H A R P E R

I should have known. I should have known that I wouldn't be able to fight my true feelings for Wyatt and purely remain friends. I should have known, ever since I met him, that friendship was never all that'd exist between us.

But right now, lying awake with his limbs tangled with mine, the bedsheets barely covering our middle section, while I lazily run my fingers through his dark curls, carefully tucking them right behind his ear, while his fingertips lose themselves on the dip on my hip, I can see it much more clearly.

"You're my favorite person in the whole wide world." I found myself saying the words that ran across my brain, whispering them out loud.

In the dim light of the bedroom, his brown, amber colored eyes looked like honey, a dark shade of yellow and sticky, sticking my eyes to his.

Wyatt bent down and kissed me, so softly, so gently, it felt like a feather moving against my lips. Or I felt like a feather. Or both.

"I love you, too."

He knew it. He knew I loved him just as much as he loved me. That shouldn't make me feel the way I do, but in all fairness, our feelings had never been a secret between us and we had agreed on trying to get over them. But knowing that we both failed successfully at it made my heart flutter.

My lips felt like they'd go numb without constantly touching his, and so I kissed him again. He kissed me back, and I immediately felt his hands sliding away from that dip on my hip, upwards, up my spine, leaving a trail of tingles behind them. As the kiss got heated and our tongues danced a dance of their own, I let go of his curls and extended my arms, on each side of his neck, and dropped them back down, roaming my hands down his back. I felt his muscles flex as my palms grasped as much skin as they could.

"We need to talk about this." He whispered the words so quietly against my mouth, I felt like I was dreaming. "Us."

"What about us?"

"I can't go back to the way we were. Not after tonight."

"We're on the same page, then." I replied instantly, right before pecking his lips one more time. "We can't be friends."

His lips curled upwards into a small smile that confirmed he was as happy as he sounded about this news.

"You never were." Upon hearing him say it, I realized, he never was a friend to me either. We were always something more from the get go.

"So," Wyatt went back to his initial position, laying on his side, turned in my direction. I did the same, facing him. "What do we do?"

"First of all, I don't think we should tell them just yet. Especially Chloé, 'cause she will start planning our wedding the minute she knows."

"That wouldn't be too bad, 'cause I know I'll be marrying you."

I knew all too well that despite his joking tone,Wyatt was serious about it, but I laughed anyway - it was easier to think of what he said as a joke. "I'm serious, Wyatt!"

"I know, I know." He chuckled, before grabbing my hand, taking it to his lips and planting a kiss on it. "I was only kidding. Ish."

Another round of laughter escaped from both of us.

"But I do agree we should keep this under wraps for a while. Enjoy our own little bubble of bliss before they know."

Bubble of bliss. I took a few seconds to repeat these three little words he'd said over and over again in my head. Just knowing that he felt the same as me, did something to me.

"And the rest?"

I took a pause to think it through. To think about what I was going to say and how I was going to say it. But honesty is always the best policy.

"I never wanted us to be together the minute you told me you wanted to become a war photographer because I thought I loved you too much to even bear the thought of having to lose you. The thought of having someone call me and say that the person I love the most in the world died at the expense of taking photos privileged people can share like it's nothing."

"I didn't want to be in a relationship with you because I thought I loved you way too much to build something together that could easily fall apart. But I think I love you way too much to ignore this. Us." My eyes darted between his body and mine. "I love you way too much not to fight for us. What we have is too special."

"I'm really, really glad to hear you say that." He rolled to the side, and propped his head on his hand, his elbow supporting the weight. "But I think you need to stop seeing it that way. It's only going to hurt you if you do."

"Instead of thinking I'll be taking pictures that will mean nothing for everyone else, you should think I'll be taking pictures that will mean the world to me. See it like a dream of mine that I'll be making come true."

He was right, that did help me look at this situation through different lenses.

"Plus, I'm only taking classes now and I'm not finished with college yet. I wouldn't consider going anywhere before graduating or before I did some training with my teacher around the city." I nodded in silence. "You know the war zones are where I want to do my job, but New York has some pretty bad sceneries too... I gotta start somewhere and it definitely won't be between bullets."

"But you know me," I shrugged. "I'm an overthinker by nature."

"I know, I know..." He said, smiling. "But you don't want to overthink it just yet. It's gonna be a while before you need to do that."

Wyatt pulled the sheets away from his body, sat up in bed and bent down to kiss my forehead. "Although, I'm hoping you won't."

He leaned back and I immediately wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him back in, this time to kiss him on the lips.

"Where are you going in such a hurry?"

"I'm going to shower." His smile shifted from sweet to wicked before he said his next words. "Wanna join me?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

* * *

author's note

i personally love this chapter a whole lot, it's really emotional and heartfelt and it represents such a huge step in their relationship! 🤍

question: what do you think the group's response will be when they find out about wyatt and harper being together?

if you've been around for a while (or even if you haven't), you know that votes and comments are important for a wattpad writer, it's sort of how we see if our story's doing well, so pretty please, could you give me your opinions on harper and wyatt's story? thanks in advance and don't forget to follow me for more updates!

xoxo, mars