Chapter Text
The soft pitter-patter of rain against the tent wakes Zoey up first.
She’s cold down to the bone, and she can already feel how sluggish her muscles are just from how frozen her nose feels when she twitches it. The gentle rain is practically whispering to her to roll over and go back to sleep.
Zoey resists the temptation, somehow.
She lets out a soft sigh, even though her eyes are still firmly shut. She’ll need a couple minutes before she can open them with how cold she feels.
It was Mira’s idea to go camping this week.
She said something to the two of them about how they needed to check out the great outdoors and that it would be good for their health—and she’d mumbled under her breath that maybe it would help Zoey with her phone addiction, and how she transferred it over to Rumi over the years.
Joke’s on her. Zoey downloaded a couple fics for her and Rumi to read under their sleeping bags before they drove out here.
Warm fingers brush over the side of her cheeks. Knuckles graze against the corners of her eye, preventing her hair from getting in her face. Zoey tries not to smile as she feigns sleep.
She and Mira had known for years that Rumi likes to watch them for a while before she gets up at ungodly hours of the day. They like to let Rumi have it.
Zoey has to fight off sleep each time she feels Rumi’s fingers on her face. It’s so soothing that she almost has no choice but to sleep—but today is their last day of camping, and Zoey can’t wait to finally tear down their tent and get back to the city. Her back’s been aching on the ground for days.
She feels Rumi press her lips against her forehead. Rumi hums, kisses her one last time on the corner of the mouth, and gets up slowly. Zoey almost whines to make her come back, but she’s too sluggish to do anything but lay there with her eyes still firmly shut.
Over the sounds of the slowing rain, Zoey hears her open the zipper of the tent. She does it slowly, as not to disturb her sleeping lovers. Rumi steps out into the cold, freezing earth, and she zips it right back up.
The rain continues to thrum against the tent. She shimmies as best as she can until she feels Mira’s warm body, and she curls up against her like a cat to a heated blanket. If she ends up falling back asleep, it would be no one’s fault but the rain and the way Mira’s chest heaves gently up and down against her ear.
Zoey turns over on her shoulder after a while. For how long, she can’t tell, nor does she care. Rumi hasn’t come into the tent to bang pots and pans just yet, so it shouldn’t be too late in the morning.
She yawns as sits up. Her eyelids still feel heavy, but she blinks and rubs it away as best as she can.
Mira stirs at her side. She groans, and Zoey feels a light stab of guilt.
“Aw, baby, I’m sorry,” Zoey coos. She lays back down to touch the tip of Mira’s nose, and Mira wrinkles it in response. “Did I wake you? Do you wanna go back to sleep?”
“No,” Mira mumbles, in a way that means she clearly wants to say yes.
Zoey kisses her by her eyebrow. “You can go back to sleep if you want,” Zoey tells her softly. Mira’s clumsy hand reaches out to find hers over her sleeping bag, and Zoey bites back a giggle. “It’s still pretty early. I don’t think Rumi would mind if you slept in for longer. Honestly, she would’ve told you to after what you did last night.”
Mira smirks faintly, even though she’s still one foot in dreamland.
Then Mira blinks a couple times, and her squinty eyes find Zoey.
“Rain stopped,” Mira rasps. Her deep morning voice always gets to Zoey, and Zoey has to hold herself back from jumping Mira right then and there in the middle of the woods. “S’good time to get up. And I know you wanted to go home.”
“I’m home when I’m with you and Rumi,” Zoey remarks.
Mira rolls her eyes at her corniness, even though a smile plays on her lips. Zoey just laughs.
“Go see what Rumi’s up to,” Mira drawls, still fighting the sleep. She squeezes Zoey’s hand. “I’ll come join in a bit.”
Mira leans over and pouts her lips. Zoey laughs breathlessly, but she complies in giving her a good morning kiss. Stinky morning breath has never been a problem between the three of them. They’ve dealt with worse.
“I love you,” Mira mumbles, eyes closed.
“Love you more, cornball,” Zoey says lightly.
Zoey takes a random jacket from the tent floor—Rumi’s, judging from the name of the brand on the chest—and haphazardly throws it on. Mira watches her with a dopey half-smile from where she’s laying, and Zoey blows her a kiss and a wink before unzipping the tent.
The rain’s definitely stopped by now. The ground isn’t too muddy, thankfully, and the clouds are already breaking over the morning horizon to give way to sunshine.
