Page 81 of True Colors

There’s comfort in opening up to him, so I tell him everything as we lie back down and he holds me, kissing me, stroking me, touching me.

Intimacy is delicious, I realize and know that it is right with him, because it’s him.

I’m lucky.

“Something broke inside me then,” I tell him. “I started stuttering. When I hit my teenage years, I didn’t date. I didn’t get close to people. J-just Finn and Miss Helen.”

“Who’s Miss Helen?” he asks.

I tell him, and he smiles. “I’m glad she was in your life.”

“Me, too,” I agree.

His eyes widen then, and he frowns. “You kept saying she’s dying that day in the conference room⁠—”

“Cristina is d-dying,” I finish for him.

He shifts slightly. “How come?”

“She’s been s-sick for a while,” I explain. “C-cancer. The prison warden called that day to tell me…sh-she doesn’t have a lot of time left.”

He exhales slowly, absorbing that. His hand stays warm on my back. “That must have been a shock.”

I stare at the wall behind Luther, at the faint line where paint meets the ceiling. “Y-yes. My b-brain did what it always does when something t-too big happens. I w-went numb. I sh-shut d-down.”

“You’re stuttering, baby. Is it because of what you’re telling me, or is it because I’m making you nervous?”

The fact that he asks warms me in ways nothing ever has.

“S-sometimes I don’t stutter at all and then…this is d-difficult to t-talk about.”

“I can only imagine.” He nuzzles my hair. “I think you’re amazing and brave and wonderful, Anouk.”

Okay, so that feels damn good to hear.

He’s quiet for a beat, and then he asks, “Are you going to see her?”

I turn my head and look at him. This is the moment where I see the distance between us—not an emotional one, but experiential—the space carved by different lives.

“I’m not.” No hesitation.

He furrows his brows slightly, not in judgment, but in confusion. “Do you think it might help? For closure, maybe.”

This is the other reason I don’t tell people about my past, because, well-meaning as they are, they say stupid shit like:

You have only one mother.

Maybe forgiving her will heal you.

Blah, blah, blah bullshit.

“I have all the closure I need.” I know my voice is clipped. I can’t help that.

His face changes immediately. “Anouk, baby, I’m sorry."

“She was abusive,” I tell him. “She hit me. She s-scared me. She took things from me that I don’t get back just because she’s dying.”

He opens his mouth, then closes it again.