I can’t stop the tears, but I try to wipe them away as we keep walking.
He stops, lightly grabbing my arm to stop me from walking too, and turns me towards him. His hands come up to my face, and he scans me, concerned. “What’s wrong? What happened? Was that too much? Did I trigger something? I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
I shake my head, laughing quietly through the tears. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. They’re happy tears…I think.”
He brushes them away and tilts my face up to meet his eyes and then smiles softly at me.
I let out a breath. “It’s a beautiful idea. It’s something…I wish I had when I needed it. I’m…proud of you. I’ve never met someone I was so inspired by before.”
He kisses me, and it feels so full of intentions, like all the words he hasn’t said out loud yet. I melt into it because I’m selfish and I want him, because he’s the only place my brain goes quiet in a way that isn’t dangerous.
He pulls back and studies my face. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I lie. “So, where are we going?”
He takes my hand, and we walk to the back corner of a building. He tips his chin to the football field that’s now glowing in front of us. He looks down at me and smiles. “Come on.”
He leads me onto the open field. It’s completely empty, completely silent, completely peaceful. He throws his bag down on the turf and then sticks his hand out for me to give him my bag. I shrug it off, handing it to him, and he places it on top of his bag so it won’t get dirty on the damp ground, and then pulls off his hoodie, tossing it onto the ground. He points his hand down at it, gesturing for me to sit, then he sits down next to me, placing his hands behind him to prop himself up. Our fingers are an inch apart, and all I want to do is tuck mine under his. We just sit in the silence for a moment. It’s not awkward or uncomfortable. It’s just him giving me the space for my thoughts to join us when they’re ready.
He eventually turns from staring up at the sky to looking over at me. “So…what’s going on in that beautiful head?”
It all comes out messy and raw. “I’m struggling. Like…more than I’ve said out loud. And I keep thinking, this is what it will be. Up and down forever. Some days the ocean, some days the shore…and I don’t want to pull anyone under with me.” I take a breath. “I don’t want to pullyouunder.”
His jaw works. “What do you mean?”
I look at him because I need him to see that I mean this. “You are…sweet and steady and kind…and you’ve been exactly what I needed. I can’t explain how much that matters to me, how much you matter to me…but I don’t want to be the thing that hurts you. I think it’s better if—” My voice cracks. “—if you step back from whatever this is before I do what I always do.”
He blinks slowly, like he’s bracing. “What is it that you always do?”
“Ruin it,” I say. “I’ll just end up ruining you if this goes any further. It’s not fair to ask you to stand here and get cut by my broken pieces.”
He shakes his head. “Lydia—”
I force a laugh that sounds way too thick with emotion. “Please don’t do that. It’s fine. You don’t have to give me the ‘we’ll figure it out’ speech. We don’t have to make this anything more than what it was.”
“I’m not giving a speech,” he says, softer. “I’m telling you that I want to be here…with you.”
“For now,” I say, keeping my eyes on the ground as I pick at the grass. “Until I have another bad week. Until I pull you into my own wreckage. Until all the countless triggers come up and you get tired of having to hold my hand through yet another panic attack. Until I…relapse again.”
“I can handle messy,” he tells me, and I want him to convince me, but my brain won’t let that happen.
“Youthinkyou can,” I say, this bitterness sneaking its way into my words. “Because from over there it looks all noble to do that. Up close, it’s—” I break the blade of grass again. “It’s not pretty, Bash.”
“I’m not asking for pretty,” he says. “I’m not asking you to be okay.”
“See, you keep saying that,” I say, “but you have no idea what it really looks like.”
He takes a deep breath, like he’s getting ready to argue with me on this. “Lyd, I know grief. I know what it’s like when grief still finds you when you thought you were safe.”
“Knowing about it isn’t the same as dealing with it all the time,” I say quietly, then sharper, “and the parts youdon’tknow? The parts youcan’tknow? They’re the parts that cut people. You just haven’t seen that part yet.”
He nods, taking that. “Okay. So let me learn the parts I can.”
It’s not fair how sweet he’s being when I’m trying to save him from me.
“You don’t know what you’re volunteering for. I relapse. I run. I shut down. I say things I don’t mean, and then I mean them later, and then I don’t again—” I shake my head, and my voice breaks. “Why would you sign up for that?”
“Because I wantyou,” he says, simply. “Not the highlight reel. Not the clean and fake version.You.”