She breathes in the after-rain air. Mira was definitely right about the great outdoors giving her a new appreciation for something that isn’t her sweaty studio or gaming room—but Zoey would rather die than give her the satisfaction of knowing she was right.
Rumi is sitting by a camping chair. She’s reading with the side of her cheek in the propped palm of her hand, and she’s sporting her new reading glasses. The last couple years have deteriorated Rumi’s perfect 20/20 vision, and she and Mira had to drag her kicking and screaming to an eye doctor when they noticed that she’d been squinting at the TV too often during couch time.
She looks hot with reading glasses, Zoey will admit.
She makes sure Rumi knows it too by walking up to her and declaring, “Morning, bubba! You look hot as hell.”
Rumi rolls her eyes and smiles like she’d been expecting it. She closes her book and sets it down near a makeshift table, then stands to greet Zoey. Rumi’s hand immediately comes over Zoey’s waist, and she uses her other arm to tug her closer.
Rumi’s morning kisses have always been done so with a generous amount of passion and something almost akin to relief—as if Rumi’s always grateful to know that she has another day to spend with them.
“Good morning to you too, pretty girl,” Rumi greets, wonderfully sweet even during the early hours of the morning. She takes Zoey’s hand and kisses a knuckle, then her lips.
Zoey giggles into her mouth. She puts a hand on Rumi’s chest, leans in by her cheek, and whispers, “I think Mira’s still sleeping. You really put her to work.”
She can feel how warm Rumi’s cheeks have gotten when she kisses each side. Rumi weakly argues, “She started it! I told her to take it easy because she pulled her leg last week, but no, she—”
Zoey pats her on the arm with a laugh. “I don’t think she minds,” she insists, then looks over at the empty campfire. “Do you want me to help you with breakfast? I can make the fire while you get the hotdogs.”
“I was thinking of making sandwiches,” Rumi says with a hum. Her hand is still on Zoey’s hip. She pecks Zoey’s lips, then adds, “It’s easier to clean up than putting out a fire afterwards.”
Zoey pouts. “But I kinda wanted hotdogs,” she whines.
And Rumi answers happily, “Well, if you want hotdogs, then we’ll have hotdogs.”
It’s easy as that, and Zoey grins to herself. It always felt good to know that she had the Ryu Rumi wrapped around her finger. Zoey from middle school would’ve freaked the fuck out if she knew that this was waiting for her in the future.
Rumi gets started with unwrapping the hotdog buns. Zoey starts the fire and sets the grill. They’re humming under their breaths, with whatever random songs that come to mind. Mira had been adamant about not bringing any technology at all on the trip, so there’s no radio for them to sing along with.
Zoey doesn’t mind it at all. She finds Rumi’s singing just as ethereal as when she’d heard it for the first time as a trainee. Listening to it in bed while Rumi pets her hair at twelve in the morning is an added bonus that she will never tire of.
The tent unzips. Zoey turns in time to watch Mira unfurl herself and step out into the sunlight with a yawn. Her hair is a little frizzy, but she’ll probably only need a couple strokes with a hairbrush to tidy it up. Zoey’s always been a little jealous of that.
Mira comes over with a tired smile to kiss Zoey. She kisses Rumi too, and it feels like they’re back at their penthouse instead of the middle of the woods.
“Hi, honey,” Mira mumbles against Rumi’s lips, arm still around Rumi’s waist. Zoey can see a smile stretching across Rumi’s face. “Sleep well?”
Rumi hums with affirmation. She pecks Mira’s lips again, then adds, “We’re busy making breakfast. Do you wanna take down the tent while we cook?”
Mira raises an eyebrow while she watches Zoey skewer some hotdogs onto a metal stick, then guesses, “Zoey felt like hotdogs again?”
Zoey beams at her proudly in response. She can’t talk because she has a piece of milkbread stuffed in her mouth.
Rumi snorts and nods. “Do you want one? I can fix you a sandwich if you’re not feeling it, jagiya.”
Waving away her concern, Mira answers, “S’fine. Call me if you need any help.”
But she doesn’t move from her spot.
Even as Zoey and Rumi continue to mill around the small campfire, skewering some hotdogs and preparing some paper plates, Mira stays put right where she is. For a moment, Zoey chalks it off to her trying to reset her body from sleeping for so long.
