She didn't kiss back because she really couldn't.
Her lips stayed pressed against his, warm and soft and slightly open, and she was just—there.
Receiving. Processing. Drowning; a picture-perfect of a girl standing in the path of something enormous and beautiful that had hit her before she was ready and was now rolling over her in slow, warm, devastating waves while she gripped the only solid thing within reach and tried, with the futile determination of someone bailing water out of a sinking boat with a teacup, not to collapse.
A broken, beautiful surrender that made the hallway feel like the last sanctuary on a dying world, where two lost souls traded their last untouched pieces for something far more dangerous than safety.
