[AN: I made a whole swack of mistakes in this chapter. This is the edited version, it should be better :)]
The grad ceremonies couldn't end fast enough. Now that she had been a high school graduate for a grand total of approximately forty-five minutes, Lorelei discovered that her bladder had not matured at all and the only thing she could think of as she hugged and congratulated and thanked classmates and faculty was how badly she had to pee.
Eventually, she couldn't take it anymore, and she told Anya she'd be right back.
Crossing the school field, she tried not to look like someone rushing to the bathroom. The speed of which was practically running at caused her cap to fly off her head. With a surpressed shriek of panic, she ran back to retrieve it. Turning back, she saw Teddy standing there, holding his own cap and studying her, looking surprised to see her, but he must have been trying to catch up to her.
"Hi," she blurted, snatching the cap off the ground. "Congrats, I'll see you later--"
"Lorelei," he said, taking a few steps forward. "I am so sorry that I spent all my time saying I'm sorry instead of I love you because now I have to say goodbye, and I just wanted to..."
Lorelei stepped towards him tentatively. "Teddy?"
It looked as though he was mustering courage as he glanced down at his hands, and evidently he found some. "I wanted to also say thank you."
"For what?" she asked softly, not being able to stop herself from going to him, as it had always been in the past.
"For being you." He looked at her, glasses somewhat askew but brown eyes only seeing her. "For laughing, for smiling, for crying, for not leaving me...For letting me love you." He shook his head, shrugging helplessly. She suddenly saw what he must have looked like, because the betrayed innocence in his eyes was fresh and desperate. "I really needed someone to love, Lorelei, I really did.."
Lorelei couldn't speak. She hugged him, and it would have been too tightly if she hadn't been so damn in love with him. The hug lasted a long time as they both cried without tears, standing in the middle of the field, people milling close to them but not coming anywhere near their private little world. Teddy buried his face into her hair, the smell of green tea and pressed flowers so real that it made him emotional even though he knew it was just her shampoo.
"Why are you bouncing?" he whispered.
She pulled away. "Wow, you and my bladder both really know how to ruin a moment." Leaning over, she kissed his cheek. "Bye, Teddy, love you. I gotta go."
"You really do, don't you?" He grinned.
"You better believe it--I have to pee like a racehorse," she said in all seriousness, causing him to laugh.
"No, I meant--you really do love me."
She tilted her head, smiling as though she had a broken heart. "What part of 'I love you' have you never understood?"
He shrugged. "The part where you love me, I guess."
"Well..." She couldn't find any words. "Here," she said tersely, tossing him a book of matches.
Teddy watched her walk away with her gown dragging in the dirt. Then she stopped and smiled back at him over her shoulder.
He tried so hard to keep that moment from passing. He tried to capture the wind that brushed her hair across her cheek; the sunshine in her stormy eyes; the sweetness in her smile.
Later, in his future of darkness, he found that he could always remember the way Lorelei had looked in that frozen frame of time. It was a keepsake that he locked away for whenever he needed a light.