Chapter Twenty: A Little Closer Still
They went back to the rooftop.
The one behind the library.
The one where it started — that almost-touch, that too-long glance, the first breathless second of maybe.
It had rained earlier.
Not enough to soak, just enough to hush the world for a while.
Now the sky was clearing.
Pink clouds melting into gold.
The town below blinking like it wasn't quite ready for night yet.
Kira climbed first, Mina following. They moved like they had before — careful, quiet, belonging.
They didn't speak right away.
There was something sacred about returning.
Kira sat cross-legged near the edge, her sketchbook resting flat against her knees.
She hadn't drawn much that week.
Too many thoughts.
Too much feeling.
And yet, now — with Mina beside her, with the soft wind brushing their sleeves — the pencil finally moved.
Mina sat beside her, knees up, chin tucked on her arms.
"I forgot how quiet it is up here," she said.
Kira glanced at her. "Maybe we needed the noise for a while."
"And now?"
Kira smiled faintly. "Now we remember how to listen."
Below them, the town exhaled: cars, distant laughter, a dog barking twice.
Above them, the sky kept changing — slow and soft like breath.
Mina pulled something from her jacket pocket. A folded piece of paper.
Kira tilted her head. "What's that?"
"A list," Mina said. "From months ago. I wrote it when everything was still just maybe."
She unfolded it carefully.
Kira leaned closer.
The paper was creased and soft at the edges — a list scrawled in pink ink.
Things I Might Never Say
I think about her voice before I fall asleep.
Sometimes I want to hold her hand and not let go.
I don't think I'm broken. I just don't fit the shape they want.
If I could draw like her, I'd draw us standing on a roof.
I think I love her.
Kira blinked.
Her throat tightened.
"You wrote this?"
Mina nodded. "Before I kissed you. Before I even let myself believe you'd kiss me back."
Kira traced the bottom line with her finger.
"I think I love her."
Mina looked at her. "I do."
No blush. No joke. No trembling.
Just the words.
Weightless.
True.
They stayed like that for a while.
The breeze curled around them.
Time blurred.
And then Kira asked, quietly, "Do you think this will last?"
Mina didn't answer right away.
She looked out at the sky, the slow spill of color fading into soft navy.
"I don't know what the future looks like," she said. "But I know I want it to have you in it."
Kira's heart pulsed so hard she thought it might be visible.
She nodded. "Me too."
She flipped to a new page in her sketchbook.
Not carefully.
Just… openly.
"Draw us," Mina said.
"I already have," Kira whispered.
"Then draw us again. As we are now."
Kira's pencil moved in slow, certain lines.
No outlines this time. No hiding.
Two girls.
Side by side.
Not performing. Not waiting.
Just present.
One leaned forward slightly — not kissing, not touching — just close enough.
Like gravity.
Like belief.
The sun dipped lower.
The streetlights below flickered on.
"I used to think," Mina said softly, "that if I let people see the real me, they'd leave."
Kira said nothing.
She just placed her hand over Mina's.
Warm. Unshaking.
"You didn't," Mina added.
"I saw you," Kira whispered. "And I stayed."
A pause.
Then Mina said, "Do you want to make a list with me?"
Kira blinked. "A list?"
"Yeah." Mina grinned. "Things we want to remember."
"Okay," Kira said.
She flipped to the next page.
Pencil ready.
Mina spoke first.
"One: This rooftop."
Kira wrote it down.
"Two: The first time we held hands and didn't flinch."
"Three," Kira added, "the vending machine granola bar."
Mina laughed. "Four: The time someone called us loud, and we didn't apologize."
"Five: The red ribbon."
"Six," Mina said, quieter now, "the way you always looked at me like I mattered."
"Seven," Kira said, "the way you said my name when no one else did."
They kept going.
Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven.
They filled the page.
Filled another.
Little things.
Real things.
Some soft. Some sharp.
Some they almost forgot — but now never would.
When the list was done, Mina leaned her head against Kira's shoulder.
"I don't need everyone to get it," she said. "Just us."
Kira nodded.
"We do."
They didn't talk about next year.
Or college.
Or how some people still looked at them with too much in their eyes.
There would be time for that.
Tonight wasn't about fear.
It was about space.
And the people who chose to take it.
Kira flipped to the final page in her book.
She wrote two words at the top:
"We stayed."
Mina looked at her.
"You always know how to end it," she said.
Kira smiled. "It's not the end. Just the part we write together now."
Mina leaned in.
Pressed her forehead to Kira's.
And whispered, "Then let's write something good."
They stayed until the light went violet-blue and the stars began to show.
Not all of them.
But enough.
And when they climbed down, when their feet touched solid ground again — they didn't look back.
Because they didn't have to.
The rooftop would always be there.
And so would they...