Chapter 37 #2
“I used to think I was brave for not being afraid to die,” I said. “But I think… maybe that was the opposite of brave. I think real bravery is letting people in. And that terrifies me.”
Her hand brushed mine, and I caught it. Held it.
Just for a few blocks. Just until we got to her building.
She opened the door and let me in without saying anything.
Tonight, her apartment smelled like berries and ginger tea.
I stumbled over the edge of her rug as she led me to the living room, and I collapsed on her couch like gravity had given up pretending it could hold me up for one more second.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, face in my hands.
All the stupid things I had said came rushing back to me.
I felt dizzy. “I didn’t mean to drink that much.
” I’d ruined it. She’d been acting flirty, like she was just a girl, and not my life coach, and I’d gone ahead and drank too much, thought too deeply, and let everything dysregulate me to the point where I’d lost a chance that I’d never get back again.
I wanted to shake myself and scream. I wanted to ask myself why I sabotaged everything the second it started to feel good, started to feel normal.
“It’s okay.” Her words shook me from my shame spiral.
“I shouldn’t be here.” Was I still slurring?
“You’re exactly where you need to be,” she assured me.
And just like that, I broke. My shoulders shook.
My eyes burned. I didn’t sob, not really, not like I had on the couch in her office.
But the tears came. Hot, tired, half-silent, flowing down my cheeks, and dripping off my chin.
Iris sat down and gently pulled me toward her lap, brushing my hair back like I was a kid who’d scraped both knees and couldn’t figure out why it hurt so badly.
“I didn’t want to die tonight,” I admitted to her. She kissed my temple, and it was the gentlest pressure I’d ever felt.
“Then don’t.” She cleared her throat and added, “Please.”
Oh, I got tangled up in that please. I was suspended in the air from hearing her breathy voice say that word. Practically beg it.
She ran her fingers through my hair, brushing it back. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to.
My chest convulsed again, and I buried my face in her lap like a child.
She didn’t move away. She just stayed there.
Fingers remained in my hair. She whispered things I couldn’t hear but somehow understood anyway.
And then I felt it again—her lips against my temple.
Gentle. Unassuming. The kind of kiss you give someone you love in silence.
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I just felt more tears slip free and slide down the bridge of my nose.
Eventually they slowed, and I felt my breathing sync with hers. Her hand never stopped moving against my scalp. Her legs were warm beneath my cheek. And somewhere between grief and exhaustion, I whispered, “Don’t leave.”
“I won’t,” she said. “I’m right here.”
I fell asleep like that. Face pressed against the safest place I’d ever known. Wrapped in something that felt dangerously like love.
When I opened my eyes, it was morning. Light was filtering through the gauzy curtains in her living room, pale and gold and too gentle for how wrecked I felt inside.
My head throbbed. My throat was dry. But worse than that was the unmistakable memory of breaking open in front of her.
I stayed perfectly still, hoping maybe if I didn’t move, the weight of my mortification wouldn’t crush me.
She’d let me cry in her lap. She’d kissed my temple.
She’d stayed. The couch was warm beneath me.
My head rested on a pillow now instead of her thighs, and a soft blanket was pulled up to my chest. I didn’t remember her moving out from underneath me.
I didn’t remember much of anything after the sobbing stopped, except the way her fingers had threaded through my hair like she’d been anchoring me to this world.
I heard faint sounds in the kitchen. The kettle whistling.
A cabinet door closing. Then muffled footsteps.
I should sit up. I should leave. I should say something.
But all I could do was stare at the ceiling and feel the ghost of her lips on my skin like a brand I hadn’t asked for but still didn’t want to lose.
The couch dipped near my knees a few minutes later, and I turned my head slowly.
She was sitting beside me, holding out a mug.
“Ginger tea,” she said, like it was the most normal thing in the world to find me here, hungover, on her couch, after a good crying sesh the night before.
I stared at it. Then I took it.
“Thanks,” I said, my voice was hoarse.
“You were really out. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You should have. I was probably snoring.”
“You weren’t.”
I sipped the tea. It burned my tongue slightly, but the warmth steadied me.
“I said a lot of things,” I muttered. She didn’t rush to answer. Just tucked one leg beneath her and let the silence stretch.
“You did,” she said eventually. “But none of it bothered me.”
I looked at her.
“I wasn’t trying to be a bother,” I said. “I was just—”
“Healing,” she finished for me. “Yeah. I know.”
I winced. If she weren’t my life coach—if this were a woman I was actually trying to impress, seduce—I’d have zero chance after yesterday.
No woman could possibly be attracted to a guy with a death wish who cried the minute he felt anything soft.
Like wow, Danny, you’ve really got it going on.
The runny nose definitely would’ve sealed the deal. Good job.
“Sorry,” I intoned, lips against the rim of the mug.
She softened. “Danny. You don’t need to apologize for being real.”
My throat tightened again.
“You could’ve sent me home,” I said quietly.
“I could’ve,” she agreed. “But I didn’t want to.”
I watched her fingers on her own mug. They were steady. Calm. Like she wasn’t at all shaken by the fact that the mess of me had cried himself to sleep on her couch.
“I must’ve looked pathetic,” I whispered.
“No,” she said. “You looked like someone who needed to be held. That’s not pathetic. That’s human.”
I wanted to say thank you, but the words got stuck in my chest like shards of glass. Instead, I reached for her hand and let my fingers brush against hers. She didn’t pull away.
“I don’t like when people see me like this,” I said. “It’s weird.”
“I know.”
We sat together for a long moment—quiet, steeped in warmth and unsaid things. Eventually, she squeezed my hand gently and stood. “There’s toast if you want it.”
“I think my inner child is hungover,” I croaked. She laughed from the kitchen.
“That’s progress.”
I sat there on her couch, still wrapped in her blanket, sipping ginger tea in the quiet morning light—and thought about the fact that if any of my attempts had been successful, I would have never experienced last night or this morning and that would have been sad.
That realization sent my nervous system into overdrive, and I had to gulp my next sip of tea so as not to choke, but I didn’t freak out.
I didn’t get angry. I didn’t spiral into self-loathing; I just let myself be okay with noticing the feeling of gratitude that I had failed at every single attempt because it had brought me right here.
It was an odd kind of irony because on one hand, I wished my life could have been different and on the other hand, everything that had happened had led me here, and part of me couldn’t be mad about that.