Page 176 of True Blue

She looked like she didn’t want to acknowledge them yet, and I didn’t push. But I walked down to my truck with a lightness in my steps I hadn’t felt in months. Those drawings, the fact that she called me, even if it was just to share those photos, meant everything.

It gave me hope.

She kept all of the drawings throughout Europe.

Every single one.

I had made peace with the fact that she might discard them. Tear them up. Leave them behind in hotel trash cans. Burn them if that helped her feel better. But seeing that she kept them, that she framed them, even while she was nursing the heart I broke, made me fall even more for her.

Indie is a balanced person. She’s good at compartmentalizing her emotions. As a doctor, she’s able to separate her own feelings and see a situation from all angles. That’s why she was so understanding of the enmeshment with my mother, why she could see why I hurt her even while still holding me accountable for it.

But she’s also Indie, a human.

She can be petty. She wants things done a certain way. She has a short temper that can flare up when she becomes overwhelmed or overstimulated. She can hold a grudge. She can be hesitant to forgive.

All of these things make up Indie.

And I accept her as she is, and I love every single atom in her body.

The way we’re finding our way back to each other, a slow, steady process, feels healing.

And for the first time in years, the holidays didn’t feel like walking through a minefield. There were no tense dinners, no carefully measured words, no waiting for my mother to find something wrong and ruin the entire day. It was just… peaceful.

On Christmas, Indie and I shared popcorn and sour candy while we watched old Christmas movies on her couch.

It was perfect.

We even FaceTimed my sisters, who sent their well wishes to Indie, thanked her for the souvenirs she sent them from the vacation, and asked how the job was.

It felt so nice to fall back into a routine with Indie. I’ll come over on her days off, and she’ll cook, or I’ll cook, and we’ll sit on her couch watching movies like we used to. We’ll go grocery shopping together. If she needs to get something from the storage unit, we’ll use my truck. Indie can make the innocuous tasks and chores feel like a treat.

And it’s because we’re together.

Not romantically yet, but I think we’re on the verge of it. It’s funny. I think we’ve both liked this part so much that stepping back into a romantic sense feels like it might change it. Or even jinx it.

Dr. Meyer thinks I’m ready for a relationship again, if I feel ready, but always cautions patience.

When I asked back in November whether I was just fooling myself into thinking I was the man Indie needs, that I’m still too screwed up for her, or that I am too late, she just looked at me dryly.

“You’re a grown man with agency, Theo. Abused, yes. But not damaged forever. You are healing. You are in therapy, and doing the work,” she then looked at me, concerned. “Are you worried about that moment in Greece? Have feelings of humiliation from that night been bubbling up?”

“No,” I shake my head, not telling her that moment has fueled my masturbation fantasies ever since. “I just worry that I’m… gaslighting myself?”

Dr. Meyer nodded like that question was very fair and even looked a little proud for bringing me to speak it out loud—something I never would have done six months ago.

Something I’ve learned is that growth is slow at first, and then sometimes it just happens all at once like an avalanche.

“Was that situation maybe a little too charged? Yes, I think so. Was Indie operating from her own hurt? Name a human being who hasn’t, and I’ll call bullshit. But she owned it. She apologized. I think that was important for you. You would be well within your rights to be hurt or humiliated, but the question is, are you?”

“No,” I answered without hesitation. “I felt… somehow more in control than I’ve felt in a long time. I gave her something she needed. I barely did that at all during our relationship. When my mother would tell me to do things, I felt the urge to disobey. But I knew it was pointless. With Indie, she told me what to do, and I felt… safe. Like I could say no at any time. I just didn’t want to say no. I wanted it…”

“And you feel comfortable enforcing protective boundaries now.”

I huffed a sharp laugh at that.

“I always enforced boundaries, I never realized that the only boundaries I consistently enforced in our relationship were the ones protecting my mother and Lily’s feelings at Indie’s expense. Her feelings were collateral damage to me. And the most fucked up thing is that Indie actually respected those boundaries,” I shrugged. “She pushed sometimes—when I needed it, and then backed down when I pushed back harder. I just appeased her with promises I intended to keep, but didn’t. But she still respected my boundaries after her own had been violated for so long.”

“I’m glad you’ve realized that,” Dr. Meyer nodded. “But don’t see this as you deserve to have your barriers trampled on as some tit for tat. I will caution that if you ever feel humiliated or degraded, you communicate that to Indie—or anyone else. You are allowed to feel your emotions, just as she is allowed to feel hers. And when you guys speak about them, and meet each other where you’re at, that’s a healthy relationship.”