if I were to die right there, I could die the happiest girl alive.

“And besides, didn’t you say you’ve always dreamed for your first kiss to be in the rain?” he murmurs against my ear. I pull back, laughing.

“You’re a loser.”

“I am. And you love it”

We fall back together, our mouths unable to stay away from each other.

It’s not until I hear a violent honk that Marlon and I spring apart. Bright headlights shine on us from my parents’ car. They’re back from picking up the food.

“Um…” Marlon says. He steps away from me, leaving me cold. I realise that I’m practically soaked to the bone. Mum steps out of the car first, a poncho over her head.

“Marlon, Jas?” she screeches, horrified, “What are you doing in the rain? You’re going to get sick.”

She ushers us both into the house, where Ria is standing at the front, snickering.

“They were making out, Mum,” Ria says, and I nearly lunge at her.

“Is all the kissing worth catching a fever?” Mum chastises.

I want to tell her, yes. Yes it is.