Adrian

She is my miracle, my constellation, and my love song. Her smile saves me from drowning in chaos. The twinkles of her brown eyes brighten my darkest night. I hear her voice as the melody that always lifts my spirit.

She's my soulmate, my Violet.

Stubborn strands of her chestnut hair fall on her face, and she scrunches her nose. I want to brush them away, but I don't want to wake her up yet. She doesn't know I'm here. It's her twenty-fourth birthday, mine too, and this is what she wanted as her present.

"What's your wish for this birthday, V?" I ask over the phone while running across the field. It's 5 am, and we've been talking for five hours straight. The fact that both of us haven't slept the whole night shows its effect on my muscles.

"How about you as my birthday present?" She says, and I don't miss the playfulness in her voice. Then she clears her throat, hiding the fact that she spoke what was in her heart. "I was kidding. Just Facetime me after your game."

So, here I'm in her room, lying beside her on the bed with her being only an arm's reach from me. My heart won't stop thudding, and my soul aches to gather her in my arms. It's been months since I breathed her scent and embraced her. Thick eyelashes fanning towards sharp cheekbones, and with kissable lips pulled together in an adorable pout- she looks so beautiful that I revel in the feeling of her beside me instead.

The moon gleams silver through the window she left open tonight. Is that a coincidence, or can she read my mind? I call it my luck. The second I arrived in the town, I wanted to run to her house and see her pretty face. But I decided to give her a surprise birthday present. She will be pissed, yes, but I want to kiss her breathless even more when she has those streaks of fire in her eyes.

It's been a year since she's here in town, training under her dad, and I'm playing soccer across the world. Although we belong to two different worlds now, our hearts belong together. Because no matter where I go, I will keep coming back to her, my Violet, my home. I finally move the strand of hair on her face with my index finger and tuck it behind her ear. She squirms a little in her sleep and moves an inch closer to me.

I inhale sharply as her breath mingles with mine. My willpower turns into ashes with every whiff of her familiar scent. I am too weak when it comes to her. I cannot stay away from her another minute, another second. It's pure brutality.

Composing my uneven heartbeats, I twist my head on the pillow. I let myself believe that she's finally in front of my eyes.

Violet is curled up beside me, lost in her dreamland. Her hands are now over mine. She pulls my hand and tucks it under her face. She looks so content, peaceful, and happy that a sob forms inside my throat. A deep frown appears on her face, with her eyes closed but eyebrows pulled together. Then her dark eyes blinked open. The moment the fog of sleep clears, she stares at me like I'm a ghost, only that I'm not.

Violet

The feel of his warm skin, his familiar scent seem too real to be a dream. I wake up abruptly, trying to calm the race of my heart and open my eyes into the darkness of my room to those ocean green eyes. His uneven breath tickles my face to my right. It's not just a dream because I feel them too.

I lay still, blinking at his handsome face, which has turned sharper over the year. He still has the same brown messy hair, a little close-cut now, but they make him look so much like a grown man. He tugs his lips upward into a most beautiful smile, and I start sniffing. I place my palm over his warm cheek to confirm I'm not dreaming.

"You're here, Adri," I whisper, my lips trembling under the impact of my ragged breathing.

"I'm here, V." He frames my face in his large hands and nudges our noses together, and within a second, I'm up and in his arms. I cling to his body, sobbing into the crook of his neck. I'm sure both of us will run out of air supply if I keep holding on to him like this.

"I missed you," I mumble against his ear, and then I'm sobbing again.

"God, I missed you so much, V," he groans, pulling me closer to his body, and I don't care if someone walks on us right now, but I keep crying against his neck like a baby.

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming back to town?" I pull away enough to capture the features of his face as he runs his thumbs over my wet cheeks and places a deep kiss on each of them.

"It was your surprise birthday present." He laughs through his glassy eyes and then pulls his lips up into a smirk. "Tell me you love it."

I slide closer to him, and he rolls us over, so he is leaning on top of me, balancing his weight over his elbows. I cup his face and pull him down, our foreheads touching, noses too. "I love you, Adri. Tell me you're staying." I sound so desperate, needy, and so weak, but I don't give two shits about those emotions. Because staying away from him, knowing that I'm so deeply in love with him, was like a death sentence for me, and he's finally here to save me.

"I'm staying right here with you, forever," he breathes and then leans down, tilts his head to press his lips to mine. It's a feather-like touch. "I want to fulfill my promise. I want to take you on that date I promised, and this time nothing can stop me from kissing you."

His words render me breathless all over again. My eyes fall on the dog tags clinking together as they dangle above my face, and I catch a letter V on one of them. I reach for them, and there it is, a letter V on one side and A on the other side. When I search his eyes, I see how his cheeks turn a shade of pink as he tries to pull the dog tags from my hold. And that does it. I hold the back of his head and bring his mouth to mine.

