You Are My Sunshine, My Only Sunshine

“Palin, where are we going?” Tyler laughed as I dragged him along the street, guiding him to the place we first met. I was walking as fast as I could without running, because I didn’t want to be in the rain for much longer. I loved playing in the rain, but I wanted the two of us to get where we were going as fast as possible.

“You’ll just have to find out, now won’t you?” I giggled back, ducking out of the way of falling water from an awning of a jewelry store.

“Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because you’ll appreciate it more when we get there if you don’t know now,”

“Oh, alright,” he sighed overdramatically, but sarcastically, jogging behind me so I wouldn’t pull his arm even more awkwardly than I already was.

“It’s only a little bit further anyways,” I smiled, pulling him a few yards down the sidewalk to a loud but small sports bar called Hot Plate that was baseball-centered, but did have elements of other sports as well. “Okay, we’re here. So you rememb-“

“Oh, Hot Plate! I remember this old place,” he laughed, smiling a warm smile and wrapping his arms around my neck and kissing the side of my head swiftly. “This is where we first met.”

“Way back in high school,” I chuckled. “Now come on. I want to do something and this is the perfect place.” I let my hand slide down his arm to grasp his hand and led him into the sports bar. After shaking the water out of our hair, we sat at a table near the middle of the room and ordered a large fry and two Cokes (though I wish they were Pepsis).

“So what did you want to do here?”

“Well, I've got something to show you. Not even really show you…I guess I'll just say I've got something for you.”

“What do you have for me, then?” he asked, laughing at my wording. I smiled and pulled out a couple of folded papers from my back pocket.

“101 reasons why Tyler is the only one for Palin,” I read aloud, starting with the title of my list.

“Awe, really?” he gushed, chuckling.

“Reason one, your hair is beautiful,” I started, smiling as I saw the adorable smile slowly inch onto his face. “Reason two, your eyes are mesmerizing. Reason three, your smile is enchanting. Reason four, you lips are oh-so-kissable.” As I read that one, I leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips. He giggled as I pulled away.

“You’re too cute,”

“Reason five, you make my days amazing. Reason six, you love my lisp,”

“It’s so adorable!” he laughed.

“No it’s not! It’s horrible!”

I do have a really bad lisp, and it’s not something I've grown into or that I've adopted because of my lifestyle or anything. I've had the speech impediment since I could talk and it’s ragingly bad. It’s so pronounced that I feel like the absolute gayest man on the face of the Earth. Either that, or I sound completely mentally challenged. I've learnt to live with it over the years, but I still hate it. Apparently Tyler loves my impediment, and I have no idea why, but every time I complain about it, he tells me how much he loves it.

“It’s the cutest thing I have ever heard!” he gushed again, squinting his eyes at me.

“Anyways,” I laughed, trying to change the topic and get us back on track. “You can always make me smile when I'm depressed, which is reason seven. Reason eight is that you made me quit smoking, which I am so glad for. Reason nine, you like waffles better than pancakes. Ten, you read enough for the both of us,” I said, laughing right out. Tyler is and always has been a huge book worm, and I've just never been that into reading. He laughed with me and nodded as if to say ‘very true’. “Reason eleven, you like my crappy poetry and tell me it’s not crappy.”

“Your poetry’s great, Palin. I love your poems,”

“Oh, whatever,” I scoffed, refusing to believe him no matter what. “Twelve, your jokes are so bad they’re good.” He really does have horrible jokes, but he’s got a great sense of humor. He tries; he just doesn’t succeed very often. Tyler blushed and nodded to that as well. He knows his jokes are bad, but it still humors me (and other people) when he tries. “Reason thirteen, you give great massages. Reason fourteen, you think my scars are cute.” I said this last one with a reminiscent sort of tone and habitually reached for the right side of my neck, where my largest scar was.

When I was younger, right after my father and mother divorced, my mother had a live-in-boyfriend named Kevin. For a while, Kevin was great, and he treated me like I was his own son. But then, about six or seven months after he started living with us, Kevin showed his real self. He started verbally abusing me and did only that for about a year, but the older I got, the worse his abuse came. He and my mother were together for probably five years and he only left when he went to jail. He flipped on not only me one night, but he also went after my mom. Both of us ended up in the hospital after Kevin broke a window and took the glass to us like a knife. That’s why my neck-scar is so ragged and nasty. It wasn’t a deep cut, but it was still horrible. I still have scars from that man all over my body, and I’ve always been a bit self conscious about them, but Tyler has always said that he thought they were cute.

“They add character, I think. They make you you. Most of them aren’t even that bad anymore, anyways,” he shrugged, smiling reassuringly at me and taking hold of my hand that was on my neck. He rubbed his thumb back and forth across the backside of my hand and kissed it cutely. “I love you and your scars.”

