Lydia #2
I place my hand on the side of his face. “You’re still here. You know the panic only grows if you feed it… Don’t feed it,” I tell him in a whisper. “You know what it is, name it, take away its power.”
He watches me, nodding.
“I used to…” he starts. “I used to hate that this room was never touched after she died, hated that they couldn’t let go of it, hated always seeing it…
Then it kinda changed. I looked forward to passing it or coming to sit in it when I came home.
It was the closest I could still feel to her.
I could trick my brain for a moment into thinking that she was still here, and it didn’t hurt as much for a little while. ”
His eyes close, fingers tightening around mine like I’m a line he’s grabbing. We sit there until the room feels less like a fresh wound and more like a safe space again. Until the air isn’t so thin anymore.
“I’m sorry,” he eventually says. “You didn’t need to see me—”
“Be human?” I cut in. “I’ve seen you be human now. I like it. It’s my new favorite.”
When he finally looks at me again, the panic has released its grip. He touches my cheek like he needs the proof I’m real. “Thank you,” he whispers. “For…that. For being you.”
“As many times as you’ve steadied me,” I say, thumb brushing his jaw, “I can do the same. We don’t keep score.”
His eyes soften on me. “I love you.”
It lands warm and perfect. “I love you, too.”
Dinner is gentler. He apologizes to his parents for how it came out, and they apologize for how it happened. Nobody tries to make the other person’s feelings less than what they are.
There’s smothered turkey legs, all the sides you could imagine, and the kind of small talk that feels like building a bridge plank by plank. By dessert, his mom is showing me baby pictures of Bash in a Santa suit that I will absolutely be stealing.
Later, the house quiets, and we’re lying on the couch under a blanket. It’s A Wonderful Life, painting the room black and white. He told me it was a Christmas staple, and I rolled my eyes and then cried at the part with the bell because, of course I did.
I turn in his arms to face him, and he smiles at me in a way that warms my entire body and makes me want to brand this feeling onto me.
“Thank you,” I tell him.
“For what?” he asks gently.
“For everything, for being you, for showing me what a soft, safe kind of love feels like, for making me fight for myself when I don’t want to fight, for believing in me, for staying when you could have just walked away and saved yourself the trouble.
I know I’m not always easy, and we’re still figuring this whole thing out, and I say or do the wrong things a lot still…
but you don’t ever make me feel less than when I mess up.
You just hold my hand and let me work through the parts I need to work through, and help me through the parts I’m strong enough to ask for help with. ”
He takes my hand and folds our fingers together, squeezing them.
“You’re worth every second of this journey.
You’ve pushed me to grow and heal in ways you don’t even realize.
You’ve let me knock down walls I thought would be up forever.
You make me want a future I never even let myself picture before. ”
I can’t help my blush, and I let out this little laugh, thinking about who I’ve become lately.
Kinda shocked, actually. “If you had told me seven months ago that I could feel this close to someone, this known, this intimate, especially without…the sex part needing to be what proved the feelings, I would’ve told you you were delusional. ”
He pulls me closer into him, wrapping his arms around me and smirking.
“That part is feeling pretty hard right now with you looking at me like that.” He takes my chin, pulling my face closer, and kisses me, then slowly pulls back a little.
“But some things are worth the wait. Especially something as special as you.”
“Okay, Romeo,” I tease, breathless.
He pulls back and fishes a tiny box from behind one of the pillows. “Before Christmas is over.”
I sit up next to him. “You got me a gift?” He nods, handing it to me, and then I open it—a beautiful gold bracelet with the engraving. Isaiah 43:1.
I laugh because the universe is a comedian. “No freaking way.”
He’s grinning. “I figured—it felt like…us.”
“That’s crazy,” I say, jumping up and nearly tripping over the blanket.
I pull a wrapped rectangle from my bag and hand it over, heart doing that dumb drum thing. “Your turn,” I tell him.
He opens it, and his face goes soft. It’s a black journal with Dr. Sebastian Ramos pressed into the cover.
