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“What is-” My voice trails off as I turn to Laine, looking for some sort of verbal explanation, which she has yet to give me this whole time we’ve been here.

“I was the one who vandalized the painting.” She says with a soft inclination in her voice, almost light enough that I can hear her heart pounding in her chest.

“But… you messed up your picturesque painting.” “Drew.” Laine takes a step toward me, and I don’t back away. “I liked who I was far more when I was messy with you than when I was picturesque without you.”

“Oh,” is all I can get out.

“I’ve realized a lot of things in the time we spent apart. Like how, as much as Iwantedto want to be away from you, it killed me every day not seeing you or talking to you. How I can become something more than my father ever was, and I can do it with you by my side. I want to be with you, Drew, but I do also want to follow God’s path.” That’s it. There it goes again. I’ve played out this story before, and I know how it ends. I turn to leave, but she grabs my shoulders and meets my eyes with hers.

“Wait! I’m not done. Please.” Her eyes never leave mine, and it’s like she put me in a trance.

As much as I want to run out and never look back, to block out whatever she says next and go back to wallowing in my room, playing out our story in my head a million more times until I forget what her face looks like or the feeling of her lips against mine or the sound of my name whispered off of them, I don’t move.

I stay.

“One of the things I’ve realized recently is that two things can be true. I can follow God and still feel what I feel for you. I don't believe that loving you is a sin because sins are wrong, and nothing has ever felt more right than the feeling of being in love with you.”

Hearing those words come out of Laine’s mouth feels like a wave crashing over me. It hits me hard, but it’s also refreshing in a way. It feels so surreal, I’m almost positive I misheard her.

“Wait, you love me?”

“Yes.” She breathes out a heavy sigh, the kind of breath that holds all of the emotions I’d been feeling while she’d beenbottling them up.

“Of course, I love you, Drew. And it’s incredibly scary because, for the longest time, I felt like I couldn’t. Like, there was something wrong with me because I loved you. Like I was a sinner. But then I realized that sins are meant to be condemned. There are so many awful things in the world to be condemned, but love shouldn’t be one of them.”

I stand for a moment, staring at her, unable to piece together the jumble of thoughts in my brain right now. Could she really mean it? I want to trust her, and I think I do, but she’s hurt me before, and I don’t know if I can chance getting hurt again.

Attempting to stall while I gather my thoughts, I glance over at the messed-up painting, and then back to Laine. My eyes gravitate toward her hands again, fixated on the freshly dried black paint running along the sides of her fingers. Looking at them now, clouded by the emotion she just threw at me, I see that they’re the same hands I grew to love, even if they’re stained with a different color.

And then it hits me.

My dad never up and left us. He wanted something more than the rigid life he and my mom created together, and he still wanted her in the process.

Maybe change is inevitable, but it could also result in something good. When people change, you get the opportunity to discover more parts of them you didn’t know you could love.

In the end, my dad didn’t abandon us. Hechangedas he grew from the teenager my mom fell in love with, and she didn’t give herself the chance to get to know the new version of him, and grow with him instead of apart from him.

I wasn’t going to let that happen to me and Laine. I want to fall in love with all the new parts of her while only further intensifying the parts I originally fell in love with. Maybe Laine’s right; two things can be true. She can become more devout to herfaith and still be the same girl I loved before.

Before I can stop myself, I lean in until our lips barely brush, holding her face with my hands so delicately, like if I push too hard, she may break and shatter into a million tiny pieces. She closes the gap between our lips and wraps her hands around my waist, pulling me into her.

Her kiss is soft, just like everything else about her, and time stops again like it does in every other moment spent with her.

Laine may not have given me the guaranteed happy ending I thought was only possible in my dreams, but she did give me hope for one, and maybe that hope was the happy ending all along.