It's been a full week since I've seen Micah in person but it feels like it's been a century. I can't wait to see him today. We had so much fun at the garden last week, I'm not sure what we're going to do today but I'm excited to see where we end up. I can't wait to just tell him about my week, and for him to tell me about his.

He's picking me up soon to go get lunch but I hope that he isn't planning on going somewhere nice because I haven't dressed up today. I always want to impress him but I'm kind of tired of dressing up. I have to dress up when I go meet my clients and it's just so much work that I like to keep it simple when I'm on my own time.

I'm wearing jean capris with a chunky gray sweater and I just threw on my Nikes with my short shoulder-length hair pulled up into a stubby pony tail. I put on some foundation and mascara so I look like I tried a little bit but not really.

In my defense, I don't think that Micah put on any makeup at all to impress me so I don't feel too bad about leaving out the eyeliner or not shaping my eyebrows.

When there's a knock at the door, my heart almost leaps out of my chest. I don't know why I'm so nervous about seeing Micah but there's always just a little bit of nerves when we are together. It's new to me because nobody has ever made me as nervous as he makes me.

I swing the door open and he's standing there looking as tall and handsome as ever. His dark hair casing his face that is spreading with a wide smile as I open the door between us.

"Hey," I greet him before I notice that he's holding a small bouquet of flowers in his hand. "What are those?" I ask him dumbly.

"They're flowers. For you," He pushes them toward me and then once I take them, he walks into the apartment. "I know that they're cheesy but I just figured 'why not' so I hope that you like them."

I sniff them as an old man's voice is running through my head about what it means when somebody buys you flowers. 'When somebody buys you flowers, it means that they're in love with you' Dr. Blates had said when we were at dinner together. "They're beautiful. Thank you," I mutter before I head into the kitchen area to get a glass cup to put the flowers in with some water.

"I picked up Chipotle on the way here, I hope that's okay," He adds, holding up a brown paper bag.

"Chipotle is always okay," I say with a small laugh. "That sounds so good right now. Are we just staying in today then?"

"Yeah, if you don't mind," He confirms. We pull out the two aluminum trays from the paper bag and head over to the couch. Considering I didn't put too much work into my looks today, I'm definitely okay with just staying in the apartment today. That also means that we can be as cuddly and touchy as we want to be all day. And because it's Saturday, he'll probably be spending the night.

"I don't mind," I assure him. Sitting on the couch, I dig into my bowl. "So how was your week?"

"It was fine. I had an exam on Friday that I'm not feeling great about," He tells me. "What about yours?"

The hype after my conversation with Davis has died down now. I don't know if his threats were empty or he still hasn't gone on the attack but it's been a pretty calm week for me. "Nothing for me. Casey is starting to get tests so he's stressing out. Josie is getting back to normal with her family. But nothing for me, it's been a boring week."

"Well, I talked to my dad about getting you a job at his office. So if you're still interested, he said that they're looking for another receptionist. I know that it's not the most exciting work but it's something and it pays well," He offers me while we eat.

"You really don't think that it'd be weird?" I wonder skeptically. "Me working for your father and everything."

"No, I don't think that it'll be weird. I don't think that you'd spend much time with him anyway," He shrugs at me. "I think that it'd mostly be answering phones, taking messages, and making appointments. It'd be full-time, like a regular nine-to-five."

"Alright," I decide. I think that it'd be a good idea for me to get another job. Especially now with Davis being cryptically threatening so that I can't take as many clients as I used to. "Yeah, I think that'd be really great. Do I have to interview?"

"Nope. Just text me your email and I'll give it to him so that he can email you all of the info about it," Micah explains to me. "And his office building is just a few blocks away from campus so we'll be able to see each other more."

"That's a plus," I agree with him. "But I'm sure it could get us into some trouble."

"Maybe," He laughs a little bit. "I think it's worth the risk."

"It is definitely worth the risk," I confirm with a small laugh. I turn the TV on so that we can watch something while we eat but my eyes keep glancing over at the flowers sitting on the edge of the counter.

