“I’ll be okay.” I stand up on my toes and kiss Tiago’s cheek.

It’s okay to love this boy also. It’s a different kind of love. And it’s okay.

Tiago's lips find mine, and the world narrows to this single point of contact. My thoughts—tangled and thorny just moments ago—blur at the edges. His mouth tastes like mint gum and the faint bitterness of coffee, familiar yet somehow new in this moment of weakness.

I shouldn't want this. But my body remembers him before my mind can protest.

He pulls back just enough to look at me, his dark eyes searching mine. A question hangs between us, unspoken but clear. I answer by leaning forward, reclaiming his mouth with mine. Permission granted. Relief floods through me—not because I've made a good decision, but because for a few precious minutes, I won't have to think anymore.

"Lucia," he murmurs against my lips, my name transformed into something sacred in his accented English.

His hands cup my face, thumbs brushing my cheekbones with a tenderness that threatens to undo me. This gentleness hurts more than rough handling ever could. I push forward, deepening the kiss, silently begging him to match my urgency. I don't want tenderness. Tenderness makes me feel things I'm trying to escape.

A stone bench hides in the trees behind us, and I drag him there before I collapse onto it. He sits beside me. Yellow flowers blossom near us, and the scent mingles with Tiago's cologne—something woodsy and warm that takes me back to nights in Arkansas when the air hung heavy with heat and possibility.

His fingers tangle in my hair, and he responds to my silent plea, kissing me harder. His tongue slides against mine, and a small sound escapes me—half sigh, half moan. The sound ignites something in him. His hands move from my face to my waist, pulling me closer until I'm nearly in his lap.

"I missed you," he whispers, his breath hot against my ear. "So much, Lucia."

An uncomfortable heat blooms in my chest, something I recognize as shame mixed with desire. I don't answer. Instead, I drag my mouth along his jaw, feeling the slight roughness of stubble against my lips. I've traveled halfway across the world, running from precisely this—from Tiago, from us, from the inevitable crash that always follows our highs. Yet here I am, drawn back like the tide to the shore.

His hands slip under the hem of my shirt, warm against the small of my back. Goosebumps rise on my skin despite the afternoon sun filtering through the twisting tree branches. The contrast of sensations—the cool ocean breeze, warm hands—anchors me to this moment. This is what I need: physical sensations so intense they drown out everything else.

"You still drive me crazy," he says, voice rough with want. His accent thickens when he's emotional, Portuguese cadences coloring his English. "Always, Lucia."

I pull back just enough to look at him—really look at him. His curls are wilder than when I left, grown out a bit. The scar above his right eyebrow (from a childhood fall I wasn't there for but heard about in midnight confessions) catches the light. His lips, fuller than mine, now slightly swollen from kissing. The familiar angles of his face somehow sharper after months apart.

"I'm not staying," I tell him, my voice steadier than I feel. "This doesn't change anything."

He nods once, a shadow crossing his face before he masks it with a crooked smile. "I know. Just for now, eh?"

Just for now. The familiar refrain of our relationship, words we've repeated to each other across continents and time zones. Words that should have lost their meaning but somehow never do.

I lean back into him, reclaiming his mouth. His hands grow bolder, sliding higher beneath my shirt until his thumbs brush the underwire of my bra. A shiver runs through me that has nothing to do with the ocean air. My body arches into his touch without my permission, muscle memory taking over where conscious thought fails.

My teeth catch his lower lip, and he groans—a sound so familiar it echoes in my dreams sometimes. I swallow the sound, hungry for the distraction it brings. My fingers find the nape of his neck, tracing patterns there.

"Someone could see," I murmur halfheartedly, even as I press closer.

Tiago laughs against my neck, where his mouth has migrated. "Nobody cares in Brazil.”

His teeth graze the sensitive spot where my neck meets my shoulder, and my thoughts scatter like startled birds. My head falls back, giving him better access. The sunlight dapples through the trees above us, painting patterns on my closed eyelids.

"Você ainda é minha," he whispers against my collarbone. You're still mine.

The Portuguese slides under my skin like a blade between ribs. I should correct him. I should pull away. I should remember what happened when I left Brazil, why we broke up, why we don't work.

Instead, I guide his mouth back to mine and kiss him until my lungs burn for air. His hands move to my hips, fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks—marks I'll examine later in private, pressing on them to feel the sweet ache, proof this wasn't just another dream.

My hands find their way under his T-shirt, tracing the familiar topography of his abdomen. The muscles there tighten under my touch. Eighteen years old and already built like someone who's spent a lifetime working with his hands. I remember watching him chase balls down the soccer fields at our high school, the muscles tightening in his thighs with each sprint.

The memory twists something inside me. I kiss him harder, trying to outrun the nostalgia threatening to overwhelm the moment. This isn't about the past. This is about now—about temporary relief from the pressure building inside me.

"Tiago," I gasp when we finally break for air. His name in my mouth tastes like surrender.

His hands cup my face again, forcing me to meet his gaze. "I know you're hurting," he says, his thumb tracing my bottom lip. "Let me make it better. Even just for a little while."

The sincerity in his voice nearly breaks me. That's always been our problem—not a lack of feeling, but too much of it, intense and overwhelming. We burn too hot to last.

"Make me forget," I whisper, the closest I can come to honesty.

Something shifts in his eyes—understanding, acceptance, determination. He stands, pulling me up with him. My legs feel unsteady beneath me, as though I've been at sea rather than sitting on a stone bench.

"Come back home," he says, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear with unexpected gentleness.

Home. Such a loaded word between us. His house isn't my home. My dorm room isn't home. Home is a concept that slips through my fingers whenever I try to define it.

But I nod, because right now, home means anywhere I can lose myself in sensation. Anywhere I can outrun the hollowness that's followed me from Colorado to Arkansas to these Brazilian sands.

"Yes," I say, the word both capitulation and conquest. "Take me home."