On This Night

"It's so unfair. Why would they do that? How could they do that? To us?"

"Kim, no matter how many times you ask 'how could they?', I still won't know the answer."

"But, James! It's just so unfair!"

Kim and James sat, heads together, knees drawn to their chests, with their backs against Kim's bedroom wall. Stripped of prior clothing, they each donned their night attire: Kim, a knee length night gown; James, nothing but a t-shirt and his boxers. Between them rested a half empty bottle of Jack Daniel's, stolen borrowed from James' father's collection.

Kim reached up to remove the pin holding her golden curls atop her head. She sighed.

"I don't see the point anyway. They're all off having "romantic evenings," when we all know that's code for 'we're going to rip off our very expensive dresses and shag into the early hours.' Why?" Kim pushed her face into James' shoulder as she whined. Only two hours before, her cheek had been rested in the same place whilst they danced.

Tonight had been Prom Night.

James chuckled lowly to himself. He liked this. He liked sitting with Kim, moaning about all the things wrong in her life. He liked it when she nuzzled her nose into his neck, inhaling the scent that she loved so much. He liked to watch how, even when she looked so beautiful; she felt that everything about her was ugly.

"I don't get all this hype about sex anyway. You'll know when the time's right. You can have as many boyfriends as you like; the one who stays when you say no, that's who you give it to. The one who tells you're beautiful even with makeup streaming down your face, that's who you give it to. Not just any guy who asks nicely enough. God, give me more alcohol."

Kim blindly reached out a hand, picking up the Jack and pushing the opening to her lips. After taking a long swig, she screwed her face up in the way James loved. She always did that after drinking hard liquor. She hated the stuff; yet she drank it anyway.

Turning so the back of her head was rested on James' shoulder, she looked up at him. She'd always found him to be a very handsome boy. From when she very first met him, chasing that butterfly round the school field that first summer, when girls were yucky and boys all had germs, she'd always known he'd grow up to be the object of every girl's affections.

She just never knew her world would one day revolve around his beautiful face.

"Kim?" Kim shook herself free of her own world as James looked down on her, almost... Lovingly. "You alright, Kimmi?" Kim smiled at her pet name. "Yeah, I'm good, chicken." Was it just her, or was James' face closer than it had been?

James looked down at Kim staring off into space. It reminded him of the time he first saw her, sat up a tree with her sister, watching him play whilst she was lost in her own imagination.

He examined her face. He etched her eyes into his memory, surrounded by a thin line of charcoal, sparkly eyelids, eyelashes reaching for the stars. He noted how the brilliant blues stared straight past him, focusing on an event long gone in the past. He glanced down at her full lips, a pink sheen smudged away, lost around the neck of a bottle of poison.

"You alright, Kimmi?" James leant in, whispering softly to the pretty girl below him. Her mouth turned upwards into a soft smile as she replied, "Yeah, I'm good, chicken." Was it just him, or was Kim's face closer than it had been?

Their lips connected in a flurry of long-hidden passion. Years old emotion flowed between the pair as hair was grasped by fingers, legs tangled together; bodies entwined.

"I love you, Kimmi," he breathed, whilst hovering over her stunning form. Kim smiled, arching her back. "I always have, James."

That night, filled with passion, covered in a glistening sheen of sweat, a cloud of curses and moans above them, they each slept with a smile on their face.

Smiling, because they knew they'd found true love.