Every single morning when Nick wakes up, he's surprised.
He's surprised to feel her hair tickling his cheek, her soft warm skin pressed up against his. Surprised to smell her scent all around him, intoxicating him. Surprised to feel his own arms wrapped so comfortably around her as if that's where they belong, to hear and feel her deep slow breaths against his neck as she rests against him, her body so warm and snuggled up and inviting, wrapped up in a pair of his sweats or one of his shirts or maybe nothing at all.
He'd thought that by now it wouldn't surprise him anymore, but it does. It surprises him that she's here, that she's his, that he can reach his arms out and touch her and listen to her breathe and it's real, she's real, not just a dream. He'd been so sure for so long that she would never give him the privilege of being so close to her again. He doesn't think it's ever going to not catch him off guard.
He's so in awe of her. Everything she does takes his breath away and it leaves him so weak that sometimes it feels like the only thing he has enough strength to do is marvel at her beauty. Every single second of every single day, he marvels. He never gets tired of it.
He's up especially early this particular morning - he knows, because he can't see any sunlight coming through the window from behind his eyelids the way he always can if the sun is shining outside. He shifts around just a little bit, careful not to wake her, and buries his face into her shoulder, wrinkling his nose as her hair tickles it and breathing in her calming scent. They'd been cuddling as they slept, because his hands are on her bare back underneath the shirt of his she's claimed for the night, and hers are resting gently on his chest, one down by his stomach and he remembers the soothing circles she'd been rubbing there as he'd drifted off to sleep. He breathes in deep and slow, holding her to him in a tight but gentle grip and he nuzzles his face into her neck and just marvels.
It's their anniversary, his sleepy mind suddenly reminds him. The eleventh of June. He doesn't know how he'd forgotten for even a moment considering he's basically been preparing since sometime around last July, but the truth is he forgets everything in these early mornings. Forgets everything and everyone except her. All he can think about is how lucky he is, and how beautiful and peaceful she looks when she sleeps and how he can't believe she's his again, his always, forever and after just like they'd planned. He knows it's forever this time. Every single part of him can just feel it, whenever he's near her. When he holds her while she sleeps or looks into her sky blue eyes or hears her laugh or feels her arms wrap around him or watches her lips as she says his name. He knows. It's forever. She's forever.
She's home.
For the first thirteen years of Nick's life, home had been a place. A house, in New Jersey or Texas or whatever state he'd found himself packed up and moved to that year. And they'd been nice homes, filled with love and family and laughter, but he'd never felt a strong connection to any of them. Never quite felt like he was truly, one hundred percent where he belonged. He remembers that his grandparents used to have this sign hanging in their kitchen that said home is where the heart is in fancy, loopy letters, and that he'd never understood it as a kid. Never quite known what it meant. And he remembers how when he was thirteen years old on a warm summer day, the first significant June Eleventh of his life, he'd started to figure it out.
After that day he'd never truly thought of home as a place again. For almost half of his life now, home has been a person. A person who fills him with so much warmth, so much light and happiness that he's positive the way he feels when he's with her has to be how it feels to be home. To be where you belong, where you're meant to be. To be somewhere so comfortable and full of love that you just want to stay there for the rest of your life and never, ever have to leave.
He feels her stir just a bit in her sleep and holds his breath, torn between wanting her to open her beautiful blue eyes so he can see them and wanting her to stay asleep so he can hold her just like this for a little longer. After a few seconds she settles back down against his body, breathing deeply and peacefully and he opens his eyes just a bit to watch her chest rise and fall against his, the two of them breathing in sync, hearts beating together.
He'd had big plans for this day, for breakfast in bed and whispered words in the early morning silence and pressing his lips over every inch of her body - loving her, worshiping her, breathing her in and telling her over and over again with words and actions how much she means to him. He'd thought he'd be up and awake bright and early, so eager to kickstart their day that he'd be going crazy trying to resist the urge to wake her up at the crack of dawn. Now though, he can't bring himself to get out of bed and get started on their breakfast, can't bring himself to do anything except stay right where he is all tangled up in her, letting her scent and the feel of her engulf him until it's all that matters, all that he knows.
Miley sighs in her sleep, a soft and sudden little sound so light and content that he feels the corners of his lips twitch up, feels one of his hands run soothingly up and down her back without him even meaning for it to. Her skin is so soft beneath his fingers, sleep-warm and familiar and all his. He breathes in deep and lets himself remember her all flushed and relaxed beneath him late last night, remember his fingers running up and down her sides, her soft brown hair looking longer than usual all spread out across the pillow, her voice sounding rough and satisfied and strangely sweet calling out his name. He'll never get tired of being with her. Pleasing her. Loving her.
He presses a gentle kiss to the side of her neck, smiling when she sighs again.
