they asked me: do you love him to death?

kalina nikolova.

  ―   i said:  speak of him over my grave and watch how he brings me back to life.  

"this is the last of them!" she announced, making a beeline for the nearest surface so that she could carefully put down the four box high stack that had been precariously balancing in her arms from the ground floor to their apartment, on the fifth. theirs. every time she thought about this newest step they'd taken - that the door that had clicked shut behind her was THEIRS, that the boxes they'd been hauling upstairs all afternoon were THEIRS and mostly about how this rented space was THEIRS - kalina's stomach did a flip, but it was always of the pleasant kind.

yes, she was nervous. it was the most human feeling of all and in this situation, moving into her very first home with her longest term partner, kalina knew that it was a fair one to be experiencing. but she wasn't letting it eat her up. she wasn't letting it dampen this milestone they were going through, together - on the contrary, she was soaking it up.

three years before she had been six feet under. her hands still, to this day, bore scars that reminded her of the night she had dragged herself out of her own grave. it wasn't nice to think about, but when you took into account that three years before, kalina nikolova had been DEAD - then it was a lot easier to understand why these moments, even the most nervewracking ones, meant everything to her.

she never did things by halves anymore. she didn't take these things for granted. and over the last few years, she'd learned that everything she'd enjoyed most had been with samuel at her side - his usual place, nowadays. they were together, always, and together they had gone through a whole lot of good, and a whole lot of bad - but this, moving into a tiny new york city apartment with one another, was the greatest good of all.

or at least the greatest good of the time being. kalina was sure she could outdo it, yet.

"i paid the movers while i was downstairs. they're gonna drop our receipt in tomorrow, along with chaise lounge that wouldn't fit in the van today - but they're gone," once sure the boxes she'd put down would stay put, kali turned to face sam, her grin huge, her happiness genuine. for the most part these days, it was. "so... since it's just you and me now, i was thinking that we could do the 'moving gift' thing out on the balcony? crack open that bottle of wine raziel got us, maybe, and take in the view?"

kalina nikolova.

  sometimes, all kalina could do was look at him. like just then, as he laughed over the moving process and how long it had felt - his eyes crinkled and his laugh was loud and joyous and for just that passing moment samuel was so genuinely carefree that it made her feel so, too. as she laughed with him, she was struck for maybe the hundredth time that day with the realization that she loved him - and he loved her, too.

they were together. they were happy. they got a LIFETIME at each others sides where three years before, that had seemed like it was something stolen from beneath their feet. she knew that those kind of things didn't happen. it was a miracle, if ever there was one, and not a day didn't go by where she wasn't thankful for every breath she got to take, every shared moment she had with her half-sister, every kiss from sam - and she knew whatever she got in this lifetime would never be enough, not even close, but it was better than the before. it was something, and she'd take it, and she would be thankful for it.

"i'm glad you think so, cause i wasn't taking no for an answer," she said, her smile huge and lopsided as she leant into him without any sense of boundaries, wrapping her arms around his waist and accepting the kiss on her forehead graciously, but refusing to leave it just be that. rising on her tip toes, she caught his lips with hers in the kind of lingering peck that could have, would have, should have turned into something just a little more, before she remembered that the night wasn't done yet and she had things to be doing, pulling herself away and then, dancing off ahead of him.

the door to their ( there was that word again, making her giddy ) balcony was already propped open with a strategically placed cardboard box, a side effect of the apartment having been too humid, all day, as they'd been moving things in and around. two plastic chairs had been left there by the previous tenants and she'd had the forethought to leave the wine chilling in evening air out there a few trips upstairs before, where it was waiting atop a plainly wrapped rectangular package, her moving in gift for him, and a cork screw. "can you get the plastic cups, please? i think they're in that box, there-" she gestured to one nearby the open door, stepping outside and opening the bottle as she waited, before setting it down and turning her head to the beyond, soaking in the chill of the air and the view of the city, bathed in golden sunset.

they were lucky. so, ridiculously lucky - she'd never take any of this for granted, and she knew, without him ever saying, that samuel wouldn't either.