The View from the Top by Hillary Frank

asked. They’d been planning on doing it right here at the little chapel in the cemetery the summer after she graduated Oberlin. A small wedding, only them and their families.
    Anabelle just looked at him. Serene, elegant, and poised, like a sixteenth-century marble sculpture.
    And then, he couldn’t help it: in one big exhale, the tears let loose. It was as if a dam had broken behind his eyes. “What about Mount Desert Island? I’ve got the cabin booked.” His voice sounded like some half-feminine version of himself.
    â€œWe should cancel it,” she said simply.
    He lifted the neck of his shirt and wiped his eyes as the thunder kaboomed straight overhead. “You know, I’ve actually been thinking we should break up,” he lied. “For kind of a long time:”
    â€œReally?” she said, cocking her dandelion-crowned head.
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause,” he said, “you make me too happy. And I can’t create when I’m happy. No artist can.”
    â€œOh,” she said, sucking in her lower lip. “Well, I wouldn’t want to hold you back.”
    There was something about seeing her hurt that made him able to stop crying so much. As if now they were even.
    A few tiny raindrops fell on the grass in front of them. And then, within seconds, the sky completely opened up.
    It was the kind of rain that made it impossible to see anything more than five feet away. But on their bench under the trees, all they felt was a little mist.
    Matt leaned over and picked a dandelion from the grass. One of those fluffy ones that looked like a tiny globe of snow. He handed it to Anabelle. “Make a wish,” he said.
    She shut her eyes and held the dandelion under her chin. The rain whished. She blew.
    The white airy seeds parachuted out into the storm.
    Anabelle reached over to his eyelashes. “Hang on, one didn’t make it.” She pulled the seed off of his face and blew it away.
    Then she picked a dandelion for him. “Your turn,” she said.
    Make this a good one , Matt told himself as he closed his eyes. He sat there for a second, letting the seeds tickle his lips. I wish that we get back together someday , he thought, huffing at the flower as if it were a birthday candle. There was something really romantic about the idea that this wasn’t it, that they’d suffer for a while without one another and then realize that they just couldn’t bear to live apart. Like Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
    â€œSo this is really happening?” Anabelle asked.
    â€œIt’s what you want, isn’t it?”
    â€œI guess. But it’s so hard.”
    Matt grabbed her hand and squeezed it three times. Once for I, once for love, once for you . She waited a beat, then did the same back to him.
    She leaned in close. “Can I, um ... can I kiss you one last time?”
    He answered her by pressing his lips to hers. It lasted through the next three rolls of thunder. The rain pounded down harder, creating a curtain all around them.
    Matt ran his fingers along the bottom of Anabelle’s belly. It was warm and soft. “Can I do this one last time?” he asked, creeping his hand up higher and higher under her shirt.
    She nodded, pushing her hand inside the elastic of his boxers. “Can I do this one last time?”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    They weren’t really doing anything, just holding each other in places where nobody else had ever touched them.
    â€œI can’t imagine doing stuff with anyone else,” she said.
    â€œI know, me neither,” he said.
    â€œCan we just sit here for a while?” she asked.
    â€œYes,” he said. It’s not like they could go anywhere else right now without getting soaked.
    Matt looked out at the headstones, darkened from the rain. There were the couples, the families. And then there were a few sad ones all off on their lonesome, their names worn off.
    Anabelle