When Mira stands there for another minute, unmoving, Zoey finally chomps up the last of her milkbread and puts down the skewered hotdogs on the grill to look up at her in concern. So does Rumi.
“Bubby?” Zoey calls. “You okay over there?”
Mira flicks her eyes between her and Rumi.
Rumi puts her hand on Zoey’s shoulder to squeeze it. On reflex, Zoey puts her hand on top of hers.
Mira’s eyes are immediately drawn to their hands—and the way that their rings glint in the newfound sunshine.
Then Mira’s bottom lip trembles.
She looks away before they could see the tears welling up in her eyes, but Rumi and Zoey know her too, too well to let that get away, and they’re both standing to coo at her before they know it.
“Aw, baby, don’t cry,” Rumi gushes. Her hands come over Mira’s forearm to rub it up and down, just in the way that Mira always likes it when her feelings get the best of her.
“I’m not crying!” Mira argues, but she is most definitely crying.
Mira puts a hand over her eyes and squeezes them shut. Zoey tries to unearth her hand by kissing her all over the side of the face. She tries her best to smother her giggles, but she can’t help it, and Mira just pouts some more.
Sometimes, Zoey likes to think that she knows everything about Rumi and Mira.
Days like this—with Rumi cooing at their emotional girlfriend and Mira crying in the middle of the woods at five in the morning—prove her wrong. She’s grateful that she’s wrong. She wants to learn something new about them every single day that she spends on Earth.
“Come sit down,” Zoey proposes—not quite unlike the way Mira had proposed to them the day before.
Or the way that Rumi had proposed too. And Zoey, just a millisecond afterwards.
They have two other sets of rings zipped away in their backpacks, but Rumi and Zoey knew that wearing Mira’s for the morning after would prod a reaction just like this.
(And, naturally, Mira has both of theirs stacked on the same finger. Zoey can’t imagine what she’s going to do when they add some more at their wedding.)
They lead Mira over to one of the camping chairs. She plops on it while she sniffles, and she has to raise her glasses over her forehead to rub at her eyes. Rumi is dabbing at Mira’s cheek with a clean rag. Zoey makes eye contact with her, and they press tight-lipped smiles over at one another while Mira continues to complain that it’s the smoke from the campfire making her tear up.
Zoey kneels and turns one of the hot dogs on the makeshift grill to see if it’s burnt. It’s not, thankfully, and she calls, “It’ll probably be a while before these aren’t, like, super soggy. What do you guys want to do while we wait?”
“I was going to tear down the tent,” Mira reminds her with a grunt. She puts her hands over the camping chair to raise herself back up, but Rumi pushes her back down by the chest. “What?” she complains.
Rumi lightly says, “You look like you’re two and a half seconds away from bawling, so I don’t think so.”
“No, I don’t,” Mira snaps. She sniffles again. It leaves her words obsolete.
Zoey claps her hands together and runs over to one of the camping chairs next to Mira. “Oh! Oh! I know!”
Rumi laughs under her breath. She passes Zoey some more milkbread, then Zoey exclaims, “Mira, you should tell us about your whole proposal plan.”
“Again?” Mira asks, but she doesn’t sound as confused or surprised about it as she should. “I told you last night. Three times.”
Zoey tilts her head. “So?”
Laughing some more, Rumi strides over to the last camping chair and scooches in closer to the two of them. She props her chin on her hand and muses, “Yeah, Mira. Maybe we forgot some details on the way. You should tell it again.”
Mira snorts. “God, you guys suck.”
“Uh huh,” Rumi says, unperturbed.
“We could do more than su—” Zoey starts, but Rumi lightly kicks her in the shin.
Mira rolls her eyes in that fond, smiley way. She leans back against her camping chair and brings her ankle up to her knee to roll it. An old ankle injury probably flaring up for her again. Zoey makes a reminder in the back of her head to get her some ointment later.
The crackles of the fire nearby are the perfect backdrop while Mira starts off by asking, “Are you really going to make me go all the way back to the beginning?”
“You know we will,” Zoey says seriously.
She scooches her chair in closer to hear whatever Mira has to say, and Mira chuckles. She offers her hand to Zoey on the arm of her chair, and Zoey takes it happily.
Mira’s thumb rubs over the back of her hand as she begrudgingly says, “I was thinking about marrying the two of you for a very… long time. As in, days after we started dating. Officially.”
