✧･Chapter 36 With You #2
She nods. "I thought you needed to be free of me."
The words hit harder than I expect.
"I didn't want to be the reason you couldn't have the life you wanted. You wanted a family. You wanted to feel normal. You wanted to wake up one day and not have this complicated thing hanging over your head. And every time I looked at you, I could see how badly you wanted to run from it."
I shake my head slowly. "I wasn't running from you because I didn't want you."
"I know that now."
Her eyes meet mine. "But I didn't know it then."
That silences me.
Claire looks down at our hands again. "I thought loving you meant knowing when to let you go."
My chest aches so badly that I have to take a breath. "I didn't want you to go." I barely whisper out.
"I know."
"I wanted you."
Her eyes lift to mine. "I know that now, too."
I don't know what to say to that. For years, I had convinced myself that Claire left because I had hurt her. But the truth was somehow even sadder.
She had loved me enough to leave.
We had spent years hurting each other while both of us were trying, in completely different ways, to survive what we felt.
"I wish I had told you," I whisper.
"Me too."
She gives me another small smile, this one warmer than the last. "But we're here now."
I look at her. "Yeah."
She squeezes my hand. "We're here now."
I lean closer until my shoulder rests against hers, and she lets her head settle against mine. For a few quiet seconds, we don't say anything else. We don't need to.
The past is still there. Neither of us can erase it, and I don't think we should try. It shaped us. It hurt us. It kept us apart for far too long.
But it doesn't own us anymore.
I turn my hand beneath hers, intertwining our fingers. "I really don't want to waste any more time."
Claire's fingers tighten around mine.
"Neither do I."
We sit there quietly for another moment, our hands still intertwined between us. I can feel Claire's thumb moving slowly over my knuckles, but her attention seems somewhere else. She's staring out toward the field, her expression thoughtful in a way I can't quite read.
Then she speaks. "Do you still want all of that?"
I glance at her. "All of what?"
She hesitates. "You know..."
Her eyes drop briefly to our hands before she looks back at me.
"The house, the marriage. Kids... the whole dream you always had for yourself."
I don't answer immediately, not because I don't know.
I do.
I've known for as long as I can remember that those were the things I wanted.
A home that felt like mine. Someone to come home to.
A family. Children running through the halls.
A wedding. Growing old beside someone and knowing that no matter how difficult life became, we would choose each other at the end of every day.
For so long, I thought I knew exactly what that picture looked like. I just could never imagine who would be standing beside me in it.
"Yes," I finally say.
Claire's expression doesn't change, but I can see something flicker behind her eyes.
"Yes," I repeat softly. "I still want all of it."
She nods once, almost imperceptibly, but she doesn't say anything, and I know that look. She's asking another question without actually asking it.
I squeeze her hand. "I mean... it's changed a little."
That gets her attention. "How so?"
I smile softly, turning toward her. "Well..."
I let the word linger for a second, mostly because I'm suddenly nervous about how simple the answer is.
"You."
Claire's eyebrows pull together.
I shift closer, turning my body toward her. "I still want the house. I still want the marriage. I still want kids running around and someone complaining that the coffee isn't sweet enough even though I know damn well they're going to drink the whole thing anyway."
A tiny smile appears on her lips.
I continue before she can interrupt. "I still want the family dinners and holidays and arguing over what color we're going to paint the kitchen. I want a couch that's probably too big for our living room. I want pictures everywhere. I want to wake up on Sunday mornings and not have anywhere to be."
Claire's smile grows, but her eyes are beginning to shine.
"I want all of it," I whisper. "I just don't picture it the same way anymore."
Her voice is barely audible. "How do you picture it?"
I reach up, gently brushing a strand of hair away from her face.
"With you."
She goes completely still.
"With you," I repeat, quieter this time. "That's the difference."
Her lips part slightly, but she doesn't say anything.
"I used to think about the life I wanted and then imagine someone standing beside me. I never really thought about who that person would be. I just knew I wanted someone."
I smile. "Now when I think about it, I don't have to imagine anyone."
Claire looks at me, her eyes searching mine.
"It's you."
She swallows.
"Every time."
I let my hand fall from her face, resting it against her cheek for another second.
"I don't know exactly what our future is going to look like. Maybe we'll change our minds about things. Maybe we'll decide we don't want some of the things we thought we did. Maybe we'll want things neither of us has even thought about yet."
I pause, smiling at her. "But whatever it looks like, I want to figure it out with you."
Claire's eyes close for a moment, and when she opens them again, there's a softness there that makes my chest ache.
"You really mean that?"
I laugh quietly. "What have I been saying this entire time?"
She smiles, finally letting out a small laugh of her own. "I don't know. You talk a lot."
I gasp softly. "I do not."
"You absolutely do."
"You're the one who asked me an emotional question."
"And you gave me an entire speech."
"Because you needed reassurance."
She pauses for a moment before nodding softly. "I did." She says it so quietly that my smile fades.
I squeeze her hand. "You'll always have it."
Claire looks at me for a long moment before leaning over and resting her head against my shoulder again, and I press a kiss to the top of her head.
Sitting there beside her, with the noise of everyone we love carrying across the field, I realize something.
The dream didn't disappear, it just changed.
And it finally has a face.