“Your every action belies your speech.” Despite her tears, anger emboldened Summer; she clasped his hand with one of her own, and reached up to brush his face with her fingertips. “Henry. Answer me. Why, last night? I thought it a dream. But you tell me ‘twas reality. /Why/?”
Henry sighed.
“I… in truth I do not know why I kissed you,” he said, “Perhaps it was an impulse I could not fight, to kiss you… because I wanted to… since that day when I missed you at the library.”
“You — /you/ chose. Do you not see, Henry? You say you do not know your own heart, and yet — do you truly not see? Even before you heard me expose my heart, here, already you encouraged my emotion, and yet deny your own.” She stopped, looking earnestly up at Henry. “If in the end, in the end, Henry, it is not to be, I would wish to know that we took the chance. That you allowed yourself the chance.”
He looked at her and touched her face.
“I do not wish to break your heart if it is not meant to be… I would never wish that upon you but…” he stopped and looked at her again, and he leaned in closer, his lips almost touching hers again.
“I do not think I would deny you…”
Slowly, Summer closed the space between them, pressing her lips to his. Offering. Asking. After a moment, she pulled away, whispering, “For my own, if my heart be broken, it will ache the less for that I loved thee. Let me choose this, Henry. Mine heart is thine already, wilt not accept it?”