Rumi and Zoey giggle. Mira has to admonish them with a look, but there’s that light smile on her face.
“Finally stopped putting it off after our last world tour,” Mira says again, her thumb still working circles on Zoey’s, and now Rumi’s with the other hand. “I remember it was when we were in that meeting room with Bobby. Rumi said something about wanting to stop touring for a while so we could focus on each other, and you agreed, Zoey.”
“Yeah?” Zoey goads on, already giddy.
“Yeah,” Mira confirms. She leans back again to close her eyes. Rumi is running her fingernails over her forearm. The scent of grilled hotdogs smells wonderful at five in the morning. “Then I started thinking about… about all the vacations we could go on. And the couch time. And maybe… kids someday, if we—”
“Soon,” Rumi corrects, all too quickly. She flushes when they turn to look at her, and she weakly argues, “As in—well, not too far someday, but soon-ish someday. Right?”
Mira laughs under her breath, then nods. “Right. Right. But, yeah. That. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and after a talk with Bobby, I realized that maybe it was… time, I guess.” She shrugs, desperately trying to look nonchalant as if Rumi and Zoey weren’t wearing matching gems in cuts that they offhandedly talked about wanting, with engravings so sweet that it made them both tear up all night just glancing at it.
“Then what, then what?” Zoey asks eagerly.
Mira sighs through her nose, fondly, and continues, “I met back and forth with a jeweler for a couple months to make sure everything was perfect. Or at least something worth the time for the two of you. You both deserve the best, and I wanted to make sure of that.”
“Aw, Mira,” Rumi coos, but she still seems very, very touched by it all. “You’ve always been such a sweetheart, you know that?”
Mira rolls her eyes again, but the pinkness in her cheeks gives her away.
“Then I tricked you both to come on this trip with me,” Mira says casually-not-casually. “I didn’t want Zoey having Internet in case she told the whole world like, a couple seconds after I proposed—”
“That’s why you said we couldn’t use our phones?!” Zoey gapes at her, eyes wide. “You didn’t tell us that part yesterday!”
Rumi hums. “Well, would you have posted about it?”
Zoey pauses. “So what happened next?” she asks quickly.
Snickering, Mira jostles their knees together. “Then I took you guys on a romantic hike through the woods—which, by the way, was not my fault that you fell into the creek, Rumi. I told you to watch your step.”
“I didn’t think you meant it literally!” Rumi argues.
“What other way did you think I meant it?” Mira asks in disbelief.
“Okay, okay,” Zoey says loudly. She pokes Mira’s cheek to get her to focus back on her. “Then what happened?”
“Then you fell into the creek,” Mira deadpans. Rumi has to slap a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing too hard. “And we got lost for two hours. Then the sun started setting. And Rumi thought she saw a bear and screamed like the three of us don’t literally have weapons we can summon from thin air—”
“Actually, it’s from the Honmoon, and we can only—” Rumi starts to explain.
“Rumi, lovey, I like how nerdy you get sometimes, but I really wanna hear this next part,” Zoey whines.
Rumi apologizes to her with a sheepish smile. Zoey takes it—even though she kinda wanted a kiss. Eh, she can steal them later.
Mira sighs heavily, as if remembering exactly what entails afterwards, and continues, “Then we got to the spot that I decorated for the proposal, and the stupid bear ate all the food. And scared off the stupid band that I paid a stupid amount of money for and the stupid balloons weren’t even inflated all the way and the stupid—”
Rumi laughs and pats Mira’s forearm. Zoey kisses her cheek, over and over, until she stops tensing up. If they hadn’t soothed her, the top of her head would’ve started steaming.
Mira deflates in their care. Zoey presses another kiss to the corner of her mouth.
Mira sighs, a little bit more fondly this time. “But I knew that the two of you wouldn’t care in the end anyway, so.” She shrugs in that nonchalant-not-very-chalant way. “I got down on one knee and I asked you two to marry me and have me for as long as you could ever want. That I would be there for the two of you through sickness and health and whatever the hell you say on the altar.”
“Mira,” Zoey coos softly.
She wants to say more, but she knows herself enough to know that she’d choke up if she said anything more—so she settles for pressing her head against Mira’s shoulder.
Mira exhales until her chest deflates all the way. She looks at Zoey, smiles at her in that gorgeous way that Mira always does when she’s feeling sappy, and gives Rumi that same smile.
