The rooftop was almost always locked.
Except tonight.
Hana had swiped the key from a teacher's desk "by accident" and casually slipped it into my hand with a wink.
"No fireworks without altitude," she said.
So here we were.
The festival stage still echoed below cheers rising like heatwaves, bursts of color flickering above the gym.
But up here?
It was quiet.
Rose sat beside me on the gravel, legs folded beneath her, hair catching the breeze like a soft black ribbon. The lights from the city flickered across her face cheekbones glowing faint gold, shadows curling at her collarbone.
She looked like the moon had come down just to rest beside me.
I lay on my back and stared up.
"You think the sky ever gets tired of people wishing on it?" I asked.
She looked at me.
"I think it gets lonelier when no one does."
We stayed like that for a while.
Not talking.
Just breathing.
Letting the chill creep under our sleeves. Letting the closeness speak for us.
Then Rose shifted closer.
Her hand found mine.
"Kellie?"
I turned my head toward her.
"I don't know what the future looks like," she said. "I don't know what city I'll live in, or if my mother will ever say my name without flinching. But I know this"
She squeezed my hand.
"I want to wake up next to you. Not just now. Later. Years later. When we're different people, when we've messed up, fixed things, grown older. I want that."
My throat caught.
So I answered the only way I knew how.
"I'm yours. Now, later whatever time you want, it's already yours."
She leaned down, and we kissed under the stars.
Not like a first kiss.
Like something remembered.
Like we'd already kissed a hundred times in a hundred futures.
Like this one just happened to be now.
Below us, the fireworks started.
But we didn't watch.
Because the sky wasn't behind glass anymore.
It was in her eyes.
In her smile.
In the quiet click of her fingers fitting perfectly between mine.