{"id":66,"date":"2011-11-09T09:15:03","date_gmt":"2011-11-09T14:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/universal-nexus.com\/?page_id=66"},"modified":"2014-08-21T13:37:44","modified_gmt":"2014-08-21T17:37:44","slug":"love-story-sals-version","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/universal-nexus.com\/index.php\/j-m-brink\/love-story-sals-version\/","title":{"rendered":"Love Story \u2014 Sal’s Version"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I came into the room to find Lori digging through her clothes trying to find something she wanted to wear to the play we were getting ready to go to. I wish <\/em>I could be that pretty, <\/em>I thought staring at my best friend’s lovely body. I always tell her she’s pretty, and she’s always so quick to tell me I am too, but I know she’s just being sweet \u2013 well, Niam seems to think I am too. They’re both crazy,<\/em> I concluded as these thoughts passed my mind.<\/p>\n

It took Lori a few moments to realise I was there but when she did she gave me the greatest shock of my life as she said, “Kaularn\u00e8” and wrapped her slender arms around me and kissed me. The hug and kiss were normal enough, we’ve said hello that way since we were tiny, but this was a closer hug, a longer, deeper kiss \u2013 and above all she hadn’t said the friendly ‘kautars\u00e8’. My Xentoran<\/a> wasn’t exactly perfect, but I knew that what she’d said was a greeting between lovers of some kind.<\/p>\n

I could feel a blush starting and knew I must’ve been blue to the points of my ears<\/a>. “Kaularn\u00e8?” I asked praying I wouldn’t embarrass her more than she obviously had done to herself already, but I had<\/em> to know. I felt ill as I realised that, now I’d acknowledged her word, I had no choice but to ask the next question no matter how terrified I was to hear the answer, even if I didn’t know what I was afraid of<\/em>. “D-Do you really feel that way, Lori?”<\/p>\n

I squeezed her hands a bit tighter than I meant to in my nervousness, but I didn’t notice as I tried to look deep into both of her eyes at once. I have no idea, now, what I hoped<\/em> she’d say next. I have no idea what it was I wanted, nor what I was so afraid of, but what she said next surprised me more than anything that she’s ever said since, and certainly more than she ever had said before.<\/p>\n

“Yes,” she answered softly looking me deep in my eyes. Her own eyes were shining a gorgeous shade of amethyst as she said the next words, the words that would change my life forever, “You’ve always been my dearest love, my seireau, you know that \u2026 but one day I realised I felt more. I wanted nothing more than to call you laery\u00ed, my dearest lover, my soul,\u201d then she began to cry. I was in shock far too deep to cry. That she\u2019d fallen in love with me, I half-way expected. The other half of me expected her to say she\u2019d not been thinking clearly and said the wrong thing \u2013 or mistook me for her latest boyfriend, or girlfriend \u2026 I\u2019d never, for even a moment, thought that she felt like that toward me. I was stunned \u2013 I couldn\u2019t move, I couldn\u2019t breathe, I couldn\u2019t do anything as my hearts started sending messages to my brain I love you too, Lori. I always have \u2013 I didn\u2019t <\/em>know it, but I have.<\/em> But I couldn\u2019t say it. I couldn\u2019t speak.<\/p>\n

Lori went on speaking, went on crying while I stood there like some kind of surprised statue, \u201cI haven\u2019t said anything. All this time, I\u2019ve just used those feelings to cement the depth of our friendship because I\u2019ve never felt love from you other than the kind you feel for Sarah, or Claxxy. I couldn\u2019t bear the thought of making you unhappy. You\u2019re so sweet and sensitive I was afraid that if you know how I feel how I love you you\u2019d be devastated, eaten up inside by the fact you don\u2019t feel the same way. I could never do that, I\u2019d die a thousand times in every horrible way before I\u2019d see you hurt in any way \u2013 especially by anything I might do.\u201d<\/p>\n

