Page 158 of The Love Operation

His words undo me. I press my lips together, letting the emotion seep in.

“It doesn’t mean you have to stop being strong or driven,” he adds. “But I hope you never do it because you think that’s what makes you valuable. Because it’s not. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be you.”

I look out into the dark yard.

I’ve been moving and doing and chasing because I thought it was my job. That’s how I proved I was good enough. How I earned my connection to the past. How I controlled the present to stay on track.

My value has been tied to contribution, to achievement, to holding it all together.

But I’ve had blinders on—so driven to get there, to arrive, that I couldn’t see what the people around me actually needed. I couldn’t even see what I needed.

I don’t know what I need outside of my determination.

Without warning, a laugh bubbles up past the tightness in my throat.

Benedict looks at me, half smiling. “I’m glad my soul baring amuses you.”

“You know what this is, don’t you?”

He hesitates. “What?”

“Tragic. This whole thing is tragic.”

The look on his face says I’ve grown a third eye—maybe one that’s blinking in Morse code—and the thought alone makes me want to laugh harder, even though it sounds incredibly disturbing, and I wish I hadn’t thought it.

“This is soul bread, Benedict.”

“Wait, I thought you said it was tragic. What is soul bread?”

“You know . . . bread . . . for the soul. I don’t know. I just . . . I needed to hear this. Exactly this. Even if I don’t know what to do with it yet.”

I rub my hands over my face.

“I don’t know how to just want something because it makes me happy. That feels reckless. Irresponsible. Selfish.” A beat. “And I think that’s my problem.”

“I had to learn how to balance it too.”

“Balance. That’s what I’m missing. But I don’t . . . I don’t know how to have that. I don’t know how to let people just be. I don’t know how to stop . . . shaping everything.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Then you’ll do what you always do. You’ll do what I did. You’ll learn. You’re good at that.”

My smile is faint, but it’s real. Because on the other side of this mess—this grief, this clarity—is something that almost feels like peace.

I’m not fixed. I’m not finished. But I think I’m ready to stop running with these damn blinders on.

And that’s something.

“Thank you,” I say, and set my glass down so I can wrap my arms around him.

“You’re welcome.”

We say our goodbyes, and I watch him back out of the driveway, wondering if the emptiness I feel is because he left, or because of everything I still haven’t figured out.

I distract myself with my phone, listening to messages I missed.

My heart melts at Delenn’s voice text. It’s simple, but it hits.

Delenn: “I don’t want to lose you over this, Cord. None of it matters if we lose us.”