I chuckled and just continued where I left off on my list. “Reason fifteen, you’re sarcastic at all the right times. Reason sixteen, you’ve always protected me when I’ve needed you to. Reason seventeen, if I ever became a Heartless, you’d be my Nobody. Eighteen,” I said, laughing at the look on Tyler’s face. “You deal with my Kingdom Hearts references and think it’s cute how much I love that game. Reason nineteen, you know when I’ve reached my coffee limit before I do. Twenty, you eat my meatless meat, even though neither of us are vegetarian.”

“But it’s so good!”

“I know!” I laughed, shaking my head at his excitement. “Ooh, twenty-one is that you play the bassoon, which is just about the most amazing instrument on the face of the Earth.”

“I play other things too,”

“Yeah, but they’re all inferior to the bassoon, because it’s just that cool,” I shrugged, looking at him as if that were obvious.

“If you say so,” he smiled.

“Reason twenty-two, your favorite number is six because it’s the day and month I was born.” My birth-date is the sixth of June, and I always joke with Tyler that his favorite number is six because of my birthday. It really isn’t, but we’ve got an ongoing joke about it, so I knew I had to add that to my list. He raised an eyebrow at me and I chuckled. “I know, I know. Okay, twenty-three, you always answer your phone when I call or text you. Reason twenty-four, you’re an amazing snuggler. Reason twenty-five, you’re taller than me, but not in, like, gigantor-like proportions.”

“Why didn’t you just say ‘gigantic’?” Tyler laughed.

“Oh, shut up Mr. Valedictorian,” I giggled, pushing his shoulder slightly. “I felt like saying gigantor. I like that word.”

“Alright,” he said, shaking his head and chuckling.

“Reason twenty-six,” I said sharply, pretending to be mad at him for making fun of my word. I patted my tiny stack of papers on the table top as if I was trying to straighten them out. When I actually looked down at the paper on top to see what the next reason was, I flat out laughed and completely lost my fake-anger. “You like when I say ‘peanuts’ because it sounds like I’m saying something naughty.”

“Oh, that never gets old,” he laughed heartily, shaking his head back and forth.

“Reason twenty-seven, you think I don’t notice that you watch me when I’m sleeping,” I said, looking especially for his reaction to that one. His face kind of fell a bit and he looked like he wanted to go awe…. I reassured him with, “But it’s okay, because I think it’s adorable, and I don’t really mind. Twenty-eight, you always take care of my when I’m sick. Twenty-nine is one of my favorites, really. It’s that you play in the rain with me. Mm, and the fact that you make the most amazing stir-fry I’ve had in my entire life is reason thirty. Thirty-one is that you think I’m pretty with no makeup on, and thirty-two is for the look you’re giving me right now because we both know that I don’t wear any makeup.”

“You’re so weird,” he laughed, finally losing the awkward look of confusion he previously had.

“Well, yeah!” I said as if it were utterly obvious. Of course, it kind of was obvious. “Alright, thirty-three, you think my crappy singing is cute. Thirt-“

“It may be some-what crappy, but it’s amazingly adorable,”

“As you say,” I chuckled. “Reason thirty-four, you like it when I take my shirt off for no apparent reason. Thirty-five, you got your hips pierced just because I told you they’d be hot on you. Reason thirty-six, you put up with my insane family and think they’re funny when they fight. Thirty-seven, you like that my socks don’t match, but always make sure that yours do. Reason thirty-eight, you’re adorable when you blush. You’re blushing right now and it’s so cute, which is thirty-nine.”

“How can that be thirty-nine if you have those written down?”

“Because I have it written down,” I said plainly, shrugging. “Reason forty, I can read you like an open book. So that’s how I knew you’d be blushing when I told you that your blushing is cute.”

“Oh…smart,” he smiled.

“Also, making love to you is like taking a rocket ship to the moon and back, which is forty-one, and forty-two, which is the fact that I know you’re thinking of the planet Uranus because I said that. There’s another show of the fact that I can read you like a book. Reason forty-three is that you like that I bruise easily, so that way you can mark me as yours like you so say.” The only time he ever bruises me is when we have sex, because sometimes is does get that intense. “Reason forty-four is that you know random things that relate to absolutely nothing and that nobody would ever need to know. Forty-five is that back in high school, you were always the first one that got done with tests, which just amazes me. Hm,” I giggled as I read the next one. “Forty-six, you think my fidgeting is cute and don’t find it annoying like most people do.”

“Of course not,” he asserted. “You’re adorable when you fidget.”

I blushed slightly and quickly said the next one. “Reason forty-seven, you haven’t checked out anyone since we’ve started dating. Reason forty-eight, you are my sunshine, my only sunshine. Forty-nine, you got that reference and automatically thought of the Soggy Bottom Boys.”

“I love that movie!” he laughed loudly. I laughed my agreement and kept going.

“Reason fifty, you make snow men and snow angels with me. Fifty-one, you are my snow angel. Fifty-two, you let me bury you in the sand last summer with no complaints. Reason fifty-three, you go to church with me, even though you aren’t very religious. Reason fifty-four, you tell me when to close my eyes during scary movies. Fifty-five, you’re so freaking cute when you get nervous. Fifty-six, one of my favorite things about us, I can feel you smile when we kiss.”

