Chapter 41
Tristan
Telling Nick about Warren is easier than I expected. The pink tutu might have helped.
The rain has stopped, and we stand there on the stoop, and I tell him everything.
I start with meeting Warren when we were still in college, and how we fell in love almost instantly, how I thought that I’d found “the One.”
I tell him how, without even meaning to, I began to sacrifice parts of myself to fit what Warren wanted in a relationship, but I always justified it because I loved him. And he loved me.
I tell him about the future we thought we’d have together. About Warren's proposal, about the plans we had for our wedding.
Nick cries silent tears when I tell him about the car accident, about Warren’s death, about how I screamed for him for days in the hospital, how I was numb at his funeral, how I spent innumerable hours feeling like a ghost in our old apartment.
“I thought I had found the great love of my life,” I whisper.
“And that was taken away from me. And after it was gone, I realized that I might’ve been wrong about what sort of love it was all along.
I’m scared—no, I’m terrified of getting it wrong again.
And I’m terrified of losing someone again.
I genuinely don’t know if I could survive it again. ”
I’m shaking, and not at all from the cold.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Nick says softly, and pulls me into a fierce, enveloping hug.
I let myself melt into him.
And once again, I’m sobbing.
You’d think I was trying to meet a quota of tears today or something.
Nick lets me cry through it, holding me the entire time. He doesn’t tell me that it’ll be okay. He doesn’t tell me not to cry. He just holds me.
When I pull away to wipe my eyes, he says, “I don’t think I’ve told you this, but I played football in high school and college.”
I shake my head. “You didn’t tell me.” And then I laugh, snot very winningly bubbling out of my nostrils. “But I wouldn’t mind seeing you in your old pads and uniform.”
“Noted.” He smiles softly, then gently wipes the tears beneath my eyes. “Of course, football is a violent contact sport and not the sort of thing I’d ever support anyone doing—”
“Of course.”
“But my coach had some good shit to say. He completely rejected the idea that pain makes you stronger. He said it was complete bullshit. We don’t get stronger because of our pain.
Pain, suffering, all that bad shit that happens to us—it shows us how strong we already are.
So, when one of his players got hit on the field, he wouldn’t tell us to shake it off and say it was making us stronger players.
He reminded us that our bodies are strong.
When we got hit and then got back up again, it wasn’t the hit that made us able to do it. It was who we were before the hit.
“Tristan, you’ve gone through more pain and suffering than I could imagine, and you are one of the strongest people I know—not because of what you’ve gone through, but because you’re still here.
You said you don’t know if you can survive it again?
You don’t need to ask yourself that question.
You’ve already survived it. Your body, your mind, carried you through that.
I can’t imagine how much it hurt, but you lived. You survived. You’re here.”
Nick grips my shoulders, his firm on my heavy, steadying. I feel like a mess inside, completely unspooled for him, all my baggage laid bare, and yet I’m still able to stand before him.
“You are magnificent, Tristan,” Nick says earnestly. “I am the world’s luckiest man because I get to share any part of my life with you. Even if it were just fulfilling sexual fantasies, I’d count myself lucky.”
He cups my chin, raising it slightly. “Thank you for telling me about Warren, and I am truly sorry that you had to go through that pain. I respect that, and I respect the hell out of you. Grief is unimaginable, and there is no rulebook for navigating it.
“I need you to hear me when I say this,” Nick continues. “I promise that if you want me to, I will walk with you in whatever steps you need to heal. If that’s not something you want at all, I understand, and I respect that.”
Shockingly, I don’t dissolve into tears again, even though it’s apparently been my favorite pastime today. Nick’s words have a steadying, clarifying effect on me. He’s done exactly what I needed him to do, said exactly what I needed to hear.
He’s asking for my consent.
Our relationship, whatever it is, is founded completely on a clear negotiation of boundaries, rules, and consent. Right now, he’s offering another boundary, giving me more space in which we can move about together, and clearly telling me that I can decide what that means.
Nick’s eyes, so deep, so clear, like sand seen through the waters of a stream on a warm summer day, meet mine.
“Green?” His voice is hardly more than a breath when he whispers one of my safe words, asking clearly if this boundary is okay with me.
And I nod. “Green.”
He guides my face to his and kisses me, soft and full, and I let myself sink into the kiss uninhibited, guilt-free, and content.
“Now,” he says when the kid, which could’ve lasted forever for all I care, finally ends. “Come inside. Abbie’s definitely waiting to show you at least three different tiaras.”