I nearly fainted. That\u2019s when I started breathing again. I felt her grip suddenly tighten as my own fingers went\u00a0slack. I couldn\u2019t imagine why, but she was crying even harder. Very slowly her words found their way into my brain and … I couldn\u2019t believe them. How could she think that loving me would ever hurt me? How I could ever do anything but love her back? And the thing I began to realise \u2013 I did<\/em> love her back. I realised, then, why she was crying \u2013 she was terrified<\/em>. She really thought I\u2019d be upset by her loving me. She\u2019d kept it to herself all this time because the last thing in the world she\u2019d want is to hurt me and she had convinced herself that this would do exactly that. Instead of lying, or … She told me everything, even though she felt it would mean losing me forever.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t think, I couldn\u2019t. My mind was a blur, all I had left was feeling. All I had left was how very much I loved this beautiful crying creature before me and how much I wanted to tell her that she had no reason to cry, that I would be hers for as long as she\u2019d have me and gladly. I leaned forward and with my lips just barely touching hers, or maybe they weren\u2019t and I was just close enough to feel the heat of them, I couldn\u2019t tell. I just prayed to my ancestors for guidance and they responded by helping me find enough breath and enough voice to whisper \u201cKaularn\u00e8 si \u00e0 laery\u00ed qashir\u00e8 n\u00ed\u00e5 fathyro,\u201d and meant it more than I\u2019ve ever meant anything else in my life as I closed the gap and kissed Lorixa, my love, with all the passion and emotion my Kivanian hearts could produce. I felt lightheaded with the rush of blood as both hearts began to race. The kiss didn\u2019t really last very long, a mere eternity or two and according to the clock not even a full saen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure when or how it\u2019d happened, but when the kiss broke we were sitting on the edge of her bed, she was in my lap and I held her close. I held her and felt warmth flow through me like I\u2019d never felt before, I was in love and there was no doubt in my mind that this girl was someone I would spend every moment till the end of time with if the gods would be so generous \u2013 that I\u2019d spent ten years with her as my friend, and these moments with her as my love was more generosity than I could ever hope to repay and far more than I could believe I\u2019d ever earned.<\/p>\n

Finally I gave her a hug and, having calmed down enough to remember how to speak I said, \u201cDarling, silly, Lorixa … I love you. You\u2019re a damned fool at times and I love you the more for it since it keeps life interesting. I could never love you less or differently than you would have me love you. I would have gladly lived my life never more than your seireau, and I\u2019m honoured and thrilled beyond words that you would call me laery\u00ed. Love is when another\u2019s happiness, hopes, dreams, and feelings are the most important things in all the universe. My love, if it would make you smile that I be yours \u2013 and if that meant you had to be mine as well then, darling, that is an offer I\u2019d be the biggest idiot on the planet to refuse. Nothing<\/em> could make me happier than to call you laery\u00ed, and mean it with every fabric of my being; and by all my ancestors, I do<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

After that we kissed again. I don\u2019t know who started it and we\u2019ve never cared. We never did go to see that play. We made love, so sweetly, so passionately, so… we stopped being. We were each other, we were one, we were nothing but emotion no more flesh and blood. I fell asleep in her arms after what must have been nulaire of the greatest happiness I\u2019d ever known.<\/p>\n

Around the middle of the next day I woke up briefly to find Lori looking at me with tears in her eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas it so bad?\u201d I asked her, teasing.<\/p>\n

She smiled, laughed, and kissed my lips saying \u201cIt was that wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

I smiled as I felt a blush creep up my face and I snuggled back against her and fell asleep simply thinking how wonderful it was going to be to wake up and fall asleep with her in my arms for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I came into the room to find Lori digging through her clothes trying to find something she wanted to wear to the play we were getting ready to go to. I wish I could be that pretty, I thought staring … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":6,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-66","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P1Y5CS-14","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/universal-nexus.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/universal-nexus.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/universal-nexus.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/universal-nexus.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/universal-nexus.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/universal-nexus.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/66\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":738,"href":"https:\/\/universal-nexus.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/66\/revisions\/738"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/universal-nexus.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/universal-nexus.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}