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Izzy had just put down the box she'd lugged into the living room when Duke's voice came up the stairs, "Izzy!"
"What?" she called back, clapping the dust off her hands.
"I found something!"
Obviously, he did. That was the point of clearing out the basement. Still, he wouldn't have called if it wasn't something unusual, so Izzy made the trek back downstairs.
Duke sat in the carnage of the half-cleared out closet. He had a folded up letter and a certain Look on his face. It wasn't until she'd made it all the way down that the open shoe box next to his knee came into view, and suddenly she was sprinting over like that was going to help. "Oh my god—"
"So you'll never guess what I found."
Izzy made a swipe at the letter, which failed. "—dude—"
"Am I to believe that all this time—"
"It's not what it looks like!" she squawked, trying valiantly to grab the paper he held just out of reach.
"—that all this time, you had a lover. Since you were six."
Izzy smacked a hand over his mouth. "That's not—" Her other hand managed to grab his wrist, though it was also at that moment it became apparent that she'd basically climbed onto his lap, and that his arm had snaked around her waist. She could feel the blush spreading over her face like the grin against her palm. She scowled. "Don't say it like that. It's not like that."
The only response she got was him waggling his eyebrows at her. She lasted exactly one second before she broke eye contact, mouth pressed hard against the urge to laugh. Yeah, no, she wasn't dealing with this. It was too embarrassing.
Izzy let go, intending to get off, only to flail in the sudden octopus hug he pulled her into. "Hey!"
"See, there's one thing I want to know," he said. "Does this lover—"
"Ew!"
"—of yours have a name? You know, first name, last name? I just want to talk."
Izzy covered her face with her hands, despite the semi-headlock she was trapped in, and made a sound like a dying trumpet.
"Sorry, what? I'm going to need a little more than that."
"…if I told you he doesn't exist?" she mumbled.
There was a beat of silence. His arms loosened. Izzy slid the rest of the way to the ground.
The next she removed her hands, it was to Duke's upside down face above her own. "Really? No penpal? No kindergarten crush? That's kind of what I'd been thinking when…"
Izzy craned her head sideways. To the box full of letters, all addressed with the same "name".
The earliest ones were written in crayon. As the years piled up, the crayon switched to pencil, which switched to a fountain pen, the writing slowly but surely flowing into cursive like water stumbling over mountain stones before finding the smooth path of the river that curved into the valley. She'd written her heart into those letters. The times she'd done well on a test, or they played her favorite game at recess. Every mean word her brother had teased her with. How she'd fallen in love with dancing. Her hopes for the future. There were years of memories folded into those pages. Then they'd been stuffed into a shoebox and hidden from sight, just like her dreams.
Izzy sat up. She reached into the box, brushing her fingers over the worn paper.
"…You know how some kids make up imaginary friends? Well, I'd made up a soulmate. Not a boyfriend," she pointed a stern finger at Duke, who raised an amused eyebrow, "a soulmate. There's a difference, okay. Because couples break up, like they did on TV, and friends can stop hanging out with you or move away. But soulmates are forever."
Izzy snorted. "Not that my parents would've believed that, so I never told them about this. I didn't tell anyone. But a long time ago, when I was very, very little, I made up a guy to protect myself. He was the most perfect person ever and of course he'd always love me, so I'd never have to be scared of my heart getting broken."
Her eyes strayed to her hand. There was the scar on her wrist from when she'd cut it open on a fish. There was the shiny burn on her knuckles from just last week. The edges of her fingers were rough with callouses. A map of trials and errors from her life.
"This person I'd made up was someone who'd write me love letters, just like in the stories. He knew the words to my favorite movie songs. He'd never make fun of me for playing make believe, or call it childish, because he'd make up stories with me, and make me laugh too."
A second hand joined her own. They carefully wove through her fingers like they weren't rough at all. Like they were smooth and mild as a spring day.
"…Someone who would always tell me the truth, and always to do the right thing. Who'd make me feel so safe." His hand wrapped fully around hers, palm warm and steady. "I dreamed up a man who held sunlight in his hands and loves me exactly as I am."
With every word she spoke, more and more memories unfolded. So much had changed recently. All these firsts—first love, real friends, an actual, tangible hope for the future—falling into her arms like the wishes had fallen out of her mouth all those years ago.
It dawned, sudden and painful, why the person next to her used to feel too good to be true. A dream made real. A wish come true.
"…I didn't know I'd actually meet him." Her forehead landed on his shoulder, her eyes squeezed shut. "…I never knew I'd be this happy."
Izzy swallowed past the lump in her throat. The shoulder beneath her shifted, and lips pressed into her hair even as a hand curled under her jaw, nudging her chin up.
He waited until she raised her head. Then he spoke.
"My love, she is a vision,
Crowned in starlight,"
His finger trailed over her eyebrow. "From the tender curl of her brow," it brushed past her cheek, "The measure of courage in her height,"
Izzy couldn't help but smile. That was a direct quote from one of her favorite barbie movies.
"Where night reaches down, down into the sea,
To bring forth the dawn of a new day,"
He was so close. Each individual fleck in his eyes reflected in the light.
"In the moment our eyes meet, in our shared breaths…"
The last, a whisper away from her mouth.
"…There, my heart resides."
Her eyelashes fluttered. The kiss was a soft, chaste press of lips, but it made her breath hitch. It pulled her forward, drawing her in like gravity. The swooping of a heart soaring through space. A trust fall, every time.
The next she opened her eyes she had to take a second to reorient herself. It was almost too much, to see him staring back into her eyes. It never stopped feeling that way.
That, somehow, was what made her blush unbearable. "…What was that, just now?" she asked not croaked. She didn't.
He smiled brightly. Their hands, the ones still in the shoebox, were still clasped together. He tapped them against the letters where they still lay. "A poem for me."
Then he brought her hand up and kissed her knuckles. "And so, a poem for you."
It hit Izzy all over again just what kind of person she'd fallen in love with. What else was there to do but lean over and hug him? She hugged him like she never wanted to lose him. He hugged her back just as hard. Didn't falter under her weight, not for a second. As sure and steady and constant as sunrise come morning.