Effa Izzaty

“Willem puts down his fork and knife.

'This is falling in love.'

With his finger, he swipes a bit of the Nutella from inside his crepe and puts a dollop on the inside of my wrist. It is hot and oozy and starts to melt against my sticky skin, but before it has a chance to slither away, Willem licks his thumb and wipes the smear of Nutella off and pops it into his mouth. It all happens fast, like a lizard zapping a fly.

'This is being in love.'

And he takes my other wrist, the one with my watch on it, and moves the watchband around until he sees what he's looking for. Once again, he licks his thumb. Only this time, he rubs it against my birthmark, hard, as if trying to scrub it off.

'Being in love is a birthmark?' I joke as I retract my arm. But my voice has a tremble in it, and the place where his wet thumbprint is drying against my skin burns somehow.

'It's something that never comes off, no matter how much you might want it to.'

'You're comparing love to a...stain?'

He leans so far back in his seat that the front legs of his chair scrape off the floor. He looks very satisfied, with the crepe or with himself, I'm not sure.

'Exactly.”
― Gayle Forman, Just One Day