Chapter 40 Natalia
Natalia
“Happy New Year, sweetie,” Daddy sings into the phone.
“Happy New Year,” I say to both of my fathers. “Where are you today?”
“We’re in Montreal,” Dad says, his grin taking up the entire screen. “The snow is crazy, wish you could see it.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, well, there’s like a foot of snow out here so…”
My heart clenches as I see my dads laughing, grinning at each other, so silly in love—the way they’ve looked since I was a baby. There was never any question or doubt of their love for me—they’ve loved me unconditionally. They aren’t perfect, but they’ve given me everything they could.
“Baby, are you okay?”
I nod, my throat so tight it feels like I can’t breathe. “Yeah, I think I just miss you guys,” I croak, my eyes so full I can’t see their faces on the screen anymore. “Can we…Can we maybe do a family trip one day? Somewhere nice.”
“Sweetie.” Dad frowns. “Don’t cry, baby, you’re breaking my heart. I miss you too. We miss you every day.”
“I’m sorry,” Daddy rasps shakily. “We’ll go home, okay? And we’ll stay for your birthday.”
I wipe my cheeks and hold my phone steady. “Okay, yeah, that sounds nice. And then you can go to Alaska or something.”
My dads snort.
“Maybe we can all go,” Daddy says.
“Tell Rowan too,” Dad adds. “We’ll go to the Grand Canyon together—we haven’t done that yet.”
“And Vegas!” Daddy shouts excitedly. “You’ve been wanting to go to Vegas since it was legal for you to get into a casino.”
I throw my head back in loud, rib-aching laughter. “Okay, Vegas. Yes, please.”
“We miss you, baby,” Dad says softly. “I’m sorry we haven’t been around.”
“It’s okay,” I say, my voice hoarse. “I get it.”
“We don’t,” Daddy says. “We’re sorry. We’ll stay longer next time, we promise.”
“For however long you need us,” Dad adds. “We’ll be home soon, I promise you, baby.”
“Okay,” I croak. “I’m sorry. I know I’m an adult and that I should be able to—”
“No, no,” Dad says. “Don’t you do that, Natty. You’re an adult with feelings. Believe me, we miss you so much.”
“You have no idea,” Daddy adds. “We will be home as soon as we’re done here.”
“Okay—Okay, yeah.” I wipe my cheeks with my sleeve.
We talk for a few more minutes, the time feeling too short by the time we say goodbye.
I’m okay with my dads living their life, enjoying retirement.
They deserve it after everything they’ve been through as individuals and as a couple.
But it’s going to feel so good to have them home, even if only for a little while before they explore another part of the world.
I expect them to keep travelling, because they deserve it.
Perhaps one day, that will be something Rowan and I do together…
“Natalia?” His knuckles rap against the door.
“Yeah,” I rasp, “come in.”
The hinges creak quietly as he slips in between the crack of the door, Binx following after him. He picks up my cat and plops her down on the bed as he sits beside me.
“Hey,” Rowan breathes. “So?”
I sniffle, chuckling and tugging at the sleeves of my long-sleeve tee. “My dads want you to come to Vegas with us.”
He blinks, the corners of his lips tipping up. “What?”
I laugh softly, entertained by my dads’ love for Rowan and this relationship. Something that had started as a way for them to stop worrying about me and my anti-socialism, or whatever it was that had them sick over me, became this.
With Rowan Asher of all people.
“For my birthday, probably,” I explain as I pet Binx’s soft black fur. She purrs and pokes my thigh with her nose as she curls into me. “They said we’d take a trip to Vegas.”
Rowan laughs, his shoulder shaking in rhythm with the deep, beautiful sound. “I thought Vegas was more for twenty-first birthdays, not twenty-eighth birthdays.”
I lift my shoulders wearily. “I told them I missed them.” I frown. “They said sorry.”
Rowan scoots closer, pulling my legs over his lap. “I didn’t mean it like that, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Nat.”
“Don’t say sorry, it wasn’t you,” I rasp. “They just…they promised we’d go once, a really long time ago—after I turned eighteen. I never got the chance to go though, and I was planning to go with Lana, Isa, and Elena but…” I shrug. “We didn’t get around to it.”
“I’m sorry.” He kisses my jaw. “I’m sorry. I promise I didn’t mean to laugh at you.”
“I know you didn’t,” I assure him and find his lips with mine. “It’s okay.”
“I’ll take you to Vegas, sweetheart.” He kisses me back. “Let’s go right now.”
With my legs on his lap, I push him back down as he starts to stand. “No.” I laugh. “No. For my birthday, we’ll go. If you want to go with me.”
“I’m going everywhere with you,” he says. “Is everything else okay with your dads?”
I nod.
“So they don’t know that this started out—”
I shake my head. “No. But I like the way this started. Don’t you?”
Rowan’s smile is small but boyish and blissfully beautiful. “I do,” he says. “Did you tell them about therapy?”
I shake my head. “No, not today. But they said they’ll be back soon so maybe then. Maybe, it wouldn’t hurt if we had a family session again.”
“If that is what you feel you need and will help, then you should,” Rowan says. “I only want what’s going to make you happy, sweetheart. Your happiness is my happiness.”
I swallow. “And your happiness is mine too.”
Rowan takes my hand in his and kisses my palm. Then his lips brush down until they are touching my wrist, moving over my scars as he presses his lips against the skin.
“Natalia…”
“I’m sorry I was so terrible at letting you in,” I blurt and sniffle hard. “It’s been so long since I had to let anyone in that I truly forgot to. I’m only used to the girls knowing everything about me, but then you… You somehow know me better than everyone.”
“You know me better too, sweetheart,” he says, inching forward. “You know me in ways that even after I’m dead, would bring me back to life.”
