The lingering light from the dreaming sun keeps the sky prussian blue. Whispers travel through the trees with every gust of wind. The earth below our feet still radiates warmth and we have no worry of discomfort despite wet hair and damp clothes.

Though I'd mostly intended it as a joke, Miles is wearing my t-shirt, which is still wet enough to stick to his chest. He'd probably be more comfortable topless. At his insistence, I wear both his sleeveless tee and his peacock-blue jumper. The sleeves cover everything but my fingernails.

Except for my right hand, where the sleeve is gathered at my wrist because I'm holding his.

I'd asked him before we left Summer. "Can we hold hands?" Humming a response, Miles slipped his fingers into mine and neither of us has made an attempt to dislodge for twenty minutes.

His boyish grin, contrarily, has faded. His free hand tries to keep the hem of my Spice Girls t-shirt straight, brushing it down after each step creases it.

My hand twitches in his. The tiniest movement but he stops with a grouse of gravel. His head snaps up, a deer facing the barrel of a gun a millisecond before it fires, fully aware it won't escape in time. I reflect in his irises. Life flash.

I squeeze. "No, I'm not pulling away". Never. Or at least not until my curfew. Unless you want me to... Unless that's why you're nervous.

My voice is itchy in my throat. 'Are you confused?'

'About you?' With a smile, Miles moves in front of me. He adjusts my hamsa chocker so that the clasp is aligned with my spine and the charm with my jugular notch. 'I've never been less confused in my life.'

I do my best to not fall apart as his fingers feather on my neck. The other hand never leaves mine as he caresses the base of my thumb with the pad of his, but it's himself he's comforting. His eyes dart across my features, palm growing clammy in mine.

The scab on his thumb I noticed in March has inflamed. Does he keep getting hangnails in the same place?

'Are you... out to your parents?'

I nod but quickly revoke it. 'No, but I was bare in love with Brock from Pokémon so I've reckoned they know.'

What if they don't? I've never spared a thought to the possibility of them not knowing until right now, but what if they take all my unfiltered love confessions as jokes — "He's just a kid and doesn't know what he's talking about. Let's ignore it and he'll move on"?

'I wouldn't know what to come out as, anyway. I did a quiz online that said I was bisexual, but... it doesn't really feel right. Dunno. I don't really get attracted to people — sure, they're pretty, but I don't want to interact with them. I mean, six weeks ago I thought you were ugly.'

A grin thins his lips as he tries to suppress it. 'Oh, ta, love.'

Cheeks hot, I curl my spine to bury myself into my shoulders. 'I didn't mean it like that. I just didn't know you then.' I've never been too bothered to find a word for it but admitting it aloud sounds stupid.

Miles is gay and I'm what, "just myself"? A pretentious dickhead.

But he doesn't censure me.

'I've thought about telling my mum lately.' The journey of his thumb grows longer. Now, it caresses from my knuckle to the opposite corner of my palm. He soothes himself by soothing me.

I should say something, but what? My interactions with his mum are limited to the few dinners Iya forced me to attend and bumping into her at Barua's which hardly makes me an expert on her character. Who am I to say that he has nothing to fear?

Miles smiles and tugs at my hand. We continue walking.

'Wanna meet at the bus stop tomorrow for Sonia's thing?'

'Yeah.'

I pull out my cell, an unnatural task to do with my left hand, to check the time. Ten minutes before curfew. We have to speed up our pace and I'm cursed, unable to appreciate our final moment because my thoughts grip the fact that it'll soon end. Ten minutes. Ten breaths. Ten steps. Ten seconds.

My ungrateful anticipatory mind is already crafting my goodbye to him. I beat it with a splintered baseball bat. Live in the moment.

The moment only speeds past faster.

At the edge of the trees, Miles comes to such an abrupt halt that my hand slips out of his. Inertia has me stumbling forward for two more metres until I turn around to find him toeing the mouth of the path.

He gestures for me to come back.

'I've got curfew.'

'Come here.' His whisper is more of a whine than a plead but my eyes nearly roll into my head. 'Please, love.'

I sprint back at that. "Love". The moment I'm in his reach, his fingers slip into the belt loops of my trousers to pull me close, close enough for me to see his individual eyelashes haloed by the nearest lamppost.

He glances back to ensure the shrubbery hides us from the view of the nearest house even though there's no light in the windows. 'Can't you kiss me goodnight first?'

I beam and fall forward to do so. My hands fist lazily into his t-shirt — my t-shirt, the dampness welcome as I'm sure it's the only thing stopping me from bursting aflame. He pulls me flush against him by the belt loops. My creation was purposed for this. I belong here: in his mouth, in his ribcage.

To think that twelve hours ago I was still cramming for my last maths exam, none the wiser to my mecca.