When Did Your Heart Go Missing?

I leaned my head against the fence and bit my lip. Frank let himself smile. He pulled one of his hands away from mine and pulled some of my untidy hair behind my ear.

"Do you mean that?" he whispered carefully, bringing our hands back together. I felt such a giddy burst of pure adrenaline bubbling inside me that I just had to...

"Yes!" I said. "Frank, I-I...I'm so dumb. This is...so real. I care so much about you, it should be illegal. And I've been pushing this away. I've been trying to get rid of this feeling but I can't because... I just love you. I love you so much, Frank. I'm so madly in love with you..."

I could hardly believe what was going on. What we were saying to each other. I felt like I was in a movie. This strange feeling, those butterflies in my stomach, the simple need to just be around him, the way I almost hated myself if I ever let myself get to close or grow too far...

Frank grinned at me.

"I really am the happiest person in the world now," he said longingly, looking all over my face.

He pulled his hands away from mine and brought them to my neck again. He pulled my face toward his. I kept a firm hold of his arms. When his lips pressed into mine, I let the adrenaline go. I slipped my arms around his neck and his arms wrapped around my torso as electricity seemed to rush from his tongue to mine.

No one pulled away.

He leaned into me, pushing me against the fence. I playfully licked his lip ring and I could tell he was smiling as I did so. I ran my fingers through his hair. His hand traveled under my shirt, his cold fingers against the bare skin of my back causing me to shiver. He pulled his lips away, breathed, and proceeded to kissing my neck softly. His kisses trailed up, along my jaw, softly against my earlobe, and right back to my lips.

But he was wrong. He wasn't the happiest person in the world.

I was.

We heard something that forced us to pull our lips away from each other. Frank turned his head and I looked over his shoulders, our arms still clinging to each other for dear life, waiting to see what it was that had interrupted us. A metal...something appeared from the ground. It started spitting water at my lower legs.

Sprinklers.

Frank let go of me completely but grabbed my hand. He started running with me following helplessly, my heart accelerating to an unhealthy high.

Did you hear that? My heart. I found my heart.

We found ourselves at the backyard of the house, where more sprinklers emerged. This time, they reached higher then just my lower legs and before I knew it, my entire bottom half was wet.

"Getting caught in the sprinklers...just like old times, huh?" Frank said with a grin. I helplessly smiled and nodded. He looked down at the ground behind him curiously and slowly sat down, ignoring the water completely. He gestured toward the bit of wet grass beside him, no sprinklers waiting form me to sit on. I bit my lip when I noticed how easy it had become to see through his shirt but sat down beside him anyway.

"I might as well take this off," he said distractedly as the water poured over us like rain. He was talking about his shirt. I felt bold. I brought my hands under it, feeling his slightly chubby stomach under my fingers. He smiled lightly as I lifted the shirt over his head and threw it aside. I let my hands rest on his chest. I kissed him. Because I so desperately wanted to for so long and always lied to myself about it. I let my hands find their way up to his shoulders, his own hand forcing the kiss to deepen as he pulled my head into his. I could feel him lay himself down slowly. This forced me to break the kiss, but I lay beside him and I used his bare, wet chest as a pillow.

"We're soaked," he acknowledged, bringing an arm around me.

"Yeah," I said softly, touching his stomach. "I hope you don't get sick again."

"I won't. So long as I'm with you, nothing will ever happen to me."

"How do you know that?"

"I don't."

I smiled.

"Oh, and, Layla?"

I leaned over him, my hair falling and tickling the side of his face.

"Yeah?" I said softly.

"I have one question," he said.

"What is it?"

"Do you want to be my girlfriend?"

I helplessly laughed. The sprinklers abruptly came to a stop. Water from my hair dripped onto Frank face. I shivered slightly as the cold air hit my wet body. He wrapped his arms around me and forced me on top of him. I leaned down and pressed my lips softly against his moist ones.

"Of course I do," I whispered, putting my head right back onto my pillow. My head rose and fell with his chest as he let out a sigh of relief.

So...is this romance or love?

Um...both? I suppose?

Good. I rest my case. I win.

I think the voices are done arguing.