When somebody buys you flowers, that's how you know that they're in love with you.

In love with you.

I don't think that it's true though, because maybe Micah could feel like he's in love with me but he doesn't really even know me. I mean, he does know me but he doesn't know about what I do with my nights. Maybe if he knew that less than 24 hours ago, I was sleeping with another man for money, he wouldn't feel so in love with me.

The flowers are so pretty, a rainbow of pinks, purples, and blues. Maybe he just got them for me because we went to the garden last week and he thinks that I like flowers. Which I do. It might not mean anything at all.

But if they do, it's really going to suck if he finds out about what I do. And if we stay together for a long time, he's bound to find out. I mean, I kept the secret from Casey all this time but that wasn't as morally corrupt as keeping it a secret from Micah. Considering when we got into a relationship, there is a mutual understanding that we won't sleep with other people, I've broken that trust many times already and we haven't even been together for that long.

"What are you thinking about?" Micah asks me when he notices that I've zoned out.

"What?" I blink a few times and look over at him.

"You stopped eating," He motions toward my half-eaten bowl of Mexican food.

"Oh," I mutter, looking away from him and down at the bowl of food. "I don't know. Just spaced out, I guess."

"Thinking about what?" He asks me again, looking at me curiously.

"You," I admit slowly. "Just thinking about you."

"Care to elaborate?"

"I don't know..." I trail off and then put my food down on the coffee table in front of us. Thinking about hurting Micah by telling him the truth has given me an upset stomach so I'm not hungry anymore. "It's complicated."

"Eleanor," He says my name slowly and it sounds so beautiful. I could melt just by listening to him saying my name. He puts down his burrito as well because I think that he can sense that I'm really thinking about something serious that might need his entire attention. "What is it?"

"Just that those are nice flowers," I inform him. "You know, and I heard from somebody once that... no, it's stupid. I guess that I'm just afraid of hurting you, I guess."

He looks over at the counter and then back at me, looking very confused now. "Because of the flowers?"

"No," I sigh. "It's just that I think that if you knew everything about me, you wouldn't want to be with me. So I know that it would be easier on everybody if I just told you now so that you can leave and it saves both of us a lot of time and energy."

"I'm not following," Micah admits to me. "But it kind of sounds like you want to break up?"

"That's not what I'm saying at all," I promise him quickly. "I really, really don't want to break up with you but it's selfish not to. And I'm being selfish."

"That's good. You should be selfish," He suggests.

"You should know though," I inform him and then I get up from the couch and I go over to the mattress where I put my book of poems that I've written through the years. "Here, you should just read this. Not right now, but take it with you and read it later. So that you know everything about me and you can make an educated decision on whether you want to actually buy me flowers or not."

"Is this really all about the flowers?" He is still really confused.

"It's about the symbolism," I inform him, sitting back down on the couch with the book. I know that it'd be easier to just tell him the truth verbally but I don't have the strength to do it. I would never be able to get the words out 'I'm a hooker' I'd probably just gag on the words and give up. This way is easier, especially since I won't be able to see his reaction when he realizes it. "Alright, I know that I sound crazy, just read this."

"Do you really want me to read this?" Micah looks skeptical but he does take the old book from my hand. "I mean, do you really want me to read this?"

"No," I admit to him. "But you should."

"Eleanor, I'm not going to read it unless you actually want me to read it," He tells me. "I'm not going to know everything about you until you are absolutely ready for me to learn everything about you. I know enough to know how I feel about you and whatever is in that book won't change anything."

"I think that you're wrong."

"I think that you're underestimating my infatuation of you."

That almost makes me smile. "That makes you sound really creepy."

"I don't mean it in a creepy way," He informs me. "It just means that I really fucking like you. It's like being in love with somebody before actually loving them. I'm a little crazy for you but I'm not crazy enough to think that I love you just after a few weeks."

"That's refreshing," I sigh. "But I really think that you should just read it."

