His kiss is a question, and I am afraid I have no answers. He feels me tense and pulls me closer, as if to say "don't go."

And I won't. There is no need to go.

When we drive, his car flies down the highway, far south past Atlanta, into a small town I'm slowly learning to love. We're suddenly on back streets, and we're smiling, careless. We hug the country curves and he laughs, says it is a metaphor for our relationship. I roll my eyes, brush off the jibe at my accent.

He will be a soldier, soon, and I will have no need to return to these small streets, these southern diners. Coconut pie and sweet tea are better together- everything is better, together.

It is late when we finally arrive. His house is dark and the rest of the neighborhood is quiet, long since asleep and dreaming. We kiss under the porch light to the tune of cicadas, late summer cicadas, and the moon hangs low at the end of the street. The door unlocks with a click and we slip inside.

His best friend is waiting on the couch, happy as ever to see me. It has been too long since I last spent time with these boys, sat on this couch between them and felt happy- really happy, the kind of happy that comes with good friends and junk food late at night, when you feel like you're the only ones in the whole world who actually know what it means to be alive.

It's easy to fall back into this comfortable pattern, lean on him with my feet on his friend and laugh at the jokes in the bad B-movie. It's easy to smile with my hand in the chip bag, a slice of cold pizza halfway to my mouth when he leans in to kiss me again. His friend laughs as the pizza falls to the floor, toppings down, and tells us to get a room. (The pizza is not wasted. The cat and dog squabble over it until he reaches down, tears it in half and throws it in two directions. The cat goes right and the dog goes left.)

Four or five, and his friend is asleep. The movie is finished, credits rolling. Signs of life begin to show in the neighborhood, and we creep to the bedroom. We wrestle each other to our respective sides of the bed, glasses bumping and crunching dangerously as "Did you just headbutt me?"

"It's the only way to fight a girl," he explains, and throws both arms around me. He pulls me tight (so tight I must take shallow breaths) and whispers in my ear, "I'm glad you came."

I look over my shoulder, catch his dark brown gaze, and ask him why he's leaving. He has no answers, and he tenses. I take his hand in mine and I have no more questions. He will be leaving, but not now. For tonight, he will not go. There is no need to go.

We once planned to run away to Minnesota. Neither of us knew why Minnesota. We would get married and live in a big house made of logs, in a field beside a lake. His best friend could inhabit the basement, and cook for us, because we felt bad leaving him behind in this empty Georgia home. We would drink good wine, imported, and he would sling his car around those country curves late at night, when we drove somewhere to see the stars.

He asks if I will wait, and I am quiet. I have no answer for him. His half-hearted smile makes my heart sink; he has his answer.

His friend hits the wall in the next room and we jump, then he chuckles. He asks if I was scared, tells me not to be scared. He's here. He is here for me tonight, and it has been too long. It has been far too long since I lay beside him, exhaling all my cares into the far-southern air, thinking about the time we said that in Minnesota, we'd be rich! What a nonsensical statement. What a beautiful way to feel.

I turn towards him, bury my face in his chest. I pull him closer and he kisses my hair, because my embrace asks questions, and he has no answers. He arches himself so we are as close as we can be, touching as much as we can touch, and we are buried in each other.

"Don't go."

"I won't," he answers as we drift off into our warm southern slumber, "There is no need to go. I'm all yours tonight. I'm all yours as long as you need."

The cicadas sing their lullaby outside his window, and I think that love is like this southern summer. The sun creeps in the blinds, dousing us in Georgia sunlight, and we feel like this warmth will linger forever, because the bluebirds and the temperature agree in the fall not to go. The sunbeams on the creeks and the dry wildflowers refuse to go.

The south Georgia summer and the south Georgia feelings will not go. There is no need to go.