the end.

They met each other on a Thursday night. It was unusual for either of them to be out on a Thursday because Thursdays aren't like Fridays and Saturdays. There was no pressure to be social and laying in bed was a perfectly acceptable Thursday night activity. But there they were, at a crappy coffee shop on a Thursday night, listening to some friend of a friend's mediocre garage band.

The first thing he noticed about her was her hair, and how it kind of gave the impression that her head was on fire. The first thing she saw when he walked in were the holes in the knees of his jeans. She couldn't stop thinking about how nice his knees were and wondering how he got those holes.
She spent the night sipping on her chamomile and sneaking glances at him behind her bangs. She tapped her foot to the music and silently wondered if he was looking at her too. He wasn't.
He was busy making jokes with his friends and thinking about how maybe he should've stayed home on this particular Thursday. But her red hair was always in the corner of his eye, begging for his attention. Slipping into his mind and calling him towards her.

Neither of them remember how they started talking. Who said what first and if the other one laughed or looked around awkwardly. But when the music was over and everyone was telling the band they did a great job, even though they didn't, somehow she found him. And he found her, though unaware that he was even looking. Two strangers in a run down coffee shop making small talk. That night he couldn't sleep, so he went to his desk and he drew her.

Its hard to say when exactly they fell in love with each other. It wasn't a lightning romance where he takes her home from that coffee shop without even learning her last name. It was a shy love. Uncharted territory.
She fell in love with the way he smiled and the way he sang. And even though she was tone deaf he never laughed at her when she sang along. She loved his stupid jokes and how he was one of the good guys. She'd been looking for him.
He loved her for her boldness and because when any of her friends had their hearts broken, she was the one they called. He loved the way she wore dresses while they played video games. She would whine about not being able to sit cross-legged on the ground. But she kept wearing dresses. He loved the part of her that was crushingly honest. He could tell you his favorite freckle on her face.

They spent their lives going on adventures. Slaying dragons one day and filing taxes the next. She got along with his friends and they'd throw weird little dinner parties. They fought mostly about stupid things and settled the unsettle-able arguments with rock paper scissors. At night he would count the freckles on her face, but every night he got a different number. He insisted that her freckles appeared and disappeared at will and that he wasn't miscounting.
They had periodic Alien marathons.
Each day was a new quest of their own strange world.
The freezer was always stocked with ice cream.
And every Thursday night, they went out.