Since then, those feelings hadn’t weakened. In fact, they’d only gotten stronger. Maybe everyone thought he hung out with her because he couldn’t blow her up, but the truth was, that hadn’t even been a minor factor in his reasoning for most of the time he’d known her. Sure, that was there at first, it was what allowed her to slip in past all his defenses, but now it wouldn’t even have mattered. She could have told him that she’d lost all her powers and was now just a normal human and he still wouldn’t have cared, because with or without powers she was still her, she was still Tessa, and that was who he loved, not what she represented, not some abstract idea. How could he not? She brought happiness and passion with her wherever she went, never doing anything in half-measures, never letting fear of what might happen prevent her from doing exactly what she wanted when she wanted. She was so much stronger than she ever gave herself credit for, something he’d always seen and this time in 2012 had proven. She could turn his whole world inside out or upside down and he’d love her for doing it. Even though he knew they were kids, he couldn’t understand how he’d never realized it before.
He thought of all the impish grins, the playful smiles, the happy laughs that he loved so much, all the little things about her that he might have been about to lose forever. He thought about them all and opened his eyes, and finally did find the courage to actually say something. When he did, it was with a sort of quiet intensity that he didn’t really know he was capable of, a quiet calm even in the face of what he was terrified was an oncoming train. “I’m not sorry for what I said,” he told her earnestly, no longer looking at a spot next to her but looking right into her eyes. “Everything else,” he shrugged one shoulder helplessly, as if to say it was what it was and talking about it wouldn’t fix anything, “but that, what I said, that was the truth and no matter what happens, I don’t regret finally telling you.” And then slowly, deliberately, he set his guitar down, leaning it against one of the sturdier plants. He never took his eyes off hers now, searching for something, anything, any hint as to what she was thinking.