And she murmurs, “If neither of you wanted to get married, I wouldn’t have minded—but believe me, the thought of the two of you walking around with my ring on your fingers, getting to tell people that you were my wives—I would have given everything to have that kind of privilege.”
Rumi kisses her by the eyebrow. She squeezes Mira’s arm. “You don’t have to give anything to have it,” she says gently. Her lips curl into that happy, dorky smile, and she adds, “Except obviously you, but that comes with marrying you.”
Mira laughs enough to make her shoulders shake. She croaks out, even as Rumi and Zoey kiss her by her hairline and along her cheekbones, “I don’t know what I did to deserve the both of you like this, but I promise I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to give you both the life you deserve.”
“And we’ll give it back to you,” Zoey says, slightly affronted. She turns Mira’s chin to kiss her full on the mouth—and she feels Mira smirk as she pulls away.
Giggling, Zoey remarks, “You really are the biggest sap, Mira.”
Mira makes a face, like she can’t ever believe that to be true.
All it takes is one look from Rumi, and they’re both laughing away.
The fire still crackles nearby. One particular big snap, along with a splatter of embers in their faces, has Zoey kneeling by the fire to check on her hotdogs. She turns them over to cook on the other side. She sighs a breath of relief when she finds that they aren’t burnt yet. She’s proud of herself for getting better at hotdog cooking.
“I think you forgot the best part, Mira,” Rumi says with a hum. She’s separating the hotdog buns on three paper plates on top of the small cooler with Mira.
Mira’s eyebrows jump up in surprise. “Did I?”
“Oh, yeah!” Zoey says, twisting by her hip. “Don’t you remember what happened after your big speech?”
“Ugh!” The back of Mira’s head lightly touches the camping chair as she stares up at the sky. “Please don’t remind me,” she groans.
“Why not? It’s the best part!” Rumi says, all too gleefully.
“If you’re embarrassed because you started crying after Rumi and I pulled out our rings, you shouldn’t be,” Zoey adds lightly. She beams at Mira, then points at the two shiny rings on her finger. “It’s the best part, if you ask me. We definitely need to take photoshoots when we get home.”
“Oh, I’m way ahead of you, aegiya,” Rumi chirps. “I wrote down all the things I was going to tell Bobby when we finally got service. Including to make sure that Mira takes my last—”
“We had a truce last night!” Zoey complained. “Hyphens!”
“As long as mine came first, yeobo,” Rumi says, sticking out her tongue at her. “And I heard you giggling to yourself last night about backstabbing me with that, so nuh-uh.”
Zoey gasps dramatically. She inhales deep to sputter her side of the argument, but Mira slaps her hand over her mouth.
Mira tilts her head. She diverts the conversation by asking, “Why didn’t you call him while we were sleeping?”
“Because we don’t… have service?” Rumi says slowly. “I just said that.”
“Yeah but—” Mira’s hands move in front of her like she’s trying to make the best point, but Rumi and Zoey just stare. “I told you two last night that I said the ‘no Internet’ thing was so Zoey couldn’t tell anyone yet.”
“Yeah?” Rumi says, still slowly.
“You’re not Zoey,” Mira deadpans.
“Hey!” Zoey whines.
“And we’re in the middle of the woods,” Rumi answers, like Mira’s sprouting a second head. “So… no service.”
Mira laughs, breathless and ironically. “Rumi, hon—there are cell towers, like, half a kilometer away from us. Yeah, there’s service. I just turned off the data on your phone before we left.”
Rumi drops the bun in her hand to gape at Mira. “This whole time?!”
Zoey can’t help but cackle. She’s laughing so hard that she keels over and falls against the dirt. The fire is crackling again, but she can’t stop laughing.
Rumi scrambles to check her phone. She’s hopping up and down on the spot while she impatiently waits for her notifications to load all in, and Zoey turns to look at Mira.
“Would you consider—?” she starts.
“No,” Mira answers succinctly.
“But what if—?” Zoey whines.
“No.”
“Just for five—”
“Zoey, baby, you know I love you.” Mira gives her a pointed look, even as she stands to brush off her pajama pants. “But you can’t convince me.”
“What if you look over my shoulder while I check for five minutes?” Zoey begs. She crawls over to Mira and grabs her pajama pants to shake them desperately. “Please! I don’t know what’s been trending for the last four days. What if everyone’s finally moved on from us?”