“Hmm.” I smile against his lips. “From memory.”
“From memory,” he murmurs. “Natalia…”
“Yes?”
“Tell me you’re mine, Natalia,” he croaks, his thumb tracing my jaw. “Tell me, please, sweetheart. Because I’ve been yours for as long as I can remember.”
I love you.
“So now, it’s your turn,” Rowan husks. “Tell me.”
I love you.
“Rowan…”
“I’m here,” he reassures. “I’m here.”
“You know why I’ve hated you, Rowan?” I whisper.
“Because you were there.” My voice cracks and my visions clouds at the corners.
“Because you were the last person to see me like that and I hated that you did. I hated that you treated me so nicely and moved on. You acted like it never happened but we both know it did, and I hate it. I hated you and I hated me. I hated that I’ve had a stupid little girl crush on you since I was fifteen, and I hate that…
I just hated that. You couldn’t just let me hate you? ”
“No,” he nearly growls, his hand around my thigh and fingers burrowing into the skin.
“Why not?”
“Because I love you,” he says, his hand smoothing up and down my thigh. “And I want you to love me back.”
“Rowan—”
“I hear everything you don’t say, remember?
” He inches closer. “I want you to love me back, but I know you already do. You do this thing, you have a certain blink when you’re around me—like fluttery and soft.
The way your eyes are just calmer and the line between your eyebrows is gone.
In the mornings, when you aren’t at the bakery, somehow my order is always already ready and waiting for me. ”
I exhale shakily.
He continues. “The way you hold me and touch me. The way you look at me. The way you say my name and the way you whisper it in the dark when you think I’m not listening.
The way you make love to me is the same way I make love to you.
” He comes over me with his hand cupping my cheek, the motion urging me slowly onto my back.
“You kiss me, sweetheart, and I can hear the words. I feel them.”
His hand moves from my cheek to cup my jaw, his thumb tracing my lips while his eyes do the same. Gingerly, he twists his body and takes mine with him, my legs falling open to accommodate him as his body lowers between them.
“But I want to hear you say them,” he rasps, his forearm coming over my head. His glorious lips are a breath away from mine when he whispers, “Say them, sweetheart.”
I only swallow. Somehow it’s so much easier to say it in a different language.
Rowan’s forehead presses to mine, patient as ever. If I’m his sweetheart, then he’s mine too.
Then, quietly, because there’s still that voice in my head some days, I say, “You might love me until you see me.”
“I’ve seen you,” he says. “I see you. And I still love you. Nothing can change that.”
I dip my chin. I suppose he’s right. After all, he did visit me at the hospital a few times—saw me at my lowest. He’s seen me in conditions no one other than my girls have ever seen me in and he’s still here, professing his love again and again.
He’s still handing me his heart, waiting for me to take it.
The only reason I didn’t take it from his hands before was because I thought my hands were no better.
I thought I’d let it slip and fall and crash into pieces because my hands were struggling to carry my own heart.
But I think love can be like this too. Two people, nearly one and the same, exchanging their hearts. Love can be trading hearts and taking care of each other’s the way you would your own. Can’t it? And that kind of love requires trust.
Rowan Asher is standing here before me, on New Year’s Day, trusting me enough to hold his heart. And I’m about to trust him enough to give him mine in exchange.
“For a long time, I felt something missing and I refused for that something to be a person—let alone a man,” I croak. “And even though I’m scared that one day you’ll wake up and decide whatever is in my head is too much for you, I think what I was missing was someone who knows me the way you do.”
He has undressed me in a way people do when they are preparing to love all of you. Except what he found…he almost expected. He didn’t flinch at the damage, still doesn’t. And he doesn’t inflict anymore of it.
“Say it, Natalia,” he urges. “In English this time. Let me hear it.”
“I…” I swallow and take a moment to breathe.
“I love you, Rowan.”
Rowan’s smile is nothing short of sunshine. “I know.”
“Say it, or I’ll take it back.”
Rowan grins, boyish and beautiful. “I love you, Natalia Mae Davis-Jeong.”
I chuckle tearfully. “You pronounced it right.”
“Of course I did.” He smirks smugly. “I always do. It’s your name. I love your name.”
I sniffle and his thumb wipes away the tears escaping my eyes. “I don’t love myself entirely right now. I’m still learning, you know? With therapy and stuff. But it’s taken me a long time to love myself the way I am trying to. I’ve been working really hard and I won’t let anyone break that, and—”
“I wouldn’t dare break any of that. And I’m a patient man, Natalia,” he says softly. “I love you. So whatever you need from me, I’m here. I’ll help you. I’ll hold you. I’ll love you through it all, I promise.”
“It’s unfair of me to expect you to be patient with me, Rowan.”
“There isn’t anyone else I want,” Rowan tells me. “I love you so much, Natalia. Honestly, the words sound stupid in comparison to what I feel for you.”
I smile.
“That smile,” he breathes. “You don’t know what your smile does to me.”
“What does it do, Rowan?”
“Smile like that again.”
I do, wider.
His boyish grin returns with a shake of his head like he is stuck in awe. “Like fucking sunshine, sweetheart.”
“Who knew you were so sappy?” I tease and poke his ribs.
“You make me sappy,” he teases back, tickling my sides until I’m gasping for air.
“Stop!” I laugh. “Rowan!”
His laugh overpowers mine but he relents and buries his face in my neck. “I want to make you smile like that everyday. If I don’t make you laugh like that at least once a day, I want you to leave me.”
I snort. “Shut up. I’m never leaving you.”
“And I’m never leaving you,” he whispers against my pulse, an eternal promise he’s giving to my heart.
My heart takes it and locks it away.
“Saranghae, Rowan,” I breathe, my heart beating to those words.