But before our mouths can mold together, he speaks against my lips, a little breathless. "Are you sure, V? We can wait till our date. I want this moment to be perfect."

"This is perfect," I mumble, already losing myself in the moment. "I don't want to wait. No more waiting, please."

"If I kiss you, I won't let you go ever," he runs his thumb over my bottom lip and then places a slow open-mouth kiss on the corner of my mouth. "I will lock you up with me and keep you to myself."

I release a low laugh, holding his gaze. "Oh yeah, and what are you going to do then?"

His green eyes turn a shade darker, a devilish glint running in them. "Whatever I want and whenever I want."

"I need..." My mouth turns dry under the intensity of his gaze. "I want you to kiss me." And he doesn't waste another second to hold the back of my head as he devours my gasp. The kiss is as powerful as the grip he has on the back of my neck. It makes me breathless, the intensity of the naked truth in this new feeling, in kissing someone you know has been waiting so long to kiss you and really wants to kiss you. There's nothing gentle about how we are learning, exploring, and living each other's tastes. It's everything, fireworks, explosions. Then his kiss turns tender as he licks across my lips, parts them with his tongue, and explores every corner inside my mouth. I do the same. He tastes like life, death, afterlife, and rebirth, a full circle. His hand moves to brush my cheeks, hold my nape, and pull me more against him.

When he stops kissing me, we're both breathing heavily. He holds my eyes for a second before the first tear falls on my cheek. I tug his face down, and we kiss again, only this time we taste the salty confessions, the pure agony of separation through the kiss. I lift my hands to tangle my fingers in his hair, soft as I remember touching them so many times before, then curl my hand around his nape and let myself dissolve in the warm, fuzzy feeling of arousal taking over us. Adri doesn't do half-assed things. And this is evident through how he shifts above me, bracketing me between his tensed biceps while I feel his desire hot and hard against my hip.

We break from the kiss, and he shifts away, pulling his hips back. The veins lining his neck tell the story of his restraints finally coming loose. At least I don't hold back my emotions for him anymore.  

"Fuck, that was hot," I mumble across his lips, panting. "Where did you learn to kiss like that?"

"Do you want me to teach you?" He groans, nibbling on my bottom lip while his fingers trail across my belly and touch the exposed skin lightly. I shiver underneath him, his touch working as raw fire all over my body.

"Sure," I breathe, tugging his t-shirt up, and he pushes away a little to help me pull it off him. My eyes instantly capture the pattern over his left breastbone, and I know what it resembles in a flash. He follows my gaze, and I use the moment to flip us over. I run my fingers over the little flower inked over his skin, my eyes turning glassy. It's a Violet.

"Is that a Violet?" I ask, looking at him in awe. "When did you get this?"

He reaches up to frame my face in his warm palms and pulls me closer to his body. "It doesn't matter when I ink it over my skin. My Violet has been inside my heart for a long time now."

Then his lips are back on mine, and this time, we take slow, languid sweeps across each other's mouths. And at this moment, I remember the day when he walked through my window, and I broke his heart. That day he had a bandage over his chest.

But I don't let myself regret any of the moments I lived with you, dear Augustus. Instead, I thank you for being the reason I'm finally with Adrian, my anchor, my rock.

He smiles. It's bright and fiercely stirs my insides.

"When I think about it, I didn't have a choice, really."

His face blurs when he leans closer to my face. His warm lips skim my cheek, and damn, it fills my heart with so much love, I fear it's going to implode any second.

"I want the man I know would never let me go and who will hold me through all my darkest nights. I want a crazy man who can be my best friend and watch All the Bright Places with me a hundred times just because it has my name in it."

Now he moved on to my jaw, nipping lightly, helping me shrug out of my shirt. I place my palm on his chest, feeling the wild thudding of his heart as he gazes into my eyes.

"I want to own the back seat of your bike for a lifetime and kiss you under the spitting sky, not just friendly peaks on the lips but how you kissed me just now, full of passion and desire. I want you to serve my sweet tooth until we're too old and all my teeth have fallen off. I want the man I know I can't live a day without because if I did, I would be fucking miserable, Adri."

He groans when I pull back to admire the love shining in his eyes. It's so potent and mesmerizing that I can't move or breathe. I don't realize how my emotions run down in silent resignation until he draws a finger down the side of my cheek and wipes away the wet trail there.

"I'm in love with you, Violet, and nothing feels as perfect as you in my arms. You're my home." Adrian murmurs. I can't stand the space between us any longer and band my arms around him, hanging on for my dear life. His breath is hot against my neck and my lips as he chants my name, whispers his love for me, and I feel it with every beat of my heart.

It's my love song.

***

Author's Note: So, this is the end of the story Dear Augustus. I'm not sure what's coming next, but thank you for being with me this far. Let me know your thoughts, and don't forget to vote. Love you!