“Love you?” He nods his head. “Yeah, I love you, Lydia,” he says again. “I know exactly what I’m signing up for. And I’m choosing it, choosingyou.”
The field is too quiet. The world tilts. Some mean little voice in me tries to tell me he doesn’t know what he’s saying, but the bigger part—the tired part, the honest part—just stares at him and feels something completely untie inside for the first time ever.
“I…” My mouth can’t find it at first. My hands do, though; they find his shirt, bunching it and holding on. “I think I’ve loved you for a while now,” I whisper. “I just kept calling it other names so I wouldn’t have to risk letting myself get hurt.” I take the step that scares me most. “I love you too, Bash.”
He closes his eyes like his prayer got answered. When he opens them, there’s that ridiculous softness there that always makes me feel like I shouldn’t feel bad about wanting everything he’s offering me.
“Can I kiss you now?” he asks.
“Yes.”
I’m done pretending I don’t want the good thing. Pretending I don’t want to be selfish with him.
He kisses me, and it feels like he’s breathing air into my lungs. He wraps a hand around the back of my head, into my hair, and I fall completely into him, into the safest arms I know.
When we pull apart, I laugh because I feel embarrassed for always trying to push away the good in my life.
He presses his forehead to mine.
“We can go slow,” he says. “Wewillgo slow. We’ll mess up the pacing, and then we’ll try again. We keep trying, and we keep choosing to stay. We choose a love that sometimes hurts, but never hurts on purpose. We choose to be safe for each other.”
I nod. “I wanna choose that.”
We lie back on the turf, shoulder to shoulder, looking up at the night sky. The stars are faint but there if you squint a little. I tuck my hand into his and feel his thumb trace along the top. My heart is beating loud enough that I think he can hear it.
“You know that verse you sent?” I say. “About the darkness not being dark?”
“Mhm,” he answers, turning to watch me.
“I don’t know what I believe yet,” I admit. “But…this—” I squeeze his hand. “This feels like proof the dark isn’t all there is.”
He lifts our joined hands and kisses my knuckles. We don’t say anything else for a while. We don’t have to.
Eventually, he sits up and pulls me with him. I end up between his knees with his arms around me, and my back against his chest. The whole stadium is ours for this small moment. He rests his chin on top of my head, and I just let my body follow his lead in slowly down our breaths.
“Want me to walk you home?” he asks, voice low against my hair.
“In a minute,” I say. “I want to keep this for a little longer. Five more minutes?”
“Ten,” he bargains.
“Deal,” I say.
When we finally stand, he picks up our bags, and I pick up the ridiculous hope I keep dropping. We walk across the field, fingers laced, and for once, I don’t feel like I’m dragging him into my mess. I feel like we’re stepping into something beautifulandmessy…together.
At the end of the field before the track, I pause and look back at where we sat. It looks like nothing from here. But I know what we chose in that spot. I know what we said.
He squeezes my hand. “Ready?”
“Yeah.”
77
Lydia
Christmas morning smells like cinnamon and that fake-pine-tree scent because Sarah is obsessed with the smell of a real tree, but loves her 13-foot fake one too much to ever get a real one. Huxley is a twelve-year-old tornado in pajamas, tearing through his pile of gifts like it’s a competitive sport, and somehow Bash is color-commentating it for Mark like they’re both tuned into the same sports channel. His arm is heavy and warm around my shoulders, his hand curved at the top of my arm like it belongs there, and I’m tucked into him in a way that makes my heart settle.
“Bash, you said we can build the X-wing after presents! You promised.”