They're so grown up, he thinks suddenly. Both of them are. So much older than the two carefree kids in love they'd been once...so much older than the two lost young adults they'd been not long after that. He knows it was just a few years ago that they were last apart, telling anyone who'd listen that they hated each other and going home to different beds with different people, pretending they never even thought about each other.
He nuzzles into her shoulder, lets her scent calm him. He remembers. Remembers staring at his phone and thinking of a million different things he could say to her but never having the courage to call, remembers being afraid she would laugh at him. Remembers his lips kissing other girls and wishing they could make him feel like he was home again, could make him forget, and getting mad at himself when he didn't feel anything for them. Remembers parties and clubs and drinking things he couldn't even pronounce and starting fights with his brothers when he needed to feel something and thinking twenty-one was the most grown up a person could be, thinking he knew everything there was to know about life and love and spending every moment of his time acting invincible, hoping no one could tell how breakable and how already broken he really was. Remembers watching old videos she'd made of them together and hiding them from his girlfriend and not feeling guilty, remembers being drunker than he'd meant to be one night and telling Joe between bouts of vomiting that he just wished he could go home again, and Joe not understanding what he meant. It feels like all of it was so long ago now, practically in another lifetime.
It wasn't, though. It was only a few years ago.
She'd saved him, he thinks. He knows she thinks it was the other way around but he knows it wasn't. They'd both saved each other, he guesses, but really she'd saved him more. He figures she still doesn't know just how close to the edge he'd been when she found her way back to him. Figures she'll never know, that she doesn't need to. He still thinks about it sometimes though. Thinks about how it had felt to feel like he had no control over anything in his life, that he'd ruined the best thing he'd ever had and couldn't get it back and that the one thing he wanted the most in the world was just to find someone else who felt like home to him, someone who could make him feel like he wasn't hopeless, wasn't worthless, hadn't fucked everything up completely beyond repair. Thinks about feeling alone even while someone else slept beside him in the same bed and feeling like he was defective, unable to love anyone except for one girl who hadn't given a shit about him in years. Thinks about typing out I miss you and I want to come home a thousand times but never pressing send.
Thinks about how very lucky he is to finally and forever be home again.
He's leaning up on one elbow now, just staring down at her while she sleeps, watching her breathe deeply in and out, watching her peaceful face as she dreams. They are so grown up, but at the same time they're so young and they have so much left to do and learn and he reaches out and brushes a lock of light brown hair away from her face and lets his hand linger on her skin, and they'd both been so broken once but now they're fixed and he comes home to her every day, wakes up to her every morning in a house they'd picked out together, a beautiful house with extra bedrooms and space for children to run and a house that he knows will be filled with love and laughter and he feels so alive, feels so at home and suddenly breakfast in bed has lost its appeal.
"Miley," he breathes out beside her ear, longing to see her ocean-colored eyes open and lock with his, "Miley, wake up."
He shakes her just a bit until she stirs, making a little noise so cute that he laughs a bit and she smiles as she opens her eyes. They're hazy with sleep and almost brighter than he remembers and suddenly there are just so many things he wants to tell her. He wants to tell her how he wishes every day he could find enough words to tell her how much he loves her but never can, wants to tell her that when he was fourteen he told his brothers he was going to marry her someday and that when he was twenty he cried himself to sleep holding a picture of her; wants to tell her how happy it makes him to watch her sleep and that last week while he'd chased his nieces around he'd imagined little girls with her eyes and smile and his hair. Wants to tell her about the little box hidden away at the bottom of his sock drawer especially for today, about how right it had felt to pick out an engagement ring for her and how the second he saw it he knew it was meant to be on her finger forever and how his mother had cried, had told him she always, always knew it was going to be Miley.
"Happy anniversary," he says instead, breathless and light and happy and he feels like he's home and like he's meant to be right here right now and Miley smiles so brightly and he knows she feels it to. She giggles a bit, sitting up so they can wrap their arms around each other and just like always they fit together perfectly, like they were made for each other and Nick knows now more than ever that they really were. She leans in and presses her lips to his and he melts into her, savors her, wishes they could stay just like this forever and ever.
Finally she pulls away, breathing out against his lips and he shivers and when she opens her eyes he sees his whole world in them and part of him still wants to rush, to run and pull the box out and get down on one knee right this second but he knows he should wait, should make it perfect like he'd planned. And really there's no rush anyway. They've got forever, after all.
He leans forward and rests his forehead against hers, keeping their gazes locked and Miley's eyes are twinkling and happy and so grown up and yet so young, so alive and there are so many things he wants to tell her right then, but he knows he has plenty of time. Miley smiles, closes her eyes and nudges his nose with hers like she knows just what he's thinking, like she's happy and comfortable and home.
"Happy anniversary, Nick."
6.11.14
Happy Niley Day.