“This is…wow,” he says, fingers tracing his future like it’s already true.
“Open the first page,” I tell him, suddenly nervous.
He opens it and looks down at my handwriting that fills the page.
Isaiah 43:1.
Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you.
I have called you by name—you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.
When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned.
And the flame shall not consume you.’
Love you always, Lydia
He looks at me, then back down, then laughs—head thrown back, joy unguarded. “Are we a cliché?” he asks, then shakes his head. “Don’t answer that. I’m okay if we are. I love it, thank you, babe.”
“I love you, Bash.”
He kisses me again, and we stay there wrapped in our little love bubble for a little while longer, the movie murmuring to itself.
We slip back into cuddling and watching all the other silly Christmas movies I’ve never watched before—The Grinch, Home Alone, A Christmas Story…
and I just let myself fall into all the swirling thoughts.
How perfect this man is, how every part of me still wants to say it’s all too good to be true, how I know I have to keep working on making that voice be quiet and not sabotage it all, how my healing journey is still long, but I want to be on it.
I want to be here. I couldn’t have said that less than a year ago.
I want to heal. I want to be happy. I’m still learning what that means and how it looks, but I want it.
I turn my head an inch to look at Bash behind me. “How did you do it?” I ask him, catching him off guard a little. “How did you heal from it all? How did you not let the grief keep drowning you, how did you never go back to the alcohol, or all the ways that seem easier to cope with?”
He moves his hand up to my shoulder. “Well…the formula was super simple. I just gave it all to God. But…nothing about the journey was or is simple. I’m still giving it to him.
I don’t have all the answers, but he does…
even if he doesn’t like to share them all with me when I ask him to.
” He laughs a little. “There’s no right way to heal.
There’s no one-size-fits-all. It’s messy and a lot of trial and error, but the only thing you have to do is keep trying.
Eventually, something works. Eventually, it just starts sticking. ”
I nod. He doesn’t try to sell me anything with it, which is how I can hear him.
He’s never been the picture of a Christian that I used to have in my head.
He’s not the showy, throw hell and fire and fear in your face kind of Christian.
He’s this pure, beautiful, just living in it with his faith.
It’s inspiring. It makes me want to know what that’s like, too.
“When we go back,” I whisper. “Would you—Do you think…” I stumble over the words. “Could I come with you to your church at some point?”
He sits up a little, cups my face, and smiles. “If you want to…I’d love that.”
A little while later, after we’re all movied out, we walk down the hallway in socked feet, wearing the matching PJs his mom made everyone put on after dinner.
We stop at the door to the room I’ll be in, and he leans against the frame, hands in his pockets, looking at me like he wants to memorize this day before it ends.
“This feels like walking you home,” he says, smiling. “Old-school style.”
“Yeah,” I say, smiling, and let out a little laugh. “Old me would have invited you in,” I tell him, flirting a little. I can’t help it; the man is sex appeal in capital letters, hidden behind a sweet gentleman.
He gives me a look that says trouble and a future promise and everything we aren’t rushing. “Old me would have definitely come in,” he murmurs and winks at me.
The butterflies swarm.
“Goodnight,” I say.
“Goodnight,” he whispers, and steals one last, very long kiss with one hand on my waist, one hand on my face.
I get comfortable in the warm bed and try to settle my thoughts so I can fall asleep, but I can’t help the ones that keep coming up tonight. They make me realize something…that for the first time, maybe ever…I actually believe I deserve the good around me, the happiness…the guy.
I stare up at the ceiling and whisper, “Did you do this, God? Are you actually up there?” I pause, feeling overwhelmed in a good way. “Did you let me keep him?”
There’s no answer…no real one, not one I can hear…but there’s one I can feel—a steadiness in my body I can’t explain.
I turn around in my bed, looking up at the wall behind the headboard—the wall that connects to Bash’s room. I lift my hand and knock, three small taps.
There’s a beat. Then, from the other side: three taps back.
I lie my head back on the pillow and smile, letting myself drift into a peaceful kind of sleep I’m finally getting used to.