“I can feel you smile when we kiss too. I love that feeling,” he said softly, leaning in for a quick kiss.

“Me too. And, reason fifty-seven, you’re not afraid to be yourself around me. Fifty-eight, you watch Glee and don’t mind me making fun of it. Fifty-nine, you hate the Twilight series and everything associated with it. Reason sixty, you eat carrots like a bunny, which is cute. Sixty-one, you thought my disastrous orange hair fiasco was cute,”

“Well, it didn’t exactly look good, but it was funny, and you pulled it off in a kind of cute manner,” he shrugged, giggling slightly. I had a really bad hair-dye disaster a year back and it turned my hair bright ginger. Needless to say, it was a humongous fiasco. I'm also from German decent, so that’s where the next reason comes from.

“Reason sixty-two, you think it’s funny when I go on my German-cursing-rampages,” I laughed. When I get severely pissed off or annoyed, I start cursing in German and apparently, it’s hilarious. “And Sixty-three, when I do that, you know how to calm me down. Sixty-four, you think it’s cute that I never learned how to ride a bike. Reason sixty-five, the fact that we went to the zoo for our first anniversary, because we both love animals. Sixty-six is that you persuaded the guy at the zoo to let us play with the penguins, just because I said I wanted to pet one. Sixty-seven, you think your art is shit, but I love it. And the fact that you’re denying that still right now is reason sixty-eight.”

“Oh God, I can only imagine this next one,”

I giggled in anticipation. “Of course, reason sixty-nine is that you give the most amazing head. And seventy is that you know exactly how to make me go crazy, even with just one touch. Reason seventy-one, you like my chub and tell me I don’t have any. Reason seventy-two, its adorable how much Halloween Jack ‘o’ Lanterns scare you. Seventy-three, your musical interests range from Kiss to Rihanna to Rascal Flatts to The Beatles. Seventy-four, we have Nerf wars when we’re bored and sometimes we have naked Nerf wars,” I said, winking at him. I actually had it written on the list for me to wink at him. I'm kind of surprised I didn’t say it out loud as well, because that’s just something that I’d do. “That’s also reason seventy-five. Seventy-six is that you don’t doubt me when I say that your apartment is haunted. Reason seventy-seven is that everything you do is super fucking cute and I can’t stand it. Seventy-eight is that you understood that reference and you’re probably smirking, which now that I look at you, you are. Reason seventy-nine is that you like Coke better than Pepsi, even though you’re so wrong. My eightieth reason is that you think short people are absolutely adorable and ‘awe’ at the sight of them. Eighty-one, you help me with my college work even if you don’t know what it’s about. Eighty-two, you have a great job even though you never went to college, not that you wouldn’t do amazing in college if you wanted to.”

I noticed that the more reasons I read off, the bigger smile he had on his face. The farther down the list I got, I also realized that I had even more reasons than I’d written down for him to be the only one for me. I decided to just stick with the ones that I had written down, and tell him the others later. But it did come through my mind of just how much I really loved this boy sitting next to me. Reason forty-eight was really one of the truest things on my list. He’s my sunshine on the rainiest of days and brightens up my mood no matter what. He made me smile at every thought of him.

“Reason eighty-three, you buy me chicken nuggets, even though you hate them. Reason eighty-four, you don’t complain about my complaining while you watch your football. Reason eighty-five, that didn’t make a lot of sense, but you understood me anyways and you’re laughing. Eighty-six, you thought my braces were cute in high school. Eighty-seven, when you pierced your own ear and it got infected, you didn’t freak out when I tried to help you with it and hurt you on accident. Eighty-eight, your absolute and utter craziness. Reason eighty-nine, something I envy you for, is your exceptional ability to put up with annoying people, but also, ninety, the fact that you refuse to ever really grow up. Ninety-one, the fact that you aren’t afraid to cry when you need to. Reason ninety-two is that you took a chance on me in the first place,”

“Oh, Palin, I didn’t take a chance on you,”

“Technically you did. Nobody can know what will come out of a relationship they start,” I shrugged, pointing out a very good point. “I technically took a chance on you, but it was a great chance. Anyways, reason ninety-three is the way your hair feels when it’s going through my hands. Ninety-four is that I still get nervous when you look at me the way you do. Ninety-five, our hands fit together like puzzle pieces as well as our bodies, which is ninety-six. Reason ninety-seven is the way that you hold me. Ninety-eight is that I love you. Ninety-nine is that you love me. One-hundred is that we belong together forever. And one-hundred-one is, well, Tyler Garrett, will you do the amazing honor of marrying me?”

“Oh my god, Palin,” he gasped, putting his hand to his mouth in surprise. “Are you serious?”

“One-hundred percent serious,” I told him, biting my lip. “I-uh, I don’t have a ring or anything, even though this was really planned out, but I still –“

“Yes,” he said quietly, cutting me off before I blathered myself into an unneeded oblivion. “I would love to marry you, Palin.”

He leaned over and kissed me on the lips, holding my hands as well. I smiled and kissed him on the cheek softly.