------------Flashback------------

I had been working on one of the seemingly endless stacks of paperwork, sipping every now and then from a bottle of Corona that sat next to my hand on the desk. The stress of the day was beginning to get to me, my head was beginning to throb and I was ready to get out of there and have a stronger drink. Just as I was about to get up for another beer, the door to my office opened and Britt poked her head in, a funny look on her face.

"Britt, what's up?" I asked her, pinching the bridge of my nose to get my headache to go away. Britt opened the door a little wider, stepped halfway in and sighed deeply.

"Um...there's someone here to see you," she said, looking honestly worried. I raised an eyebrow and gestured with my hands for her to bring it on, whatever it was. The day was already going shitty--what could have possibly surprised me? Britt opened the door all the way and suddenly there she was...Marissa was standing right there, in the flesh, looking at me with those soulful blue eyes of hers. After almost a year, there she was.

"I'm going to leave you two," Britt said, disappearing and closing the door behind her after Marissa stepped into the office. I stood up, stepped around my desk and leant against the front of it, just looked at her and tried to catch my breath. She was there, in front of me. Slightly more pale and noticibly thinner, but she was there anyway, and looking gorgeous. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail and she was wearing a plain white long-sleeved top, designer jeans and some plain flip-flops. She looked as if she had stopped trying to be the glamour-girl she had always been.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her, my voice low to soften the harsh nature of the question. She crossed her arms over her chest, looked up at me with those huge, beautiful eyes that I swear could always see right through me. Her eyes darted to the floor for just one second, then back up to meet mine.

"I needed to see you. I...um..." she stopped, chewing lightly on her lower lip and looking away from me. I sighed, almost frustrated, and tried to calm the racing of my heart.

"You what, Marissa? It's been ten months," I told her. I could not think of a single reason that she could have had to come find me after all that time. I hadn't heard from her once, hadn't seen her, hadn't heard a word about her in all those months. And now, out of nowhere, there she was--standing in front of me looking all gorgeous and grown up and taking my breath away. It almost angered me. Who did she think she was?

"I know it's been ten months...but I just needed to tell you something. I wanted to tell you before, and I've wanted to tell you ever since you left. I wanted to tell you that...to tell you that I love you. I don't think I ever told you that, but I always wanted to. I just...I just love you, I'm in love with you, and I always was," she said, her voice suddenly strong. She knew exactly what she was saying, and I could tell that just by the sound of her voice.

For a minute I didn't know what to say or do. I stood there and looked at the gorgeous girl before me, remembered the feelings I had been harboring for her for the past almost-year. She was still the amazing girl I had fallen in love with all that time ago, the girl that I had told myself I wanted to wake up next to every morning. But I had left, she had let me. She had let me.

"You're in love with me?" I asked her, though I had clearly heard her before. She looked back up at me, nodded. She was. I took a deep breath and chewed on my lower lip, copying her. She always did that.

"If you're so in love with me then why did you let me leave?" I asked her, crossing my arms over my chest and copying that gesture of hers as well. I tried to be tough, tried not to convey to her through my eyes how much I still loved her and how much I would have loved to have her in my arms right that moment. Tried to keep from her how amazing I still thought she was and how gorgeous she was, even as unhealthy as she looked. She hadn't been taking care of herself, I could tell.

"Because I was scared...I didn't know what else to do," she said, defensively. I scoffed, shook my head.

"Well I was scared too, Marissa. I had never felt like that about anyone before. What did you want me to do? Watch you get closer and closer to Ryan? Watch you fall away from me? What did you expect?" I asked her, frustrated. I was still hurt, still wounded from our breakup, however long ago it had been. I was sure that there was nothing that could ever make up for the months of pain I had experienced.

"Well I've never felt like this for anyone either. And I'm sorry that I let you go, I'm sorry that I lied to you, but I can't take all that back. It's history--and the reason that I'm here right now is to ask you about the future. I'm in love with you, Alex, I've always been in love with you and I'm always going to be in love with you. I want to marry you and wake up next to you every day for the rest of my life. I don't know what else to say outside of that, Alex. I really don't. That's how I feel, and you need to know that," she said. I could not believe what I was hearing for a second, so I just looked at her. Just looked into her perfect blue-green eyes. She looked even more gorgeous than before...her pale cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright, she was breathing slightly harder than normal because of how worked up she was getting. I hadn't seen her looking like that since the last time that we made love (which incidentally was weeks before we broke up).

"I don't...I don't know what to say to you," I told her honestly, still just looking into those beautiful eyes. Marissa took a step closer to me, looked at me pleadingly.

"Say that you'll forgive me for being stupid. Say you'll marry me one day. Tell me you love me too," she said, looking more adorable in that moment than anyone ever had, in my opinion. I sighed and tried to keep control of my breathing as the beautiful girl stepped toward me. I wanted to tell her all those things, but at the same time it was hard for me to forget the things I had gone through in the ten months before that.

But before I could say anything to her about that, I realized that she was only inches away from me. And I mean inches. She was closer to me physically than I had allowed anyone but Britt to be in ten months. By then it was impossible to control the beating of my heart or my breathing, but by then I could also hear her erratic breathing, and I swear I could hear the pounding of her heart in her chest.

"Marissa," I breathed, as she inched closer still. She just looked into my eyes and leant into me, then suddenly her lips were on mine and there was nothing that I could do or that I wanted to do to stop it. She tasted so sweet, felt so amazing as she kissed me deeply, making up for ten lost months. Her hands were caressing my face, her thumbs sweeping across my cheekbones as we kissed, and I found myself after only a moment reacting to her, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her flush to me, gripping her thin frame tightly.

"I forgive you, Marissa. I still love you so much, baby," I said, tears falling from my eyes as I kissed her again. She was crying too, our tears melting into each other as we kissed passionately. The feel of her fingers on my skin was incredible, the feel of her skin again after all that time was absolutely mind-blowing. I knew in that moment, as we kissed again for the first time in so long, that she was the one that I was meant to be with.

She was the one. The last one. She was it.

------------End Flashback------------