Mira snorts. She helps Zoey get up from the floor with a grunt, and she brushes off the dirt on Zoey’s knees while she says, “I seriously doubt that. But… fine. Five minutes.”
“That means she’s curious too, by the way,” Rumi calls as she walks past them to wave her phone in the air to get more bars. “Ugh. Nothing’s working! The only notification I’m getting is Pikmin Bloom.”
Zoey giggles while Mira tries to wave Rumi away.
“Five minutes,” Mira warns weakly.
Zoey takes Mira by the arm to bring her over to the camping chairs again. She leans up against her while she pulls out her phone to finally, finally turn on her data and be reunited with her beautiful social media apps.
She wonders what’s trending nowadays. Has the world finally moved on from labubus? Did K/DA release a new song? Which funny looking cat has everyone’s hearts now? Do people still like her new solo song where she had Rumi’s out-of-context whimpers in the background? Has Twice disbanded? Is there—?
“Rumi,” Mira says flatly.
“Yeah?” Rumi calls over her shoulder. She’s busy with turning over the hotdogs that Zoey has forsaken.
“Rumi,” Zoey reiterates, more somberly.
Rumi looks up to frown at them. They’re both looking at her blankly. “What?” she asks, and she makes her way over to them when they don’t respond.
Zoey just turns the phone over so that she could see.
Bobby had panic-called her sixty-seven times—which means that Rumi probably has double that on her phone, if it finally cooperates with her. He also sent a bunch of texts, and Zoey can make out some gratitude for his third raise they got him through all his typos and vague keysmashes.
She also has fifty thousand notifications from not only her social media platforms, but from direct messages from practically everyone in her contact list. The messages are all different, with differing levels of caps-lock and exclamation marks and emojis—but they’re congratulating her all the same in the end.
Zoey swipes over to what’s trending—not just in Korea, but globally.
#POLYTRIXROYALWEDDING and #POLYTRIXFOREVER are trending, along with a hundred other variations of their names smushed together and individually.
Rumi’s mouth hangs open. “It’s been… what, like eight hours? With us literally in the middle of the woods?”
“Fucking Dispatch,” Mira grumbles. She crosses her arms and leans back against her chair. “I was actually excited to break the news ourselves for once.”
“Well,” Rumi says with a helpless shrug. “At least—at least we don’t have to bother trying to find a way to announce the engagement? I guess?”
“I wonder how they’ll take the baby announcement,” Zoey muses.
They turn to her fast in alarm.
Zoey puts her hands up and says, “I’m kidding! Kidding…!”
There’s a pause in the air, like they’re hesitating about something. The fire pops some more.
She asks, “Unless you two wanna start—?”
“Zoey!”
She laughs hard, with her hand over her stomach to keep it from aching too hard. Mira and Rumi join her eventually, with the fire still snapping nearby and the smell of lingering petrichor giving them company.
She’s not entirely sure where they’ll be going next in the future.
Zoey just knows that she’ll have the two of them by her side—and that’s all that would ever matter to her.
Rumi and Mira start to put out the fire and put the hotdogs in the buns while Zoey checks a few more posts to satisfy her craving. She checks the Dispatch account to check what kind of photos they managed to nab of the three of them.
A lot of them are blurry, obviously. With them getting lost for so long, they had no choice but to propose to each other in the near darkness. Mira had told them last night that she wanted to propose right when the sun kissed the earth—a romantic notion for sure, except one she couldn’t execute due to all the wrong turns they made.
Zoey still remembers accidentally kissing Mira’s nostrils when they embraced after revealing their rings to each other. It makes her laugh under her breath.
There’s a few goodies at least, with Mira rubbing at her eyes and Rumi wrapping her arms around the two of them with fierce, fierce devotion. Their smiles are the most apparent in the photos, and there would be no denying how much they love each other, no matter how hard people might try online or on talk shows for the next few days or months or years.
But Zoey’s favorite has to be the wide shot of the three of them on their knees for each other, embracing and crying quietly into the night. Their silhouettes make it hard to make out their snot-filled faces and their messy, crying faces, but that’s not why Zoey loves the picture so much.
There are three stars twinkling right above their heads.
It’s eternally there, unmoving in that captured solace—just the way that they love each other.