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“You totally redecorated this place,” I say, looking at every corner.
“Yeah, Mason said his father didn’t mind.” She takes me to the bookcase, showing me pictures of us, my parents and her, and one of her with Gracie. “I even have pictures now. Memories. Thank you.”
“I haven’t done much.” I take her into my arms by the waist, her lips only inches from me. With her perfect height, I don’t have to lean too much to take what’s mine.
“You have shared your family with me, Matt.” She kisses my jaw. “I’ve dared to dream of the possibilities. Not of a normal life, but our life. Bumps or not, we’re fighting.”
I don’t feel that I’m fighting as much as she or Tristan do.
My parents are accepting. I’ve never had the battles she has had to face all her life. Parents with addictions, a brother who protected her but one day decided that life wasn’t enough. Her biggest fight might be letting go of her past by letting Coop and me all the way in. Whatever stops her from doing it must be too painful.
“Tell me something new that no one knows, Butterfly,” I whisper, hoping tonight we have a breakthrough.
“My parents used to have parties in the house,” Thea says, leaning her head on my chest. “Big, crazy parties where they’d play loud music. Evan, my brother, would hide us in the closet.”
Her shoulders rise and drop. “Never knew why, or I don’t remember. For years I slept in that confined place until I started to party with them or outside with my own friends. My first memory of me sleeping in a bed is… in a hospital bed.”
I comb her hair while her hitching breaths begin to even. So many questions pile inside my head. Why were you in the hospital? What happened? What finally made you want to stay clean?
“My system was so used to drinking that the day I began to puke, I was so worried I went to the ER, thinking someone had poisoned me—paranoia.”
She releases a humorless chuckle. “Drugs, they impair your common sense.”
Her head tilts, her eyes find me. They’re shaking, a bluer tint taking over the purple. “I was pregnant.”
What the fuck?
My heart slams against my chest. Her eyes close, tears roll down her cheeks.
“He made me stop.”
She takes a deep breath. “My son. A small person I hadn’t met became my miracle,” she whispers. “I refused to become my parents. At seventeen, I was about to be a mother. I had no idea who the father was. It could be any one of the men my father forced me to be with or… I have no idea. Still, I promised myself to do better for him.
“From the moment I learned about him, I loved that baby. A nurse from the hospital and Molly, an old friend of mine, helped me. I was in rehab for a few months, and later, I was at a shelter for pregnant teenagers.”
Thea closes her eyes again and remains silent for a long time. I hold her tighter against my body, knowing that there are no words that can take away the pain she went through. It’s a miracle that she remains sober and sane.
“A loving couple from Texas adopted him. We met for only seconds. I held him for less than a heartbeat before they took him away. He saved my life and makes me want to be a better person every day.”
“In college, I made a few friends.” A second wave of confessions follows, and I want her to stop because I fear that she’ll have another nervous breakdown. But she’s more composed.
“Met a guy. They… used me.” She continues with the tale, and like many of her stories, her fucking father was involved. “I relapsed, and then learned to keep myself away from everyone. You’re the first person I’ve opened up to since then. Coop was the second.”
Hearing that makes me love her even more if that’s possible, and I wish there was a way to show her that she’s become my world.
“I trust you. I love you. Do you think you can love me tonight?” Her words send a surge of electricity that powers my entire body, causing a huge explosion inside my chest and filling my heart with an inexplicable emotion.
An emotion that is beyond love and adoration.
“Show me what I’m supposed to feel when I’m touched by someone I love, Mattie.”
Before today, I’ve never had the desire that I have tonight. Wishing that each time I touch her, she’ll feel my love for her. Wishing every stroke sends the right message to her heart that even when I want her to feel good, I want her heart to know that I’m giving her my entire soul.
“You need me to show you love, Thea?” My heart sings while my head laughs at what this woman is asking from me. “Baby, you brought joy to my life, peace to my soul, and filled my existence with love. The moment you took hold of my heart, I knew you were meant for me. What I’m trying to say is that you’re love. What I feel goes beyond it, and there are no words to explain it. The only thing I know is that my soul merged with yours through that emotion and it will remain like that for eternity. No one has the power to separate us ever again.”
“Coop?” she murmurs.
My beautiful woman can’t be selfish for one night, and that confirms why I love her beyond anything imaginable. “I hope and pray that he catches up with us because my heart knows we need him.”
