Chapter 40There is Love in Acknowledgment
There is Love in Acknowledgment
Isabella
The truth is, I had always secretly dreamt of being a mother.
It was the one dream I never dared to say out loud, the one hope I let live in the quietest corners of my heart.
To hold a child in my arms and give them the love I had never been given.
To be the softness, the safety, the unwavering warmth that I had longed for my entire life.
I lay in the hospital bed, my skin pallid as a waning moon.
The IV whispers into my veins, drop by drop, a slow transfusion of iron and borrowed blood.
A renewal that is not mine but given to me, bestowed like a fragile offering from unseen hands.
It is strange, I think, how a body can empty itself so completely and yet demand to be filled again.
The room hums with quiet, machines tracing the fragile thread of my existence, beeping with a detached certainty. A nurse moves gently around me, adjusting the line, pressing warm fingers against the crook of my elbow where bruises bloom like violets beneath my skin.
I feel the weight of loss, of something torn from me, yet I remain, tethered here by the reluctant pulse in my throat.
I think of the blood coursing back into me, thick with the memory of another, of someone else’s fight and surrender.
It feels foreign and familiar all at once, a river of warmth pouring into the barren valleys of my body.
Is this what resurrection feels like? A quiet, unseen stitching of soul to flesh?
The door creaks open, and my breath stills.
Sawyer stands there, frozen, his eyes dark with something I don’t want to name.
His lips part like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t, not at first. He just looks at me, his gaze sweeping over the tubes, the wires, the shadows bruising my skin.
I see it in his face; the way it shatters him to see me like this, fragile and broken.
The man of so little words.
Finally, he steps inside, his hands curling into fists before he exhales and lets them go. His voice, when he speaks, is barely above a whisper.
“You didn’t know?”
I shake my head, and something flickers across his face; hurt, disbelief. He rubs a hand over his mouth like he’s trying to steady himself.
I look away, suddenly small beneath the weight of this question. My fingers twitch against the blanket, gripping it as I search for the right words. The truth feels heavy, like something buried deep inside me that I’ve spent years trying to forget.
“I never really had a regular period,” I admit, my voice uneven. “Or… a period at all.”
Sawyer doesn’t speak, but I feel the shift in the air between us. His silence isn’t judgment—it’s waiting, giving me space to say the things I never say.
“When I was a kid, I didn’t get enough to eat,” I continue, my throat tightening. “I was underfed. Neglected. My body never developed the way it should have. The doctors said my hormones were… imbalanced. That I had a very low chance of ever… of ever being able to…”
I trail off, unable to finish, but he understands. I can see it in the way his face crumbles, in the way he exhales slowly, as if the weight of this truth is pressing against his ribs. He moves closer, hesitates, then sits carefully on the edge of the bed, his fingers brushing against mine.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. And somehow, those words mean more than I ever thought they could.
I swallow hard, feeling the ache spread deeper in my chest, tightening like a fist around my heart. My voice is barely a breath when I speak again. “I feel like I’ve lost him twice now,” I whisper. “Before I ever even got the chance to cherish it.”
The words hang between us, raw and fragile. His fingers tighten around mine, but I don’t look at him. I can’t. Because if I do, I know I’ll fall apart.
Sawyer has been the closest father figure I’ve ever had in my life.
We often laugh, make jokes, and tease each other.
But Sawyer is also the one person who sees the things I don’t say, the things I try to bury beneath sharp wit and forced smiles.
He has never been overly affectionate, never one to say much, but I know his love exists in the way he looks out for me, in the way he steps in without asking when I need someone to lean on.
He clears his throat, like he’s searching for something to say, but when he finally speaks, his voice is rough, strained. “You deserved better,” he says quietly. “From the start, Isabella. You deserved… so much better.”
Sawyer exhales slowly, his fingers still wrapped around mine, grounding me in the weight of his presence. His voice, when it comes, is rough—worn down by something deeper than sorrow.
“Grief,” he murmurs, “I have learned, is really just love.”
I blink up at him, my vision blurred now, the dam breaking.
“It’s all the love you want to give but cannot,” he continues. “It’s love with no place to go.”
A sob slips from my lips before I can stop it. My chest caves under the truth of his words. I clutch his fingers tighter, as if holding onto something will keep me from unraveling completely.
Sawyer doesn’t flinch at my tears. He doesn’t offer meaningless reassurances, doesn’t tell me to be strong. Instead, he just sits with me in this unbearable weight.
“You can’t choose who you love,” he says, voice quieter now, like he’s speaking from a place of knowing. “Love isn’t a rational decision.” He shakes his head. “It’s okay to grieve lost loves, Isabella. It’s okay to feel it. To acknowledge it.”
