The Forever of Ella and Micha

have a peaceful moment where my thoughts aren’t bunched up in my head.
    Somewhere along the line, I begin to cry, but do it noiselessly, hoping he won’t notice.
    His fingers seek my cheeks and wipe away the tears. “Why are you crying, pretty girl?”
    “It’s nothing… It’s just that this is so normal,” I admit, dabbing the tears with my fingertips. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m being such a baby.”
    He kisses my head and guides me closer. “You’re not being a baby. You’re being real.”
    Feeling some of the burden fall off my chest, I pull his arms around me even more, never wanting him to let me go.

    He gives me a piggyback ride back to the hotel because my feet hurt from all the walking we did. I can’t stop laughing the entire time, because people keep looking at us strangely, although some are envious.
    When we enter the lobby of the hotel, the bellman, who is wearing a funny hat and a buttoned uniform, approaches us with a stern look on his narrow face. “No roughhousing in the lobby.”
    Micha’s boots scuff against the white marble flooring. “Absolutely. We’ll save that for the bedroom,” he replies as he backs into the elevator with me on his back.
    The bellman scowls as the doors glide shut with Micha giving him a little wave. I move to climb off his back, but he links his arms underneath my legs as he punches in the button to our floor and the elevator jerks upward.
    When it reaches our floor, he holds me in place as he walks through the doors and down the long hallway to our room.
    A middle-age couple walks by and the woman presses her hand to her heart. “Oh look, Harold, newlyweds.”
    It kills my mood, but Micha laughs as he slides the keycard into the slot and opens the door. He gently sets me down, but scoops me right back up into his arms. “Gotta carry her over the threshold, right?” He winks at the woman and she smiles, smitten.
    He carries me into the room and kicks the door close. “Welcome to the honeymoon suite, where only dirty things are allowed to happen.”
    I swat his arm as he heads toward the bed. “We are not newlyweds, so stop pretending.”
    His eyes glint wickedly and then he tosses me onto the massive bed decorated with white comforter and mints on the pillows. My body bounces when I hit the mattress and I flip onto my stomach, narrowing my eyes at him as he laughs hysterically.
    “I’m going to make you pay for that,” I warn with a dark look. “Really, really bad.”
    He backs toward his bag that’s on the sofa. “I’m looking forward to that.”
    I roll onto my back and drape my arm over my forehead as I stare up at the ceiling, feeling happy, and I desperately want to hold onto it. “I bet you are.”
    Seconds later, he bounds on top of me, bracing himself with his hands just in time so he doesn’t quite smash my body. “I know what we should do.”
    “No way. Whatever’s about to come out of your mouth, I don’t want to hear it,” I say and he traps my arms above my head. “You’re in one of your moods.”
    “What mood?”
    “Where everything you say is going to include being naughty. You know, I’ve often wondered if you just saved it for me, or if you did this kind of stuff with the girls you hooked up with.”
    His jaw tenses and he slants away from me, still gripping my wrists. “You know I was never with anyone long enough to do anything with them really.”
    Our happy mood is dying because of me and I don’t want it to end. “Tell me what you wanted to do and don’t hold back.”
    His aqua eyes sparkle like the ocean in the sunlight. “We should wrestle.”
    I shake my head from side to side. “No way. The last time I wrestled you you sat on me for, like, ten minutes, laughing your ass off because I couldn’t get up.”
    “First off, get your story straight. I was straddling you, not sitting on you,” he says. “And second off, I only stayed on you for that long because every time you tried to get away your body would rub against me and I was getting turned on.”
    “We were, like, fifteen,” I contend. “You didn’t see me like that yet.”
    “I was
fifteen
,” he retorts. “And you were a girl.”
    I giggle at his goofy smile. “Alright, let’s wrestle, but I’m not holding back.”
    Sucking on his lip ring, he backs off the bed, slips off his shirt, and tosses it onto the floor. “Neither am I.”
    I drop my face into my hands, shaking my head, aware I’m about to walk into a mess,