"I'm not going to," He shakes his head at me stubbornly. "I will read it when you actually are ready for me to read it. And until you're actually ready for me to know what it is that you don't want me to know, I will stay blissfully ignorant."

"But-"

"Hey, no buts," He interrupts me, putting a hand on my thigh in a casual, yet oddly romantic, way. "Unless the thing in that book is that you're going to kill me or anybody that I care about, it's not going to change how I feel about you. I'm just dogmatic like that. So we'll deal with whatever it is when you're ready to deal with it."

"What if you're wrong though? And what if we really do fall in love with each other and then you find out this big thing and you change your mind?" I mention. "Don't you think that it'd hurt less if you found out now instead of in six months, or a year?"

"Hypothetically, if this thing is that bad—which I don't think that it is, by the way—then we'll deal with it when it happens. I don't care. I want as much time with you as I can get before that happens."

I put my hand over his on my leg and then lean into him until my forehead is resting on his muscular shoulder through his t-shirt. "Okay."

There's a long pause in conversation where we just sit with each other. We're both still, my forehead still resting calmly on his shoulder and his lips are so close to my ear that I can hear him breathing. In and out, I begin breathing with him and it almost feels like we're just one solid being. One magical unit working together, two hearts beating in the same rhythm. I want to stay like this forever, breathing and beating with him. Feeling his hot skin against mine, his hand holding mine like the world depends on it.

I've always thought of myself as sort of a loner because my first and only priority was Casey. I was only a warrior for him. But feeling my heart beating with Micah's is sort of a reminder for me that I am still a person. I have a beating heart too, and it's okay to feel alive sometimes just for myself.

Micah makes me feel human and I don't think that I've felt so human since I saw my mom in a pool of her own blood when I was eight years old.

After our long moment of breathing and beating together, I turn my head to the side so that my lips are pressed against the side of his neck. I kiss him there, softly, before I mutter to him, "I'm infatuated with you too, Micah."

I can feel his pulse on my lips—I think that I'm only imagining it but I think that I can feel it speed up when I kiss his neck again. Even if it is my imagination, it makes me smile a little bit.

He doesn't respond but I hear him let out a loud exhale before he uses the hand that isn't on my leg to hold the back of my head. It would have been more of a romantic thing to do if my hair wasn't in a ponytail but this is nice too. Micah then slowly moves so that my face isn't nuzzled in his neck anymore and so that we're looking at each other.

Micah's eyes look familiar to me now, they make me feel like I'm at home in his deep brown eyes. The very edge of his irises are so dark that they almost seem black but then drastically change to a very light brown like the color of the caramel that covers apples. I've looked into his eyes so many times that I have them memorized, and I know that after they go to that caramel color, they fade into a darker brown the closer they get to the pupil.

Very dark brown, sudden caramel, and then fading into a dark brown again. Even if I wasn't staring at them right now, I would know exactly what they look like.

Slowly, we start to kiss. My eyes flutter shut as his lips touch mine and his hand starts to grip my hair a bit tighter.

I've kissed a lot of people in my lifetime but I've never had a kiss like this. My heart starts beating so quickly that I'm almost concerned for my health and my fingers start curling into fists on my lap. I've never lost my mind on somebody else's lips. Not even with Marcus.

Because I only felt in love with Marcus for one night a month but then it vanished. It obviously wasn't the real thing but this is the real thing, with Micah. I can tell that this is really something that we have here, something that I don't think that I could ever find again. I don't think that it's possible that there is more than one person on this planet that could make me soar like I am right now. Like I'm high, just off of this one soft kiss as if I'd just taken the longest drag off of the biggest bong in the world full of the strongest weed.

When I feel his lips start to part, I part mine too until I feel his tongue against mine. I get even higher.

As intoxicating as it is, it's also terrifying. Because I know that the higher I feel now, the farther I have to fall later. I love what I'm feeling right now but I'm also mildly terrified that the universe has given him to me only to rip him away from me when things get too good.