Sawyer’s hand leaves mine, reaching instead for the small bag on the chair beside my bed. I watch as he unzips it, his movements slow but deliberate. Then, his fingers close around a small orange bottle, the label crinkled from being handled too many times.
The Prozac.
He studies it for a moment, turning it in his palm before his gaze flicks back to me. His expression is unreadable, but his voice is steady when he speaks.
‘‘This,’’ he says, holding up the bottle, ‘‘is disturbing your healing, Isabella.’’
My breath catches, but he doesn’t stop.
‘‘It’s numbing you,’’ he continues, his voice not unkind, but firm. ‘‘Mentally. Physically. It’s keeping you from feeling everything you need to feel. From grieving. From healing.’’
I swallow hard, my pulse stuttering. ‘‘Sawyer—’’
‘‘I’m not saying you don’t need help,’’ he cuts in gently, ‘‘but this… this isn’t helping you anymore. It’s just keeping you suspended, trapped between feeling and not feeling.
Often psychiatrist prescribe SSRI blockers, without even fully examining someone.
And you deserve more than that. You deserve to heal. ’’
I shake my head, my throat thick with emotion. ‘‘I don’t know how to do this without it,’’ I admit, my voice breaking. ‘‘I don’t know how to sit with all of this, all of me, without something to soften it.’’
Sawyer’s face softens, but there’s something unyielding in his eyes. ‘‘You don’t have to do it alone,’’ he says. ‘‘But you do have to do it. You have to let yourself feel, even when it hurts.’’
‘‘He saw you, didn’t he?’’
I freeze. My fingers curl into the thin hospital blanket, my breath coming shallow. I know who he means before he even says his name.
‘‘Aslanov,’’ Sawyer murmurs.
I close my eyes.
‘‘He acknowledged you,’’ he continues, voice measured. ‘‘And whether that was with bad intent in the beginning never mattered to you, because he saw you.’’
A sharp, aching inhale rattles through me.
Aslanov had seen me. In ways no one else ever had, in ways that made me feel like I existed beyond just the weight of my own survival.
He had looked at me, not through me, not past me, not with pity or expectation.
Just at me. And for someone like me, someone who had spent so much of her life invisible, that had been enough.
Maybe that had been my downfall.
That in my desperation to be seen, I allowed myself to be blind to the consequences of his gaze. But, in a strange way, I’m grateful for it. Grateful for the moments I had with him, especially in the end, even if they led to pain.
‘‘And that’s okay,’’ he reassures, his words soft but strong. ‘‘Because you saw him too. And we all carry burdens. Some of us heavier than others, but you acknowledged him too. You both acknowledged that mutual pain, or whatever it was. And that makes it real.’’
A shudder runs through me, but I don’t look away. The weight of Sawyer’s words settles in, like a soft blanket over the sharp edges of my heart. He’s right. It was real. In that fractured, painful way, it was real.
‘‘They say you have to love yourself first to love someone else,’’ Sawyer continues, his voice quiet but firm. ‘‘But that’s not true. Two broken people can repair the damage done. You’ve been brutally broken, Isabella, and yet still have the courage to be gentle. I’m sure he didn’t.’’
The words catch me off guard, as they always do.
It’s the truth that cuts through all the things I’ve been too afraid to say, the truth I’ve been too afraid to admit.
There’s an ache deep in my chest, a hollow place that’s never quite healed, but hearing Sawyer speak those words; about my courage, my softness—makes something shift.
It’s a comfort, yes, but it’s also a reminder that the love I’ve given, even in its brokenness, has been real.
Even with all the cracks, even with the trauma, it has been real.
I offer a weak smile, something fragile but genuine. I nod in acknowledgment, though I’m not sure I can fully grasp what he’s saying yet. The tears are close, but I don’t let them fall. Not just yet.
Sawyer’s gaze softens, but there’s an understanding there, a quiet recognition of all the things we’ve both been through, the unspoken struggles that have shaped us. And then, he says it—something unexpected, something I hadn’t anticipated.
‘‘But eventually,’’ he murmurs, voice barely above a whisper, ‘‘he built up that courage to be gentle because of you.’’
A wave of something warm washes over me at the thought, something bittersweet but tender.
Sawyer looks at my stomach beneath the blanket.
‘‘Love doesn’t always require time or a face to be real,’’ Sawyer murmurs, his eyes watching me with that knowing, gentle gaze.
‘‘Sometimes it’s just a heartbeat, a whisper in the dark, a flicker of something that could have been. And that love you had—it’s still there, inside you.
It doesn’t go away. You acknowledge it, and that’s enough for now. ’’
For now.