Page 10 of Seven Minutes
“Me neither,” I admitted, laughing nervously, cheeks burning. “But… not complaining.”
He leaned in again, lips warm and tentative, moving as if he was afraid to break the moment. The kiss wasn’t practiced—it stumbled, caught, breathed—but that made it real. His mouth pressed to mine with a reverence that stole the air from my lungs.
When his tongue slipped against mine, something unfurled. My pulse pounded in my ears, and the cold disappeared. There was only heat, his breath, his skin, and the current that crackled in the inches of space between us.
When he finally pulled back, the world felt different. Tilted. Rearranged. The streetlights glowed softer, the air thinner, my chest impossibly full. I searched for words, but nothing fit, not for the enormity of what had just shifted inside me. All I knew was that I’d never be the same again.
The streetlights faded, along with the feel of his lips, replaced by darkness, lit by the glow of a bright screen. A movie theater—air-conditioning too cold, the faint rattle of candy boxes from the row behind us. The smell of butter hung heavy in the air, sweet and salty, coating my tongue as I licked it from my fingertips.
Adrian sat close, his arm brushing mine every time he reached into the tub of popcorn balanced between us. It wasn’t intentional, but every graze of his sleeve against my skin sent shivers up my arm. We whispered dumb commentary, his too clever by half, mine barely coherent because I couldn’t stop watching him instead of the screen. Every time I muffled a laugh into my hand, he leaned in, as if he wanted tocatch it because he couldn’t stand to miss a single sound I made.
And then his pinky hooked mine on the armrest. It was a small gesture, barely there, but it slammed through me louder than the action exploding across the screen in surround sound. My breath hitched, and my body buzzed. That tiny touch—just the weight of his smallest finger curling into mine—was seismic.
I turned my hand until our palms pressed flush, his warmth seeping into me, and he didn’t let go. Didn’t even glance down. He just kept his eyes on the screen, the faintest smirk tugging at his mouth, as if he knew. As if he’d planned it all along.
For the rest of the movie, I didn’t hear a single line. Didn’t care. And in that dark, noisy theater, I felt certain that I was already falling, and there was no going back.
The movie faded into nothing, replaced by the muted colors and sounds of the campus library. A table stacked with books between us, an impossible tower of anatomy texts and worn paperbacks. I pretended to read, but really, I watched him as if he were the only thing worth studying. When his foot nudged mine under the table, I almost forgot how to breathe. The corner of his mouth curved just enough to make my pulse stutter.
A walk along the river, the damp air cool on our cheeks. Our reflections wove together in the water, two shadows blurring into one. He talked about his dreams in that fierce, unflinching way of his, and I let the sound of his voice sink into me like a tide. Every so often, our hands brushed, and I lived in theuncertainty of not knowing if I should grab hold or let it keep happening by accident.
The clink of mugs at a late-night diner, him grinning over a plate of fries he swore he didn’t want but stole anyway. The quiet of his car, music low, his fingers tapping the steering wheel in rhythm with my heartbeat. The way his gaze lingered when he thought I wasn’t looking, undoing me from the inside out.
Each moment etched itself into me like something permanent, irreversible. And with every laugh, every brush of skin, every crumb of his attention, one thought kept rising, unstoppable, undeniable:
This is it. This is what people mean when they talk about home.
That first kiss stuck. Everything after it came in flashes—Fingers laced through mine. A hand at my back in a crosswalk. Sleepy good mornings over coffee. I felt the same pull every time. Each one different, but always ending with me falling back into him.
The reel lingered there, stretching the moment thin. It dragged the ache back first, then the awe, then the sharp, breathless fear of realizing how completely he’d taken hold—how every choice, every step, bent in his direction.
And just as I started to understand what that meant, the memory shifted.
Chapter 5
The Third Minute
ELI
The light changed, dimming from a shifting kaleidoscope of colors on screen to the soft amber glow of the desk lamp in my dorm, rain tapping steadily at the window.
Ramen steam curled between us. His laugh came warm and easy. Powdered sugar dusted his fingers from a bag of donuts in his lap—a laptop playing a movie on mine. He didn’t even notice it—just kept talking, so animated, as if the story mattered more than how he looked. That was the first thing I learned about him. He existed fully in every moment, like nothing else was competing for his attention.
Our thighs brushed. His spicy, clean scent seduced me, an addiction I couldn’t inhale enough of. The room felt smaller. Or maybe everything else just… fell away. His eyes were on me, not the screen. I reached for him—just to wipe the sugar from his cheek—and the moment stretched, holding its breath.
Then his mouth found mine. Sweet. Warm. New. That tinystatic spark, that gravitational pull made flesh. I forgot how to respond, forgot everything except the fact that this was happening. Then instinct took over, and I leaned in, chasing it before it could disappear.
Every time he shifted, a quiet wave of warmth rolled through me. And when he turned, eyes soft and searching, the world stopped pretending to be ordinary.
Somewhere in the blur of rain and laughter and ramen cooling, I knew—this was it. Not just a kiss or foreplay. Not just a night. But something that would split my life clean in two—before him and everything after.
The laptop thudded to the floor. Neither of us even looked. It hit somewhere beside the bed, forgotten instantly, as if the rest of the world had been unplugged.
The reel flickered, and I swear I could feel the heat of it, the way memory burned warmer than truth.
The room shrank until it was just us—close, breathless, laughing into kisses that kept missing and finding again. Hands unsure, then certain. Fabric caught between us, buttons popped. His sleeve twisted in my grip. We knocked teeth—laughed into it—but didn’t stop. His voice whispering my name, as if it mattered more than it should.
“Eli.”
