Page 44 of Coming Home

"I regret leaving them," I whispered, the confession leaving me before I could stop it. "Every single day of my life, Ralph."

Ralph stared at me, wordlessly, granting me the freedom to continue or stop.

"I need to tell you something," I said, my voice sounding thin, like paper stretched too tight. "About why I was at the clinic that day. When you found me."

He went still.

"I have lupus."

The words felt small when they finally hit the air. That cold, clinical, Latin name belonged to an autoimmune monster that had upended every cell of my body. I fixated on a tiny spot on the rug and just kept talking, knowing that if I paused to draw breath, I would lose the courage.

"I've lived with it for about five years now. For the first two, I had no idea what was happening to me. The crushing, bone-deep fatigue, the severe joint pain in my fingers, the way my lungs would burn after a simple warm-up lap... I just thought I was losing my edge. I thought I was becoming weak. Lazy. I forced myself to train twice as hard because I believed that if I just pushed my body through the wall, I'd morph back into the girl I used to be." A hot, stray tear escaped my lashes, sliding down my cheek.

"That's the real reason my swimming career ended, Ralph. I didn't lose my drive, Ralph, and I didn't walk away from the Olympic trials. My own immune system was staging a coup from the inside out, and nobody caught it until the damage was already done."

He didn't interrupt me. He was listening with a profound, unblinking focus that made me feel exposed, yet anchored.

"The early medications... they altered everything about me—there were mornings I didn't recognize the woman staring back at me in the mirror." I swallowed hard, trying to clear the lump in my throat. "And the worst part is... I received the official diagnosis right after I had already cut everyone off. After I'd already packed my bags, and built this impenetrable fortress of isolation because my pride was too immense to admit I was drowning."

My eyes were burning fiercely now. I choked back a ragged breath.

"I was too ashamed to crawl back to my family. I'd convinced myself I'd already burned every bridge, that they'd stopped waiting for me a long time ago. So I managed it all in the dark."

"Ems…"

"I'm actually better." I wiped my face with the back of my hand, took a deep, shuddering breath, and forced a smile.

"For the first time in three years, my inflammation markers are down, I'm entering a true clinical remission. I can live a normal life." I tacked that last sentence on quickly, desperately, because I saw the sudden, shattering expression that took hold of his features. "I'm not fragile. I'm not dying. I'm just... slightly inconvenienced."

"You've always been a fighter," Ralph stood up from the dining chair, walked over to the sofa, and pulled me directly into his space. He wrapped his arms around my frame from behind, pulling my spine flush against the solid warmth of his chest.

The heavy, thunderous rhythm of his heartbeat pressed straight through my shoulder blade.

"I should have been there," he murmured. His voice was ruined with an emotion I wasn't ready for. "When you were facing the diagnosis. When your body was changing and you were terrified in the dark... God, Emma, I should have been standing in that waiting room."

"You were thousands of miles away," I whispered, leaning back into his strength, letting my eyelids close. "You were training your soul out. You worked your entire life to become the best swimmer in the country. I was never, ever going to be the anchor that dragged you down from that sky."

"There is nothing on this earth more important than you, Ems. Nothing."

His calloused index finger moved gently along the curve of my cheekbone, catching a tear on my cheek.

"You've been doing this alone for so long, you don't have to anymore. You have me."

Another tear escaped me.

Then the dam broke.

Deep, quiet, exhausted tears that had been stored up for three years. I wept for the grueling years I spent believing I was too fundamentally broken to ever deserve a waiting room with someone sitting in it for me. I wept for the sheer, overwhelming miracle that I was currently tucked inside a warm house, held by a man whose arms felt like the safest coordinates on the map, and I hadn't had to perform, or achieve, or swim a single lap to earn it.

I don't know how many minutes drifted past while we remained like that.

"You should have told me sooner," he murmured into my hair, his breath warm against my scalp.

I shifted slightly, my cheek resting against the cotton of his shirt. "You should have told me why you were standing outside that exact same medical building that day, too."

His hand paused in my hair. Just for a single, microscopic beat. Then, the slow, soothing stroke resumed.

"That's a conversation for another night, Ems."