"Eve?" I look at the woman on the picnic blanket beside me.

"Yes, Layla?" She slides her gaze to me. Specs of gold are dancing in her hazel eyes.

"You've waited for me all those years?" My mouth is dry as I say the words I've only just found the courage to ask.

She nods, her auburn hair ablaze beneath the summer sun. My heart skips in my chest. I look at the meadow of wildflowers that surrounds us. It is a carpet of violet, red, and yellow, dipped in a pool of vibrant green.

And at that instant, that very moment, everything is back. Eve standing in front of the large house on the small hill. The sweltering heat, the buzzing of the bees, the basket of cherries we'd shared, spitting out the seeds and all.

Nine years of waiting, of constant doubts, of trying to forget. Moving across the country, loving and unloving people.

Yet Eve, the wild and reckless one, who'd swallowed my heart on that summer night when we were seventeen, had stayed with me, no matter the distance I had tried to put between us. She's all grown up now, her figure fuller and softer, and she has tattoos, a lot of them, but her smile is still the same, heart-stopping and sweet.

"What if I'd have never come back?" I stare at her, the dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks reminding me of how many times I've dreamt about kissing every single one of them. And the many more times I've forbidden myself those dreams.

"I still would have waited." She shrugs, and her smile widens. "I always knew you'd come back one day." Then she picks up a cherry and pops it into her mouth, pulling at the stalk until the fruit comes loose. I can't stop staring at her lips, the way she licks the juice from them with the tip of her tongue.

"How did you know?" I pull up my knees and wrap my arms around them to calm my racing heart.

Bees sway across the dotted field in a drunken dance of delight.

"Because our love is like a wildflower. You are the sunshine, and I'm the rain, and only together we can make it grow."

"Are you a poetess now?" A grin blooms across my face.

"Have always been." She picks a cornflower and brushes my nose with it.

I lean towards her, my heart a jittery butterfly in my chest. She tilts her head back and parts her lips. Inviting me.

"My poetess," I whisper.

"Welcome back," she says, and then I kiss her.

Finally, I'm home.

(442 words)